Well guys I am glad to be alive today! Let me tell ya'll what happened, this is hilarious. I'd been to town to pick some stuff up for another project, and when I got back my dad was draining the bio out of the reactor into the funnel shaped settling tank. About 1 min later I smelled something funny, and realized that the CRAZY OLD GUY LEFT THE HOT WATER HEATER ELEMENT TURNED ON!!!!!!!!!!!! IN THE REACTOR!! RIGHT NEXT TO THE METHANOL DRUM!!!!!!!
And for those of you that don't know, if you let an element like that run dry, it catches fire! Any way the reactor caught fire, and we had to put water over in it to get it out, and the pump was pumping so we pumped some of this water over on the bio. But it settled out, same concept as a water wash I guess. but I was madder than you could ever possibly imagine.!

 

Well were glad you are alive too! [damn old farts anyway.....] Not the first time I've heard this either. This is one reason I'm working on a better system for heating the batch.............guess I should hurry up with it!

 

The appleseed design was invented by girl mark. It is one of the safest designs available.

Accidents can happen. Bells and whistles go along way in preventing them.

 

Well, I have a halfway apple seed, metal tanks with holes cut in the top so I can see inside. However, the old guy sometimes forgets, but he is not really that old, only 48, but still very forgetful. I'm just going to have to watch more closely next time.

 

Old is a relative thing. 48 ha that is just getting started at life. I'm 57...

 

Describe what happened when you doused a grease fire with water. I talked about this with a firefighter and he anticipated a rather violent splashing reaction. If so, was the splash contained in the drum?

Todd

PS... With regards to the comment of calling your father a crazy old man, I resemble that remark. I'm 48 as well. I confess that my multi-tasking potential is diminising. Therefore, I engineer safeguards so I don't make the same mistake as your crazy old man.

 

two word post...

level switch

I lied there is more than two words, put a fluid level safety switch in.

 

But only if it's EXPLOSION PROOF ! Methanol vapors are explosive, and the switch should be a sealed unit.


And thanks for the heads up on fixing my sig

 

I splashed the grease fire witha bucket of water, and it went out, and now I need a new heater element. Oh and yes old is relative, hes 48 and I'm 17