I decided to launch this blog to accommodate my new website “miniwoodgas.com” in the hopes of motivating others who have built working gasifiers to share their data with others who may be wanting to try this for themselves. Thanks, Flash001USA
- Comment
- Reblog
-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
www.miniwoodgas.com 
Stirling Engines – – – the other woodenwatten addiction 🙂 .
Howdee, my fellow woodgas bug necknip venom victims,
The subject of Stirling Engines has probably been brought up already, but I figured that it wood be a good idea to give them another spin 🙂 .
I have been looking into these lately, and have developed the “need” to build one.
Darned venom! 😉 .
Anyway, I figured that you might want to take a look at a British fellow’s channel, where he shows his progress on these fine machines.
Take a looky here:
The addiction is strong in this one, as you wood expect 🙂 .
Watt will he create next?
Tune in, and find out 🙂 .
Best watts to y’all,
Steemed CNCweeds.
Steve, I do believe you’ve been bitten again. One way to be certain the venon is strong is to build one of these Sterling Engines. Looking forward to your progress
Howdee Bill,
Yup, there are two new nip marks (venom vents) in my neck 😉 .
I have been designing a simple Stirling Engine on my computer, and I reckon that my CNC masheenz can help me to make up the parts for it.
Now, I wonder… if I replace the flywheel with some spoons, could I make this into a Stirring Engine?
That wood be cool, wood it knot?
Steve, I’ve seen some sterling engines at a cabin fever expo that goes on once a year ( near the end of winter) . They have all kinds of hit and miss engines, miniature v8 engines, steam engines, and lots of scaled down models of strange stuff. I can’t wait to see what you come up with. In other news, I started building my wood processing facility. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out the best way to process logs into cubes, and I think I have built something very unique. I will post a video demonstrating it when it’s finished. Probably in a month or two. Keep us posted on your sterling engine stuff. It’s been too quiet for too long. Joe
Howdee Joe,
Having visited such a fine event, some years back, I was fascinated with the wonderful machines that were on display.
At the time, I was doing horse and cart rides, for a local charity.
Naturally, I would drive my horse near the engines, and it wood seem that she was just as interested as I was, because she wood stop, and look closely at them, before moving on 🙂 .
Long live those fine exhibits, and the folks who care for them.
I am currently drawing up a design for a super simple engine, that will run on candle power, and make a tiny amount of electricity, for a few LEDs.
Will it work?
I don’t know, but I will surely give it a try 🙂 .
Hmmmm, your log processing project sounds mighty interesting, and I am sure that it wood attract great interest, when you reveal it to the world.
This has got to be one of the more difficult tasks to accomplish, so I really hope that it works just the way you want it to.
Naturally, we will “borrow” your ideas, and cause a great scare among our local tree populations, just as my Donkeys scare my carrot family into the fridge 🙂 .
Keep the magic happening, my fellow addict 🙂 .
JEREMY HENDRICKS says:
Good Day Good Folks
It’s great having all the comments/questions regarding the main topic in post. Keep it up!
I’m interested to know how one might burn saw dust as the main bio-fuel in a gasifier set-up as I have access to large amounts of saw dust in my area.
Thanks for any insight you might have on this issue!
Jeremy from South Africa
saw dust gasifier video
Good Day Good Folks
It’s great having all the comments/questions regarding the main topic in post. Keep it up!
I’m interested to know how one might burn saw dust as the main bio-fuel in a gasifier set-up as I have access to large amounts of saw dust in my area.
Thanks for any insight you might have on this issue!
Jeremy from South Africa
Jeremy, saw dust can tend to be very difficult to run in a gasifier. The reason is the size of the granules. Air needs to be able to flow through the fuel. Something that small tends to get packed as gravity and vacuum work together to densely pack the fuel stopping the flow of gas from exiting the reactor. My opinion is your best bet would be to use the saw dust to make pellets. Then you can use the pellets in the gasifier. This can also be tricky due to the moisture content of the pellets and the fact that just the environment in the gasifier can cause them to come apart if you leave and in the gasifier as you shut it down. I have mainly run my gasifier on pellets up until now. It can be done, but I find the reduction zone opening has to be on the larger size to prevent blockages. If you are interested in seeing how my gasifier runs on pellets, I’ll post a link to a video here.https://youtu.be/8CXDcgvjhWI. I show how to load the gasifier in this video. If you just dump pellets directly into the empty gasifier you will make a lot of tar by the time things warm up. Anyway, hbbyloggr might be able to give you more information on sawdust as I know he has had a lot more experience with it. As always we will try and answer any questions here. Keep us posted on your progress and we love gasifier videos so feel free to share them with us .Joe
Jeremy, I’ve had some success with sawdust . There was a fellow in Pennsylvania a few years back who used this model to build his own and it worked great. All I would add to this would be an induced draft for startup. These can get pretty violent explosions if the wood gas builds up . Here is a link to my video:
Best of luck, NH Hbbyloggr
I would have to second converting sawdust to pellets / mini briquetes as saw dust and heat can be an exposive mix. Build well and stay safe.
Paul
Hey Guys. Big hello from the new (like to say Kid but that was a long time ago) on the blog. Plan is to build a true copy of the Flashifier. Have watched with great interest the detailed build and run videos put up by Mike. Starting to collect up parts for a New Year build project. If anyone could help with a copy of any sketches or drawings they would be most welcome. Am I the only builder in the UK?
Paul
You’ll get good answers here, you just need to keep asking. Good group here of wood veterans, who as far as I can see are more than willing to help. Best to ask only one question at a time, keep it fairly short but detailed, and never give up as you will need a gasifier where you live, over the pond as they say. Good wooding to you. The only good advice I can give you right now is to start collecting fuel Now as it needs to be very dry for best results.
Cheers Bill. I’ll start collecting wood as well then. I know where to come with me questions and I’m sure there will a few.
Have a good one.
Paul
Welcome aboard. Be sure to check out everyones YouTube channels here on the blog because everyone shares their ideas and upgrades as they make improvements on the design. We’re also more than glad to offer any feedback or advise if you have any questions..
Cheers Mike. Will check out YT but my plan is KIS less to go wrong.
Paul
Hello maddog57. I still have the original cad drawings for Flash001usa’ design. If you give me your email I will send them to you. Mazdalorean@gmail.com is my email address. Just for the record, we love videos of build progress. Joe
What have you guys found to be the most effective means of sealing / gasketing? Saint gobain silicon tape? Stove rope and silicon? Homemade silicon gasket? Or something else.
