Review of Fattywagons 100w Electrotherm inline WVO Heater

So, I have received and installed the FattyWagons 100watt "Electrotherm" inline electric straight / waste vegetable oil fuel heater in the Vanagon. You see, I wanted to save a little money by buying the $50 electrotherm rather than buying the more widely known $100 "Vegtherm" by neoteric biofuels/plantdrive.

Well, let me put it plainly. I just went and ordered the Vegtherm.

To start with, the Electrotherm came with no instructions, no accessory hardware, and no receipt: just a tube with the unit inside. No recommended mounting ideas or wiring diagrams. No relay. No toggle switch. Just the electrotherm with two wires sticking out of it. Simple, right?

After installing the Electrotherm and troubleshooting why it wouldn't heat up, I finally got it working. But, even though it gets warm, it doesn't add even one degree of heat to the fuel passing through it.

It's frustrating to go through all the work of ordering a product, waiting for it to be delivered, installing it, and troubleshooting it--only to find out that it doesn't really work well. Not to mention the fact that I didn't receive a confirmation email after ordering the item on the Fattywagons website, and I had to request confirmation three times before they even told me they'd received my order. It took over two weeks before I received the item! To their credit, after hearing about my problems with the unit, Fattywagons has been very good at trying to help me.

Ok, so the unit heats up. You can touch it an feel that it is warm...or even hot, but my temperature gauge probe (which is installed immediately after the electrotherm) doesn't register even one degree of temperature increase for the fuel passing through the electrotherm when it is on. Not even one degree.

I expected at least five degrees of additional heat, and hoped for 15, but it doesn't even put out one.

I double-insulated the electrotherm with foam pipe insulation, and I connected it directly to the battery to make sure it was getting enough juice...but still...not even one degree of additional heat.

Like I wrote earlier. Let me summarize by saying: I just went and bought the Vegtherm. When am I going to learn that sometimes you really do get what you pay for?

So, stay tuned for my review and installation of the soon-to-arrive Vegtherm by Neoteric/Plantdrive on Fillup4free.com

The First Fillup4free WVO Network Roadtrip!

Next week, April 1-9, we'll be kicking off the first FillUp4Free WVO road trip in the Vanagon greasecar! We'll be stopping by to visit waste vegetable oil users along the east coast on our way to Asheville, NC from Rutland, VT. It's our first experiment to see how well this network will work.

Will we actually be able to get enough waste vegetable oil to go the distance?

Are there enough people out there willing to share oil with a travelling greasecar driver?

We're going to find out soon, and this is only the beginning. This fall we will be kicking off the main cross country WVO network - building trip.

Our goal: 48 states in 5 months, with at least a few WVO sources in each state. Then, we'll publish the network and make it available for all.

Stay tuned to fillup4free.com for more!

WVO Waste Vegetable Oil On-Board Filtration System?

I've been dreaming of having an on-board waste vegetable oil filtration system for my greasecar that would allow me to fill up for free on the road. The more I learn about veggie technology, the more I realize that the on-board filtration system is really a far fetched idea.

This past weekend I met a woman from Montreal who travelled cross country last summer on vegetable oil. She dove in dumpsters in back alleys and scrounged for oil every time she needed to fill up. She told me how nasty it was to try to filter all of the oil on the trip, and what a mess it made! Let me not fail to mention that 4,000 or so miles into her trip her van died.

Dead.

No mo' WVO for her!

You see, she made the common mistake of not KNOWING about what water can do to your engine.

"Water?" you ask.

You see, water that is suspended in waste vegetable oil kills your engine's injection pump. WVO that sits in dumpsters in the alley can collect rain water, snow, sleet, etc...and get contaminated. So even if you filter the oil down to 1 micron, you still haven't gotten the water out. Sure, your injectors won't clog because the oil is "clean" e.g. not got bits of french fries in it still, but unless you de-water the oil, then your injection pump is gonna pay.

