Lighting my Ozzirt style heater from a cold start

Hello Everyone,

I made a new video to show some advanced options on my Ozzirt style drip feed WVO heater. I also decided to show you just how it is started with these new options. I show everything (excluding nothing) from a cold start all the way to a full burn. I have installed a fuel tank on the side of mine as well as a "sidekick" as I like to call it. In my video I explain the purpose of both and why they are where they are. Please let me know if you have any questions or comments. I hope you enjoy the video.

In case you don't have time for the video right now, my "sidekick" allows me to cold start my heater without opening anything up or adding any "wick" material at all. I can start the system from ice cold to full burn on about 1/2 cup of Kerosene. I may be able to reduce that with some practice.

My fuel tank mounted on the side employs a "gate valve" for oil flow. This valve is very nice as it will not clog up. I highly recommend using one in your system. Mounted on the side as I have it, I get a lot of residual heat from the heater so it keeps my oil nice and viscus.

More VWO Drip Feed Heater Videos

Hi Guys, It's been a little while since I have posted so I wanted to show you some updates and some new things I have done with my WVO heater. First of all I will say it's REQUIRED to have the drip visible. Second, it's HIGHLY RECOMMENDED that you have a catch basin below the primary combustion pan. Not having my drip visible caused an overflow one day which was a huge mess. So now I have a visible drip and a catch pan. Don't make my mistake... learn from my errors and save yourself the heart-ache of a mess to clean up.

In this second video I have my burner going at full speed when I open the door. It's amazing how high that flame is shooting up in there. It's probably close to 3 feet high! -All without any forced air, compressed air or fans. This burner design is truly amazing. It is lending some support to the idea of a longer secondary combustion chamber though. I might tinker with that later.

My first Hate Mail

Well I guess you can't run a public site and not (some day) receive hate mail of some kind. This one was great as the person claims they once donated to the OUPower.com website, but now they hope that someone in my family is taken in violence. I figured I would share this e-mail with everyone. -Merry Christmas!

Date: 12/27/2011
Subject:  we're long time supporters...

Hi Chris,

Wow..it's been a long time, but Savanna and I gave you a donation a long time ago.
We are like minded people and work at many of the same themes as you have...

But I showed the 'Hunting Photos" on your site to my wife,
and we both looked at each other and said,  " what a fucking shame..!"

Had we known that beautiful little girl of yours was going to be raised as a hunter..
we would have left you, long, long ago.

Hunters are the most out of touch people we have ever in our lives had the displeasure to meet.
THEY ALL SUCK.

and this, sadly means you and your daughter as well.

Goodbye forever.

Remove us from any mailing lists you may have ...
we want nothing to do with you ever again.

and we hope as a lesson in Karma, that someone in your family is taken in violence, the same way you take
family members of a deer family.   How else can you lean the searing pain of loss?
We wonder how your daughter would react to someone taking your life for a set of antlers?
would she miss you?

only you can answer that.

yours.

Craig and Savanna Sparks
Lincoln City, Oregon

Deer Hunting with my Daughter

I will add text to this later. I just wanted to get this pics posted for now. This was my daughter's first deer that she ever pulled the trigger on. We had one or two times where she put the gun up but they always got spooked or something so she never got to take a shot until now.

All I can say is WOW... what a nice deer for her first shot! Two different friends both estimated the deer to be very close to 200 lbs. I am going to try to get some way to weigh it before we have it cut up too much. I think technically this is a 7 point if you count only the segments 1 inch or longer. But some hunters say anything you can hang a ring off of counts. Going by that logic, this is a 10 point.

She got this JUST at the closing bell. My pics from my phone make things look very dark but it was not quite as black as it looks in the pics. LOL

The video I shot was just after she pulled the trigger. I didn't want to mess her up by videoing while she was shooting. Sorry the video is so dark. It's just a phone so it's much more Audio than it is Video. :) But it's cute to hear her excitement and the things she says and does afterwards.

You can click on any of the pictures to see a larger image of it.

Traditional Thanksgiving Hunting with the Kids

Traditionally I have always rabbit hunted over the Thanksgiving Holiday weekend. When I was young I went out with my Pap and my Father and various Uncles and cousins as well as my brother. Well my Pap died in 1989 and my father died this past June so I'm doing my best to pass the tradition on to my family. My daughter loves to rabbit and squirrel hunt. She actually got to squirrel hunt a little bit with my father and I before he died but he was already too sore (arthritis) to rabbit hunt anymore. So this pic is Thursday's hunt we jumped about 16 rabbits and got 6 of them. I was letting my daughter Hannah shoot first in all cases. I'm sure we would have limited out (8 total) if I had shot whenever I had the chance, but I'm trying to let her build skills and rabbit hunting is something that can take years to get good at. :)

The fruits of her labor: Hannah's first solo confirmed rabbit. I didn't even fire, that was all her. What we don't show *grin* is how mangled this poor bunny is. Half of him is missing so he was unfortunately not a keeper. She shot him a bit too close!

Friday's keepers 3 out of 6 that we jumped. Really 4 out of 6 but the one was shot up too badly as noted above.

OK here's Nathan, my 5 year old. He has been asking to come hunting with us since last year so we decided to take him on a squirrel hunt Saturday. Nathan is now a licensed hunter under the "Mentored Youth" program. Believe it or not he has a legal buck tag in that license and a spring turkey tag. I took Hannah out when she was 10 and 11 under the mentored youth program as well. They are allowed to harvest animals (according to bag limits) just like a licensed hunter; but they must be stationary and within an arm's reach of their parent who must be a licensed hunter. The pair (Parent / Child) share the same gun and the child can not walk with the gun. In Nathan's case he's so small I have to help him hold the .22 ! LOL But he did some target practice and got a corn cob (which he kept as a trophy by the way) at 25 yards all by himself. I question whether or not a squirrel would sit still long enough for him to find it in the scope but there's no doubt in my mind that if he found it he could get it. :) I may have to consider getting him a Crickett .22 or something more his size for squirrels. He's going to be small for years yet and at least a Crickett would be something he could hold himself without my help really. The open sites concept may be a challenge for him though. -I'll have to give that some thought.

Techtronix 466 Oscilloscope problem

Hi Guys, I'm trying to figure out what the bad component is on my Oscilloscope. It's a Techtronix 466 that I've had for years and up to now it's only ever had one problem. I had to replace the one OpAmp chip shown at the top of this picture (top left). But other than that everything has been perfect with it.

Recently we had a problem with flooding in the basement and this scope got wet. It was standing up so the bottom end was in a few inches of water. This end is where the power supply is at. I have done some elementary tracing and found the +15v leg to be the bad one. See below

The bad +15v leg is shown in the pic below (4th up from the bottom). I have replaced the op-amp 1724 and 1762 just but no difference. I'm looking for some help if anyone good with electronics is willing to help me. I can send schematics and pics if needed. I would just really like to get this little scope back up and working again. I really miss having it now that it's broken. Any help you can offer send me an e-mail please.

Ocean Isle, NC Beach Vacation

We're on vacation in Ocean Isle, NC and having a wonderful time!