There used to be a video on how to make high temp gaskets . I don’t think it’s still on YouTube. Basically you get a good quality wax paper and staple it down to a smooth surface. The you buy sheets of fiberglass mat material from your local auto parts store and lay it out flat on your high quality wax paper. Don’t use cheap wax paper. I did and wasted hours trying to peel it off. The good stuff comes right off. I actually stapled the fiberglass mat down around the edges. Then in a well ventilated area, empty the contents of a tube of high temperature silicone onto the fiberglass mat material. Using a smooth tool like what you would apply bondo with, you spread the high temperature silicone evenly into the fiberglass mat. Cover the entire surface with a generous coat. You may use more than one tube to get a good coat. After smoothing it out, put a layer of wax paper on top of the fresh silicone and put a smooth sheet of plywood on top of the wax paper. Put some weight on top of the plywood to really get it smooth and uniform. allow it to dry for about a day. The next day, take the weights and plywood off of the new gasket material, pull your staples and lift the fiberglass mat off of the wax paper. Next you may have to staple new wax paper down. Lay the silicone side of the gasket material down against the wax paper, and apply a generous coat of high temperature silicone to the fiberglass mat material. Once again, smooth it out, lay wax paper down on top of the fresh silicone, put your smooth piece of plywood down , and put weight on the plywood. Once again, wait 24 hours to dry, then remove the weight, plywood, and the wax paper. Now yo have a sheet of gasket material about 3/16″ thick thT you can cut any shape gaskets out of. Note that these gaskets can only be used between thick flanges . If you are bolting things to thin sheet metal, you may just want to use a bead of high temperature silicone as your gasket. It just won’t come apart as easy. Thanks to Dan cox from Florida for this idea for gaskets. They work great and can be reusable. Hope this helps.
Cheers Joe. Who needs a video when you describe the process so well. I did try to find the YT vid but had no luck so as you say I think it has been removed. This is why I am asking so many questions before building so as not to run out of information.
Looking forward to some free winter energy.
Paul
For more watts – – “JUST ADD WATTER :)”
Howdee, my fellow woodenwatters.
You may remember the googleTube link that I posted recently, showing the young fella passing steam through glowing charcoal?
Well, I dun tried this idea on my charcoal gasifier, and wow – I am impressed at watt happened in my Wattage Cottage.
Since my charcoal gasifier works in a similar way to the example shown in the video, it was the best candidate for this experiment.
Once the engine was running, into a rather heavy load, I squirted a small amount of Dihydrogen Monoxide into the air intake.
A few seconds later, the engine was racing – like a racy thing ought to race.
Accordingly, water is no longer to be called water, in these here parts.
It shall hereafter be referred to as “Watter” 🙂 .
That’s watt I wood call it.
Now, where am I gonna get some more Watter?
It is not as if it comes down with the rain, right?
So, my most recent project was to build a little boiler, which will provide a steeem streeeem to the air intake of my Charlek gasifier.
Maybe, just maybe, it will extend the runtime of the existing fuel stock, while also making my beer that little bit colder in the fridgeree doo.
Well, that’s watt I wood want my Watter to do 🙂 .
I hope to be making a video about this, in the not too distant future, as a woodgas fix for y’all 🙂 .
Best watt to ya,
CNCMacfunge.
Stevenwatter,
The discoveries seem to be endless when it comes to woodgas. Maybe we should just jump right into nuclear fusion and skip the middle man. In the meantime, water mist seems to be the ” Nitrous ” booster used in dragsters but aimed at the home brew gasifier addicts? Interested to see what you come up with and how the performance changes.
World War ll injected 50/50 water/methanol into airplane engines, one example 464hp increase.
Howdee Bill,
Yup. Nuclear confusion wood be a good thing to add to our to-do list, while those woodgas bugz are dangling from our necks 😉 .
Water mist, and water hit, seem to contain rather a lot of energy, as my little engine really gets up and goes, when he gets a slurp of the good stuff.
I have a video in my editor, which I hope to upload in the next day or so.
You’ll be amazed at watt a dash of watter can do to a bowl of charcoal gas soup 🙂 .
Howdee Bill B
Indeed. I remember hearing about the accidental discovery, made during WW2, when aircraft wood use less fuel, if flying through clouds.
It is a lucky thing that some of these clouds have come down here, and jumped into my watter bottle.
As for methanol, I am fresh out, and watter is all I can afford 😉 .
Good evening. Like the blog, lots of great information for a mube. First time posting. I am working on my first gasifier, trying to get all this information into my little cpu between my ears. I am trying to follow the Flashifier model. Makes a lot of sense. I was servicing one of my tractors, it uses a oil bath air intake. Would you think that a final filter of oil and a stainless scrubby work. Thanks for yor time and great info
As long as you are correctly cracking tar you are good. The oil filter should grab the particles along with the stainless steel scrubbers. I also need to mention that although this is a 55 gallon drum sized build it’s set up for a small engine. If you plan on running a larger engine such as an engine big enough to be in a car or a truck you need to look at what Wayne Keith has to offer because he has the high output gasifier stuff worked out especially for larger engines.
Good afternoon. I will be trying to run a stationary 4 cylinder wisconsin engine with a generator. I am in the prossess of building the hearth now. It will have a 4″ reduction plate , with a 4″ to 6″ top reaction zone .Hope to pour the sand and plaster of paris this week. Have installed a 1″ pipe inspection port flush with top of reaction cone. Using a 16″ D. compressor tank for wood hopper that will go into a 55 gal barrel. Thanks again for any help you and all the woodgassers and provide.
Extracting Carbon Monoxide and Hydrogen gas from steam and charcoal.
Howdee, my fellow woodenwatters,
I came across this video a couple of days ago:
It shows a young ‘addict’ assembling a system that uses heated charcoal – and steam, to create lotsa delisherous engine food.
Now, it seems to me that our gasifiers already contain some of these essential elements.
All we may need to do is insert ‘Steam A’ – into ‘Gasifier B’ – and wait for the watts to come steaming out of our internal combusterators.
Now, if only I could afford to get some water for this experiment 😉 .
So, my fellow addicts, watt doth thou think of this?
Best watts to you,
Steemee Mc CNCweeds.
I will be giving this a watch. Thanks.
It seems there’s another victim following the path of the woodgaz bug. Just at the beginning but on his way 🙂
Indeed.
We have a new watergas bugbite victim to add to our ever growing list of treezelwatters and charcoal current creators.
In no time, he will have the telltale fangmarks on his neck 🙂 .
The addiction is strong in this one.
Hey Steve I went back and watched the video. Yeah pretty it’s informative! I think this is what we are already doing but we are doing it all in one motion where as he is boiling water and forcing it over charcoals in the pipe we have our ember bed that deals with the moisture content trapped in our wood fuel along with the moisture content added to the mix from the air. Somehow I see using this with a charcoal gasifier. I know charcoal gasifier builders feed back a bit of engine exhaust to control or regulate or retard the combustion or breakdown of the charcoals and instead of engine exhaust what would happen if inside the charcoal hearth there was a way to boil water in a small chamber that would then be re-looped back into the air intake? Just a thought. Do you remember our discussion of a simple open pit gasifier? This might work with something like that too. More fuel for thought.
Howdee Flash,
Yup. Our gasifiers do tend to behave as we saw in his video.
Though it is less obvious, some degree of steam injection is taking place in our systems.
My charcoal gasifer gets very hot, near the air inlet.
Perhaps I could put a steamer there, and inject that steam into the air intake, while monitoring the flare, or the engine.
Surely, there wood be a boost in their performance, due to the extra hydrogen and carbon monoxide production.
In my charcoal gasifier, I feed a fair old bit of the engine’s exhaust back into the air intake.
This cools the nozzle, quite noticeably, while seemingly improving the overall efficiency of the system.
It seems to me that the carbon dioxide in the exhaust is being reduced to carbon monoxide, thereby increasing the overall fuel density of the charcoal.