Or, rather, you're gonna pay for a new injection pump, and they aren't cheap. Think something in the range of $1,000 on the low end and $2,500 on the high end to get a new pump installed in your car.

Now think about how much money you can save with vegetable oil. Doesn't even come close to the cost of a new injection pump, does it?

Simply put, to perform even the simples de-watering method you have to let the oil settle undisturbed at warm room temperature for at least a few weeks. That's simply impossible on the road, and no current machine or invention is available that will do it for you and will fit in your car.

So, gone are my dreams of an on-board filtration system in my vw veggie van. Now I am gonna take a road less travelled: the road that fillup4free.com is paving for us greasers that want to travel cross country...the road that involves sharing de-watered, filtered waste vegetable oil with road-trippin greasers.

The Vermont Waste Vegetable Oil WVO Coop

Met with Mark Jones and Monroe Trask yesterday in the first ever meeting of the Vermont WVO coop. Monroe has a Dodge cummins pickup that he's planning on converting to a greasecar this spring or summer when the weather warms up a bit. Mark is working on an old VW Rabbit that he's going to sell (check the greasecar.com classifieds this spring) and then he's going to buy a newer Jetta that he wants to convert.

Main topics on the table were what type of a filtration & dewatering setup do we want to build, and where do we want to keep it.

We all want to get together with Mark Penta in Bethel-Gilead (www.gileadgarage.com) to check out his greasecar conversion operation.

We're planning on having a potluck dinner soon. Greasers of Vermont, unite!

The National Greasecar WVO Network

The network is growing. It is slow going though. I am contacting greasers all around the US, and it is becoming apparent that there is a wide gap between the number of people that have high-quality waste vegetable oil filtration systems set up and the number of people that just want to get free WVO. It's averaging out to be something like a 1:10 ratio. For every 10 people that want filtered vegetable oil there is one person who has enough filtered oil to share.

wow.

So, my plan of attack is under revision for the fillup4free.com national WVO network. Since it is harder to find quality filtered oil sources, I am going to go meet them one by one.

Yup. One By One.

That means that this spring, summer, fall, and winter I will be driving across the country meeting people that have WVO filtration systems set up and getting them to join the network. It'll be slow, fun, and in the end it will give one heck of a good and accurate list of filtered VO providers for us road-trippin' greasers.

If you are a greaser that would like to have access to the network when it is finished, just register at www.fillup4free.com. If you have filtered oil to share with others, PLEASE let me know! I'd love to stop by and meet you sometime! I'd be happy to interview you and feature you in an article too!

Do you know anyone else that would be a good addition to the network?...anyone else that might be interested? Please click here to let them know about us.

-Kristopher

Greasecar WVO Waste Vegetable Oil Cold Weather Solutions

We've been having a long cold spell up here in New England, and it's been affecting the performance of our greasecars. Most notably, it takes longer to warm up the engine when it's 10 degrees outside. Longer engine warm up time means longer WVO warm up time. I commute about 15 miles one way each morning and the vegetable oil in the greasecar tank is only just about getting over 100 degrees by the time I arrive and shut the car off.

So, winter greasin' is an issue.

Yesterday I put the Jetta up on blocks and wrapped the veggie oil lines with rubber plumbing pipe insulation. Then I wrapped the WVO hoses under the hood with foam pipe insulation and double-insulated the last foot of line before the injection pump. Then I wrapped and covered the greasecar vegetable oil filter and heating coil in insulting duct-tape and put a big piece of cardboard in front of the radiator.

Initial test run resulted in WVO temp of 153 degrees after 15 minutes ofdriving followed by 5 minutes of idling. It appears that idling helps the VO to heat up faster than driving, but driving helps maintain the temp better.

The electrotherm heating unit that I ordered from fattywagons hasn't shipped yet, but I'm hoping to get it installed next week. I hypothesize that it will give an instant 30 degrees temperature boost to the WVO, as needed on cold days.