On my wood gasifier, I have a heating coil.
This is wrapped around my homemade exhaust stack, and it readily produces clouds of steam when I slowly feed water into it.
Now, if I could route that steam back into the air intake…..
Hmmmm!
Talking about your simple pit gasifier idea, I was thinking about that, while practicing with my new TIG welder.
To make a long story short, if we were to build a FEMA gasifier now, with our current knowledge, I imagine that we could actually create one that REALLY works.
Our first ones were tar babies, but the next generation wood be much better, methinks 🙂 .
Off to our Wattage Cottages we wood go 😉 .
I’m with you on being able to do some mods and possibly get a clean gas out of either a small open pit configuration or a FEMA style design using steam. It may be worth a try.
Well, I dun tried this idea on my charcoal gasifier, and wow – I am impressed at watt happened in my Wattage Cottage.
Since my charcoal gasifier works in a similar way to the example shown in the video, it was the best candidate for this experiment.
Once the engine was running, into a rather heavy load, I squirted a small amount of Dihydrogen Monoxide into the air intake.
A few seconds later, the engine was racing – like a racy thing ought to race.
Accordingly, water is no longer to be called water.
It shall hereafter be referred to as “Watter” 🙂 .
That’s watt I wood call it.
Now, where am I gonna get some more Watter?
So, today’s project is to build a little boiler, which will provide a steeem steeeem to the air intake of my Charlek gasifier.
Maybe, just maybe, it will extend the runtime of the existing fuel stock, while also making my beer that little bit colder in the fridgeree doo 🙂 .
Hi Flash my name is Jason and, I am going to build gasifier, I was wondering what blower motor your using and, also I see the ignition port comes in flush to the edge where the concrete mixture is. I wanted to know if you bevel out some of the mixture so the pipe sits half way into the concrete mix or, right on top of it ? Also or the input into my generator could I go with a 1/2″ thread to hose instead of the pvc ? Also could I run a 15000w generator with the 55g barrel design with the 3/4″ nozzle?
Thanks, Jason
Jason sorry for the late late late reply. I just seen this and for some reason it didn’t make to my email notifications. The blower I’m using came from a junk yard and it doesn’t have a name on it. I think it was a blower used to inflate one of those giant Santa’s people put up in their yards during the holiday. As to the nozzle it sits 1 inch deep into the hearth or what I call the fire cone since my hearth is cone shaped because I don’t want oxygen at the top of the hearth which would possibly have the reaction happening in the bottom or lower section of wood hopper itself. As far as running a 15 KW watt generator the 55 gallon drum will work but you need a bigger reaction to produce more gas. How many Hp is your engine? Better yet, how many cylinders is it?
my auto mechanic converted it on a calculator and, says its 20hp. Online it says 16 gallon fuel tank. I’ve purchased a 6″ diameter 23″ long schedule 40 steel tube for my fire tube and 1/4″ plate to bolt on to 55 gal lid like your 1st build. Do you think I could make my condenser out of black iron pipe? I was going to go with 2″ black iron out of the 55 gallon barrel like you did , not sure if I’m going to sodder or tig it on, I see your fire tube was like 4-5″ diameter on your 1st build so wasn’t sure if the sodder would hold up or not because the fire tube is 6″. I really appreciate your feedback and, thanks for the reply back Flash.
Jason which videos are you basing your build on? Can you leave me the youtube link here on the blog?
its the one you use a push saw blade to cover the top and, I think it would be considered a downdraft. I think the barrel was blue you used.
Yeah that is old. Don’t use that as a template! That is a FEMA and it will produce tar! Go through my channel and take a look at the older videos and you’ll see the gasifier stuff. What you are looking for is the Imbert build.
I was still going to use the condenser and filters in the other later vids after but already purchased the schedule 40 and 1/4″ plate for the lid, wouldn’t the tri filters or condenser you have in the later vids help remove tar so I can still use that set up on the 55 barrel?
No not really. Unfortunately tar is tar and the only way to eliminate it or at least reduce it to a minimum where it can be managed is to have the required temperatures to crack the tar down so it doesn’t not only gum up your engine but to gum up the gasifier. When you deal with tar you are dealing with a mess! Build a Imbert and you’ll be glad you did.
So is the tractor rim and, cone big enough to run a 15000w or 20hp generator ? I see the fema says 6″ diameter X 16″ long is good for 30hp, I really appreciate your feedback and, glad you let me know Flash.
I was thinking on drilling 2 1″ holes in the sides of the schedule 40 pipe to come in with some black iron pipe 1″ then put on elbows for nozzles, on the 1/4″ steel lid drill 2 holes to come out and put caps on to regulate air intake, of coarse a lid on top of the schedule 40 with springs to release pressure. I’ve seen some vids where you used 1 nozzle. My reducer would be a rotor welded to the bottom of the shedule 40 6″ diameter pipe. Would this be a better reaction to crack the tar then making the fema ?
Hello, just signed up and have been interested in this process for a long time. Have a machinist/mechanic background, shop and all the tools needed. I have a strong desire to make a gasifier. My main question for all you long time users is usage vs down time for maintenance? This would be on the assumption that I build one similar to what Flash has made. What might be the longest run time thus the need down time afterwards. Thx in advance for any input.
It is hard to say with 100% accuracy, but I can let you know how MY gasser feels about this.
Typically, my gasser will run in spurts of anywhere between 2 hours and 12 hours, non stop.
During this time, all I need to do is keep it fueled up, and adjust the air/gas mixture, in order to keep the engine running smoothly.
Downtime is minimal, as in perhaps 1 hour per 100 hours.
During said downtime, the charcoal chamber is cleared out, and the filters are inspected/cleaned.
Finally, the engine oil is replaced at the end of each 100 hour period.
Watt’s cool is that the old engine oil can be added to the wood fuel, for extra watty goodness at the generator’s outlet 🙂 .
If built well, you should get at least 1000 hours out of your gasser, before corrosion starts to become an issue.
Mine is made with stainless steel in the critical areas, and it is standing up well to the rather warm interior of this beast 🙂 .
Hi Flash and ALL you ‘Fellow Addicts’ This is Julie Adams, Mark’s Wife. I am writing to say how very much I appreciate your sharing of knowledge to all people who are also, on the verge of becoming an Addict!..For several years, I wood (couldn’t help myself) see Mark a couple hours a day, usually to eat, then go back to his shop to work on hi ‘baby’…I had no clue there were of many of you, and more sprouting daily.
God Bless You. God Bless Us All. A special thanks to you Flash, William and Steve for staying in contact with me. Peace, Julie
Julie, I did get one reply from an interested party in my neck of the woods. A preliminary inquiry so we will see if it takes root.I leafed him a message to check out Marks YT channel and offered a chance to look at our gasser to get the idea of what they are capable of. I’ll keep you posted.
Bill
Julie, this is an opportunity for one of the many people that wanted to build one of these gasifiers to bring home a really accurate duplicate of Mike’s original build. I think I have read every comment on this page and I remember quite a few that talked about starting to gather supplies to build their own machine. Mark did an awesome job building that machine and you know whoever buys it has our support when they have questions. Be sure to pass this website along to whoever takes it home. Things have been too quiet in the wood gas community. I think things are going to pick up again very soon. We will miss Mark. Stay well Julie. Joe
Thanks Joe- She’s just sitting in the shop, waiting for a new home..I really appreciate
you guys letting the world know about her. I miss him, too. Peace. Julie.
Hi Bill. HELP! My name is Al Whitfield. 65 years old, retired. Intend to build a gasifier per Flash001. I feel sure that there have been improvements since his last video that I have access to. I’ve read quite extensively all articles I could find. Watched all of Mike’s videos. Have a few questions. Got time to help?? This invitation is extended to anyone willing to help. I have gathered up almost all the materials required. I have constructed the fire cone. Have the plaster of paris and sand in the wheel as instructed by Mike. Have some ideas of my own. Would like to take advantage of someone’s experience. Thanks in advance!
Al
we all live and breath wood smoke-I, for one would help whoever I could, however I could. Pete
Hi Albert,
Absolutely and definitely YES , we would all be happy to help you through your build. From my experience it’s the most fun you will ever have with your pants ON. But seeing that you are 65 and I’m 72 , going down to the shop is probably as good as it gets.
As you progress through the build I would say the most important thing to pay attention to is making sure all the welds or connections are sealed up completely. Air leaks will make your life miserable. I say this from first hand experience and I’m sure a few of the other guys will say the same.
Now, How about sharing a little back ground of yourself. Where are you from? Do you have a ” will ” ? Have you made peace with Jesus? You are going to start a new journey with this project and you will need the time to enjoy it.
Welcome to the club !
Give us an update and don’t forget the videos !
Best of luck, friend !
Bill, “NH Hbbyloggr” hbbylggr@gmail.com
Bill, no one else could have said that better than you.
Since Albert is asking for help to build a Flashifier I would say I’m out.
My Puppy is everything but not that type of gasifier.
And guys – I found my holy grale. I am finished and this hell of a open top is giving me the most blueish flasme I ever saw.
I bought a cam some days ago. Be patient until you see it 🙂
Wow ! You took the fork in the road and found Nirvana WoodGas ? Can’t wait to see what you have going with this ! You’ve been pretty quiet so I figured you were up to some sort of mischief.
My little lady is all bundled up and sitting outside for now. Needed some room in the shop. Then this stupid covid crap happened just as me and the boys were about to connect the gasifire to the engine’s demands through the Arduino program we have going. We had to put that on hold until the guys felt it was safe enough to venture out into the light again.
Glad to hear from you guys. Stay well and Happy Thanksgiving !
Bill
Yes sorry for this quiet journey. As I told Steve (cncmachiningisfun) already – I managed a lot of stuff since my last visit here.
The things I tinkered are now in place and what should I say? Plenty of invisible clean gas.
I installed a 4 tube parallel pea stone condenser, followed by 4 more tubes in series to get the condensate out and to cool it down to room temperature. Everything is connected by a syphon like liquid air/gas locking drainage pipe where all the soot drips out while running. After these condensing tubes a double and hot swappable wood shaving filter is installed (2 same filters but lockable with push valves against each other and the gas stream for changeability in runtime) and at least a 3D printed 10x textile filter tube. 🙂
Oversized but working perfectly since I do not want to buy pellets to feed it. Branches from the woods are for free and even if it produces some more tar. My Puppy runs stable at 1100-1200°C – tars are definitely cracked.
And since I had my experiences with volcano like eruptions in the past – i studied some possibilities to prevent this and yes it could but only if I tell it.
The whole system is a flow through system and you could take a breathe through it – what I definitely do not recommend 😉
My auto auger has now a east german heavy duty gear motor with an additional little but strong motor connected to it. The big motor feeds the wood chips forward and the little one pulls the auger some degrees reverse for less blocking issues. Works fine.
I built everything without computing but with switches, sensors, PWM drivers and some SSR relays.
Yes and since I had so much to do – it became a little bit quiet from my side.
Sorry guys 😉
Ooooh boy, sounds like a winner. I started using the Pea Stone filters pretty early on, remembering that method which was used in the scrubbers at the Bio Mass plant which I delivered TT loads of fuel chips to. I use them as the primary snot remover before the gas goes to the final filters. Steve T is using them also.
So, what type of engine /Generator are you using . Charging batteries or direct electricity?
Hi Bill, I am trying to do both but since the grid is that stable in our region I will concentrate on power delivery. It should work as a power delivery station instead buying it from the grid. For first test I bought a 3 phase genset with 3x 2KWh for proof of concept. In the next phase I want it to store some power in the batteries for outtage times during maintenance aso. in addition to a big 10KWh or bigger genset I will purchase later (heavvvy prices)
In the absolute ideal I want it to power the whole house instead only my office garden shed.
A decent sine wave inverter and a maintained battery bank is the ticket. Woodgas powered generators are susceptible to RPM fluctuations but the good thing is the battery banks don’t care as long as they are receiving a charge. You can still do work horse jobs with woodgas like running power tools and lights but for the delicate electronics you really need a true sine wave inverter setup.
Hi Mike, yes that’s a good point. I thought about that and so I am looking for an inverter genset. Also I thought about the possibility to use batteries and an inverter to have true sine wave but I did not come to a conclusion until now. .
I was hearing that from some of the old-timers years ago and realized as to why they were doing using a battery/inverter setup. Not only can you store the excess power that you generate but it takes the inconsistency that you sometimes see with the engine RPMs on a generator running on homemade fuel which is not good on sensitive electronics that require a consistent 60 hertz. You can still use the raw output of the generator directly on stuff like lights or power tools but when it comes to running any sensitive electronics you really do need a good sine wave inverter/battery Bank combination. That’s what I run. I’m only running a 110 volt system. My inverter is rated for 3300 watt continuous with a 9900 watt surge so when the refrigerator and the freezer kick in at the same time it doesn’t even flicker. The only downfall with the smaller system is I can’t run my heat pump. If push came to shove I could always close off an area in the house and run a dedicated window unit in the summertime. Heating is no problem because I got plenty of woods and a fireplace.
That’s the same here. Heating is absolutely no point. Hot water is one. I think I can say the battery bank is a good thing but please help me understanding how I can operate it loading and delivering at the same time?
In my opinion is goes like loading via big charger (110/230V to 12V) and unloading the same time reverse via a sine inverter (12V to 110/230V) Isn’t this ineffective?
Works the battery here like a capacitor or like a backfill?
I need some ideas how to build this because I am no big fan of PV or WP and so I am not that deep in this theme. I know how to run a genset and how to get hot water from it but with batteries I come to a limit.
I turn a 100 amp alternator with a 13 Hp HF Predator engine with electric start. That charges 8 12VDC deep cycle batteries. A 3000 watt Samlex pure sinewave Inverter12V > 110Ac sits on top. The plus side of this arrangement is having both AC and DC power supplies. Charge a cell phone, car battery, power lights, refrigerators/ freezers. Best of both
If I were to do it again I would add more batteries and change the Inverter to 220 VAC. That way I could run the water pump in the well.
Hi Bill, that sounds good. But are you loading them first to unload them again or are you using these batteries as kind of capacitors during runtime of the gassifier?
If you scale your battery stack, you have always first to scale your needs.
I learned this from a PV Off Grid course and ended up in something like a 25KWh stack as result to meet my needs. The costs of such a huge stack are incredibly high and it would be interesting to find such an inverter. The best solution here would be to split the lines into smaller sections what would result in a complete reinstallation of my house’s electricity installation.
When I face all the problems, building the gassifier was the easiest thing 😀
The goal for me was to have an emergency source of power when we have extended grid down conditions. We had a rather nasty ice storm back in 2009 which knocked off the electric grid for weeks. Roads were blocked with trees down, poles and wires snapped, Travel was mostly out of the question, and fuel for heating, cars and trucks was next to impossible to find as all the gas stations were shut down as well.
At the time we were heavily invested in our firewood operation, had a large inventory and delivering firewood to families with no other means to heat their homes or cook their food. It was the busiest we had ever been. We had a big generator running on propane but as the days went by we had to ration the fuel and ran the generator for a few hours during peak times for the family needs.
When the grid was finally restored weeks later I started thinking about alternative power and fuel supplies. That lead me to the woodgas option and after finding a ” How to build” video made by Flash001USA I thought I had found the answer to solve all the needs for an emergency option.
Basically that is still my goal, to have a reliable back up source of power. I never intended it to be full time and even if it came down to that through some sort of disaster I would still have to ration its use.I’m very happy with the results and now that its automated it frees up a lot of time to go about my business and take care of the needs of the family.
I guess the important part of any build is to have a goal and build a system to meet that goal. NH Hbbyloggr
Bill, I’d love to live in your region. What you’ve written is that most reliable base a gasser could be built on. I absolutely agree to you.
My needs have another background so I decided to built another type. Atm we pay 37c for a single KWh here and I am struggling to pay that all the time.
So I looked for another solution and now I’ve found one for me.
That’s the point, build for your needs. Where do you live? You sound like a talented guy, so what is your back ground ? Anyone who follows through on a gasifier build has talent in my estimation. Sounds like you have a winner there.
Perhaps you can locate an Inverter type Generator which will clean up the power for you so you can run the sensitive electronics, like Flash recommended..
Hey Bill, nice words, thank you 🙂
My talent is a long experience for modelling functional mechanisms. So I came up to
3D printing and some other useful things. At most I am addicted to IT since I am a IT systems engineer.
Now I am living in a forest in the south of Berlin, Germany. Together with my wife, our kids and her parents. And as always no one interprets my builts as needful things. 😀
Especially my Puppy. It’s bad smelling, dangerous and a bomb by the way. None of these arguments are true – mmh yeah the smell of the filter materials is bad and when I shut it off the smokes are smelling but nothing else. A bomb? No. It’s completely built as pressureless and yes a fountain of glowing pieces can erupt out of it, when I don’t close the valves during shut down. So you notice my friend – in a safe country nothing can happen what makes you dependent on an energy source which is some kind of different to the wall plugs which delivers electricity all the time – even if the power plants will be shut down due to climate debates.
Am I a fool? Maybe. But having is ways better than needing. And since I pay all the electricity bills I decided to change something. And so I did and I will do in future.
RH, Interesting back ground. Thanks for sharing a little of yourself. I had to chuckle over your comment that most people don’t understand the need. And yes, we flirt with being labeled as a bit odd , even followers of voodoo to some. So be it. We are happy. Please work on putting together a video for us ! We need a fix , as it’s been way too quiet here lately
Best,
Bill
It is as it is. I will make a video as I promised already 🙂 You’ll get your fix 😉
Hi Julie Mike here. I hope you’re doing better and that everything is starting to settle down. I had to have small laugh when I read the part about Mark only coming in from the shop long enough to grab a quick bite before he went back out to work on the gasifier. That takes me back to when I was first constructed my gasifier. As Bill had mentioned whoever does purchase it can definitely ask us questions and we’ll help out any way we can. Take care. Mike.
Hello all you woodgas addicts. Some of you know that our good friend and fellow addict Mark Adams passed away. Mark was one of the early builders of the Flash001USA design. He had exceptional skills and the workmanship he put into his build was excellent. His wife and brother have asked me to let you all know that it is available, for sale to anyone interested. Many of us have seen it run while he was active in our group.. It comes with a rotating drum cleaner, a gas engine powered wood chunker and a few other items. It is located in North central Florida near Ocala.
If you or anyone would have interest in a quality built gasifier let me know and I’ll pass along the information. Reply to hbbyloggr@gmail.com
Howdee Bill,
Whoever buys this fine machine will gain a great asset, and will also help to preserve the soul and spirit of our dearly departed friend.
Frequently, I see Mark’s comments on various YT videos, and a part of me expects to see further comments from him.
From somewhere, up there, he is watching us, and saying “NOOOOOO – don’t build it like that!”.
Yes, even up there, there are woodgas bugz, and nipped necks 🙂 .
Best wishes, oh woodily watted one,
Steveeee.
Steeme, Yes, we all miss him terribly. But his spirit is strong and he will be remembered.
Someone could end up with a great build. I have to ask you guys what something like this would be worth? We have ideas but naturally it would be what ever someone is willing to pay. We would never get back what we put into it , But what a ride it was. Money can’t buy that !!
Howdee Bill,
That is so true.
Always, shall he be fondly remembered.
The lucky soul who buys this will surely benefit from a fine machine.
Its dollar value is difficult to determine, as there is also a strong sentimental value to it.
As such, it is priceless!
That stated, and we all surely agree, we never regain watt we put into projects such as these, should we elect to sell them.
Instead, we enjoy MASSIVE benefits when they are busily generating electricity, and saving us a fortune in power/fuel bills 🙂 .
The sale price for this will surely be up in the thousands, but I fear that it will be hard to sell, if the buyer is unable to appreciate its true value.
Perhaps though, the buyer can rest assured that we will be here to help him, should any troubles arise.
Hi, to all
its a long time that i know about woodgasifier , my grandad was using 1 during worldwar2 , it was a truck , I think it was an Hotchkiss Brandt , Brandt was a woodgasifier added to it , it run with a mix charcoal and wood chunks .
The charcoal was in a pipe in the middle of the gasifier , about 4 to 6″ in size and all around wood chunks, ending just above the burning areas, im not sure why , i think it was to create cleaner gas.
Always wanted to try to build 1 , moving a vehicle with wood smoke 🙂
So, i came across of victory gaswork also FEMA free PDF , but reading more discover that The FEMA had a lot of problems with tars.
i bought the book of Ben Perterson ( the wood gasifier bible), good book , but require a good knowledge of welding and money , because of the material use .
Then , watching youtube i discover Flash001USA , brilliant something that i could relate . Watch every videos , the good and the bad , very knowledgeable and not expensive to build.
I have kind of build the one of Ben , but having problems with filters , so i decide to use Flash cleaning system to finishthe gasifier .
I have an old Audi diesel that i would like to run with it .
I know a lot people are saying thats not possible , but again rerading 1 of PDF that you have made available to read , seems saying otherwise , so i’ll keep yo posted .
Thanks again for all the time that you have use to put all this work together .
Welcome Marc! We love woodgas here. The flash design is one of the easiest to duplicate and definitely can crack the tars to give you clean gas if you spend enough time learning how to run it. I’m sure if you have any questions, you will find help here. Just ask and someone will answer. I’m not sure how woodgas will work in a diesel engine but it works well as a gasoline replacement.
Interesting observation regarding wood chips. Has anyone tried oversize chunks in their gasifier? I’m referring to the Flash001 design with the center pipe incoming air supply. Normally I sort out the larger chunks when I’m filling the coffee cans for a run but today I said what the heck, let’s see what happens to these things which are sized as small as a ping pong up to fist size… mostly the size of a billiard ball though. I started up with the normal char , added a can of the regular size chips then two cans of the large chunks on top. Well, I was not disappointed. The moisture problem in the wood hopper went away. No bridging , at least for this first trial, and steady readings on the manometers. The big regen blower was called to duty for this one but as the flare became weaker after a full hour of run time I started the 13 hp engine to see if there was enough gas. Barely enough to start it and then died out. OK, hook the blower back up and run another 10 – 15 minutes till nothing left.
Upon shut down there was just enough char to start the next run. No signs of moisture in the hopper, in fact cleaner than usual.
Definitely going to have to try this again but with the engine under load.
Now to figure out how to make bigger chunks… I checked the roll off container and can scrounge up enough for a batch then noticed that the 15 cu yrd container is getting low ! Gulp ! 13 yrds of wood chips used so far……….. :< /
Howdee Billy’s wooden watts,
That’s a pretty sweet observation.
Getting rid of that pesky moisture in the hopper is a worthwhile objective, and it looks like you have found a super simple way to achieve it.
Hmmm, I am off to jam a tree into my hopper, to see watt happens 😉 .
LOL, you sure are getting through your treezel supply in a big old hurry.
Better make a new batch, before the withdrawal symptoms set in ;).
Best watts to ya,
Steeeev.
Here’s the update from yesterday’s run with the large chunks: Bottom line, it was difficult at first to get enough gas produced to start the engine without a little kick from gasoline . The engine struggled to stay steady for about the first half of the run. There was way less moisture in the wood hopper than with the smaller chips but the large chunks fed well down into the hearth with no bridging. My take on it is the surface area exposed between the smaller chips Vs. the chunks was a mixed bag. Smaller chips make more readily available wood gas but also more moisture and more prone to bridging. Large chunks feed well , produce less moisture in the hopper, but do not produce enough gas in the smaller hearth for the good engine performance. I’ll bet with a larger hearth it would do well.
Next batch will be a 50/50 mix of regular size with bigger chunks.
So, the jury is still out on this one. There is a video of the run but that will be when there’s time to edit.
What’s up guy’s. Right now I’m in NY making my way back home so I’m just now able to jump into the conversation. It looks like everyone is busy experimenting with different fuel sizes. For me it seems to work best with a mixture of different sizes of wood chunks. I have ran with both smaller and larger stuff and too much smaller stuff makes the gasifier sweat in the hopper but yeah you get better fuel. I found that only loading the hopper about half full works the best.
Hey Mike, Did you take the bus out to NY? If so, how’d it work out for you? Yeah, I’m messing with wood sizes and batch size to find the best combo for a steady run. It’s pointing to an auto feed system ……….. thinking cap is ” on”.
Bill
No we flew out here to go to a funeral but we’re driving back. I’m still doing work on the bus to get it road ready.
Condolences to the family.
Normally I only put in 3 or 4 coffee cans of chips but for the first time EVER, I filled it right to the top this afternoon. Primary flare looked pale orange with a hint of purple. There wasn’t the moisture plume as usual before light off either. Then switched to the filtered side and the big blower. My sufferin’ word I thought I had found Nirvana, the heavens of wood gas. That flare was magical, a full throated blast of Blue, pink and clear. The engine fired off at the touch of the key and fed mega watts to the batteries.
Well, about 1 hr into it the engine died. The chips had bridged causing the failure. I has a 2 k load going at the time and it was no problem up to that point. So I opened the lid, poked the wood down and started up again. It took a couple passes back and forth to the blower to get the gas back up but all was well for another 1 hr run to the finish. I noticed at the end that there was not as much moisture in the hopper as with smaller batches. I don’t know, man. I’m trying to find that sweet spot.
Kind of wished I hooked up the ‘puter to track the temps but maybe another day.
13yrdssss??? I measure in boxes since I use the same fuel like flash. I already used my 4th 60l box for testing. I chunk it with a garden shredder for wood. Little chunks are the best for my design which is an adapted FEMA but in special like a drizzler where you put in very small amounts of chunks at a time. But now I have to build a big new one since my little one had an curious issue with a flashback some days ago.
This is how I make chips for the gasifier and fill the container. I’ve gone through most of it and will need to re-stock before the winter months.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrUxy4RmfN8 start at time : 2:09
You can’t imagine how much I enjoy looking wood shredding videos 😀 My little shredder is on 230V and takes time for each branch. But I love to shred 😉
Reporting from the field office of the NH Little shop of Horrors:
“ An event occurred at the site of the Hbbyloggr Compound last evening which neighbors described as a ‘snap/pop’ when a contraption of questionable origin exploded during a test at the facility. Present at the time were members of an educational group who had arrived to observe the process of converting wood chips to a flammable gas used as fuel to power a conventional gasoline engine.
Mid-way during the run a decision was made to shut down the engine , close off the fuel supply and re-open the primary blower to check the wood gas flare quality and characteristics. It was observed that the subsequent flare on the primary blower side was a low volume, deep red color which seemed to be burning down into the exit pipe causing the inserted steel scrubber to glow red hot. After a minute or two the flare changed to a more normal condition.
At that point the primary side gas port was closed off and it is believed the blower motor was shut off as well. The filtered side was opened and an attempt to re-start the engine failed. The gas hose was relocated from the engine to the large blower used to pull the gas through the final filters then switched back to the engine . The re-start was successful but at the same time there was an explosion and a flash of steel and witnesses say they saw white plastic piping flying around the shop. After everything settled down we all looked at each other’s expressions ‘’’ WTF happened ” ??
The top half of the primary blower and flare tube was laying on the floor. A 2” PVC elbow between the shut off valve and the cyclone leading to the blower motor was missing but subsequently found later that evening. The engine was still running as it was isolated from the primary source of the “ event”.
Sources , who do not want to be identified because they are not authorized to comment, say an investigation under way and an inquiry is underway.
No one was injured or traumatized at the time although one person felt the need to clean up in a nearby rest room.
Feel free to comment on what you think may have happened.
Signed, Anonymous
There must have been an air leak somewhere ( leaking air into the pvc pipe that spontaneously combusted). Video? ? ? Joe
sadly no video, Joe. Just 5 witnesses fanning their backsides.
Howdee Billy’s Blower Blasty Bits,
Hmmmm, methinks that you had an unwanted visit from Mr Explodey!
I have had the very same thing happen, under similar circumstances.
In the time since then, I never did find all the little bits of blown blower!
This tends to happen when there is a sudden change in the vacuum demand, or flow resistance, of the plumbing, which can cause a bit of air to enter the mix.
It is often not a problem, but, when all the ducks are aligned, it sends your blower directly to heaven, in lotsa little bitties!
Ya know, I meant to put up a post last week about the need for an emergency purge valve, as the blower on my Charlek tried to commit boomacide, via the same technique as yerz did.
Shutting it off, at such a time, lights the fuse – and primes the blasting powder.
A few moments later, it is grenade time!
The solution is super simple, that is – ya put a ball valve in the feed line to the blower. It needs to be set up so that you can open at a moment’s notice when you see Mr Explodey trying to pry the lid off the powder keg.
The valve lets air into the blower chamber, which quickly dilutes the explosive mixture, and extinguishes the fuse.
It is fun to watch, as the flame-out can be quite a spectacle.
After that, you can safely turn off the blower.
By ‘fuse’, I mean the stainless steel blast buster.
Over time, it tends to fill up with flammable goodies, which can burn like a fuse, all the way down to the inside of the blower.
The result is a delayed bursty-pop session, and an urgent need to visit the little bug’s room!
Been there, dun that, got the blood stained Tee shirt, once I pulled the shrapnel out, that is!
Mr Explodey is gonna be mighty miffed when he sees that we have found a way to keep the matches out of his sticky little hands 🙂 .
Best blasts to you,
Steve Mac Burstypoppenstein.
Steve, Ahh yes, your comment rings a bell or was it the sound of the blower hitting the ceiling. Forensics will be needed to make the final determination. The location of the missing elbow was discovered when I noticed a bunch of spray cans tipped over like bowling pins on an upper shelf above the work bench.
This morning I replaced the solid end plug of the air nozzle with one which was drilled through with a 3/16 bit. The flare proved to be much better than with the solid plug and the secondary post filter flare was robust and dazzling blue as propane. No harm done. The blower motor and propeller survived the ordeal and is ready for another mission.
Thanks for the explanation as it certainly sounds like the same incident.
Bill W.
Howdee Billy’s Bursting Blowers,
You are welcome, my fellow bombsite investigator 🙂 .
Your latest mod to the air noozler sounds like a good idea, and I reckon I will give that a go, once I find my woodgas bug swatter.
Ya know, even after all these yeerz, and nearly 1700 hours of runtime on the Gas-O-Matix9000 woodenwatter, it still amazes me that we can so readily extract zillions of delisherous watts from a pile of unassuming treezel bits.
As the saying goes: “There are watts in them thar treez.”
Sadly, there are lotsa ravenous woodgas bugz in there too, just waiting for a nip of neck-tar!
Keep watting the woods, my fellow addict.
Best blasts to you,
Steev McWoodenwatten.
BwwwwwAhhhhhh ha ha ha ha haaaaa! It sounds like someone had a nice flash back explosion.
Yup, this one ranks number two on the list. The number 1 was a few years back where the barrel was bluged and distorted . I had to use a hydraulic jack to push the wood hopper and barrel lid back into proper position. It also required a new barrel seal gasket.
I think Steve hit upon the answer on this latest episode. Sudden bug phuquery syndrome when the sudden valve closure and blower shut down cause air to rebound back into the cyclone due to pressure differential. Then there must have been a hot spot in the bottom of the scrubber inserted in the flare tube causing the ignition. The rest is what great stories are there to tell.
That’s a bad thing. I just had the same. Followed by a destructive Implosion.
Oh man ! So what happened??
I shut down the blower while fired up and wanted to see how high the flames become above the reactor when it has no more suction.
I had no filter material in the drums and so a fast flashback occured through the whole system. The sound of the wandering flame was horrible and a matter of a second. After this came a bad noise of deformation from everywhere by sudden underpressure when everything imploded. Like a sub in deep sea. A bad moment and time for a restart.
Wow! I think you get the honors for the biggest screech-bang so far. Good description about your flash bang. Almost felt it while reading it. Were you able to restart or do you have some repairs to make? Just make sure you have no leaks.
Bill W.
I believe the term they’re using to describe this kind of event is ” anomaly “. I enjoyed reading this description. Almost like watching a video. Joe
It always the same. When the interesting things happen, no cam is ready.
And no. I’m not trying to repair it since it has some other issues too.I am going to build a new one with stronger materials and using my experiences from the old one.
Well, between problems, obligations, illness, and timing, I haven’t been able to build a gasser, big disappointment for me, so, it didn’t work out, but I was hoping one of you gents wood run with it.
I always thought that not only enough air, but just the right amount, along with proper distribution would be key. It just makes sense to me. The air intake pipe should be oversized, with a gate type valve at the opening, to bring down the air to the perfect amount, to match the whole size of the system, or any size system. When the air gets to the ring it would be met with a few small holes, and further around the chamber, or ring, the holes would be larger, or multiple small holes, more and more as the air travels further from the intake pipe. Experimenting required there.This ought to give an even air flow all around.
I do believe that the grate should be welded re-bar, about 3/8″ spacing, and ground to a v on the bottom side, like this-v v v v v v. With a little tap, ash would fall right through, and the charcoal would still be an ember when it falls through, keeping the whole area hot.
And then there is the power cyclone, consisting of multiple high speed wire wheels on a shaft, in a tube. The bottom of the tube has multiple one inch holes, with a crankshaft like oil pan under it, and the pan has multiple vertical pipes which go down to glass jars. At about 10000 rpm moisture would fling carbon onto the sides of the tube and wash down to the jars. In between each wire wheel there is a metal disk that attaches to the tube so that moisture and carbon cannot simply pass through between the edge of the disks and the tube. Each disk has an opening in the center, perhaps half the diameter of the disk, for the vapor gas to flow, while the carbon and water/condenstion is thrown to the sides. It would be powered by a 3000rpm brushless 12v motor, geared 4 to 1. The stress on the motor is simply a shaft on two bearings, so it would be able to easily maintain high speed.
If filters are still needed after that, perhaps a longer shaft with more wire wheels is needed. But I would think that if filters are still needed, that they can go much longer between cleanings.
This new air intake idea, I had explained many moons ago. The air comes in from the side as usual, and enters a round chamber. The air-holes right where the intake pipe is are small, and as the holes go around the chamber they get larger so that there is equal air intake all around.
So, how did it work out for you? Interested.
Bill I had a really cool and SIMPLE idea for the nozzle conversion and you’re going to love it! It’s going to be a very simple and not too invasive mod on the original build. I made the measurements today so it’s definitely doable I’m going to pull a cloak and dagger and keep my cards close to my chest until I make the mod and follow it up with a video so stay tuned….
The cloak and dagger made me laugh as soon as I saw your handle. Well played ! I ‘m not going to say it but I think I already know what you’re doing, haha All I need is a tape measure and the plasma cutter and I’ll have it done in a flash. I looked it over last week and thought, what if that would really worked ?? Hold my beer , son.
Now if we could come to the Jeopardy table at exactly the same time to show our hand. What a hoot.
LAMO!
****** I dun got me a blue primary flare! ******
Howdee, my fellow woodenwatters,
Being the tinkering type, I just couldn’t resist the urge to have another tutu with the nozzle system in my gasser.
Recently, I tried a single, offset, nozzle – as y’all know 🙂 .
While this worked wonders, and fixed some issues, it caused some new ones, so I took it out – and threw it at an approaching squadron of woodgas bugz.
The resulting carnage is currently being cleaned up by a group of hungry Magpies.
Anyway, my new nozzle is the good old centre feed type, like Flash’s, but there are two little differences:
1) It ends a little over an inch above the rim of the fire cup.
2) It doesn’t have a hole at the tip, only 15 smaller holes in the final inch of its length.
As such, it works kinda like a diffuser stone for a fish tank.
Now, when I light my gasser, it starts off a little dirty – with a flame that I wood call “yell-ange”.
Eventually, it becomes orange, and then transitions towards blue.
After an hour or two of engine runtime, I check the primary flare, and find that it is still blue.
I ain’t too sure watt is going on here, but I suspect that I am benefiting from an extra layer of hot charcoal over the rim of the fire cup, sort of like watt you wood see in a charcoal gasifier.
Needless to say, the local woodgas bugz and I have been dancing the jig on the gasifier’s lid, as this gas gets us higher than a puff of Elon’s Musk 🙂 .
I hope to make a video of this in the not too distant future, as I am pertee pleased with the quality of the gas that I am getting from Pine, which, I read somewhere, is one of the worst treezel products to wattify.
Keep watting your woods, my fellow necknip victims 🙂 .
Best watts to y’all,
Steve.
Just got in from a GRID DOWN !!! event. I woke up at 2:– am ran down to the shop, plugged the wood furnace circulator into the battery bank/inverter. After swapping out batteries in the Jolly Green generating machine we successfully started the big power house and switched from dark to light. The little LFD was busy in the shop feeding watts to the battery bank and just as I felt satisfied everything was running nicely the Grid power was restored. Oh well, good way to observe 9/11. Coincidence much?
Figured I would check online to see what happened ; low and behold NZ Steve pops up and tells us he’s found the right combination of incoming air to bring the newest addition on line. Good news there Steve. A quick question for you? Did you happen to notice any reduction in the heavy smoke in the wood hopper using this new set up? Might be worth a try here at the little shop of horrors. An easy mod for me.
Glad to hear of your success .Keep us posted !
BillW
Howdee Bill,
Yeah, those grid down events are not very considerate to us woodheads!
They really need to last long enough to fully justify powering up your survival machines, but no, they have to be sneaky about it.
Well, my grid down experience has lasted 25 years, so far, and it looks like I will NEVER get any goodness from the grid.
I wonder why 😉 .
For sure, 9/11 is being felt deeply by everyone right now.
18 years have passed, but the sentiments are just as strong as always!
About the smoke in the hopper, it is still there, but in slightly lesser quantities than before.
My offset, single nozzle system produced HEEEEEPS of it, and it wood burn like a rocket when I lit it off.
The smoke that I get now will often burn slowly, and with a bluish tint to it.
Interesting, yet smokey!
I have some video clips here, which I plan to stitch together, and glue to my YT flannel, to show my fellow addicts how the gasser is behaving with its new noozler arrangement.
It is interesting, yet watty, methinks 🙂 .
Keep up the wattsome goodness, my fellow treezel trader.
Best watts,
Steve.
Steve I’m glad you’re making some lead way with the nozzle issue. When I ran the side nozzle I had hot and cold spots in the ember bed where the hearth appeared to get hotter on the side with the nozzle. When I went with the center nozzle it was a bit tricky and the center seemed to get hot with the outer edges not so as much. I’m doing the same thing you’re doing but a bit different because I have my end shut off but with four side slots cut for the air to flow. So far it appears to function and after 30 minutes or so I trust the gas to be clean. Starting with biochar helps too.
I will be the first person to say that a multi nozzle design is the preferred setup with no restrictions. The only reason I went with this design was for simplicity because for the multi nozzle setup you really need a double air chamber that feeds the nozzles along with a simple way to change nozzles out once they are burned off so the build gets more involved with a multi nozzle setup. I guess it’s a trade-off. Both Bill and I had the same idea a few months apart and that was to use a small break rotor because they are normally stacked with the ability to breathe from the center to the outer edges so they can cool down while driving down the road and the idea was to make the hopper a standard double chamber so that the brake rotor would sit centered over the hearth and the inner hopper would sit on top of the brake rotor so that you could add the air intake valve right to the outside of the outer hearth to regulate or to shut off the air during a shut-down. It would work something like this… The inner hopper would be something like a sleeve that would slip into the outer hearth through the outer hoppers opening where you would load fuel in leaving a space for the air flow to be able to easily feed through the sides of the brake rotor’s cooling holes and if done correctly, the inner hopper along with the brake rotor would not be welded into place. The brake rotor would be held in place by it’s weight and the inner hopper could have a lip that allowed it to bolt onto the top of the outer hopper where the wood was fed in. This way when the inner hopper or the brake rotor needed serviced or changed you would simply unscrew or unbolt the inner hopper sleeve and pull it up to access the brake rotor air nozzle piece. Let me know what you think of that crazy idea?
Mike and Steve,
The brake rotor idea has also passed muster with Matt Ryder. I guess if it’s round and rusty it has potential, right?
I have a pretty good start on the rotor, hearth inner sleeve and reduction zone. The grate is all built and it’s now a matter of coming up with the outer sleeve build for the air intake. I’m wrestling with a couple different ideas but as I said earlier it will have to wait until my wood season is over.
One thing I noticed a while back was the cumulative deposits of wood gas snot in the air intake upon shut down and cool down time. The nasty wood gas migrates up into the inlet pipes and adds a coating every time , unless of course you run the hopper out of wood and all the smoke is drawn out and consumed. I had it plug up tight once so far. When I change out the nozzle end I also pull the intake pipes apart and give them a good cleaning.
I’m interested to see if the runs are still stable after some time on the clock, Steve. Keep us posted.
Bill W. NH Hbbyloggr
Howdee Bill,
Yup, that brake rotor idea is pretty darn sweet. Hot, even!
Like you, I get a fair old lot of woodgas bug snot in the intake system for the nozzle, but it hasn’t really caused any problems yet.
Luckily, mine is easily take outable, and put back in-able, so cleaning it out in the event of a blockage should be perty easy, methinks, mehopes :).
Sadly, this is one part of the plumbing where I wood knot be able to use my world famous, among me, flame cleaning method.
Oh well, ya canny win ’em all 😦 .
Right now, I am working on a video that shows how my gasser is behaving, with its newly re-fangled air noozler.
It still blows me away that I can finally get such clean gas from a soft wood, such as Pine 🙂 .
Many good watts to you, my fellow energy addict,
SteemeeSteev.
Steve,
This rotor concept I’m working on is intended to be used with a larger engine 4 cyl engine , namely the 20kw Winco generator I picked up a couple years ago. While I did run it with the existing gasifier there was insufficient gas production to handle much of any load. I’m thinking the temps will be driven high enough to overcome the weight and mass of the steel in the hearth.
As with any of our ” concepts ” the proof is in the actual build and run time evaluation.
You certainly have a good idea that you are trying out. Look forward to the video.
Hbbyloggr
Steve,
Basically I have the same air nozzle as you with the exception being the end plug is drilled to 5/16 ” dia.
Well, just about an hour ago I changed the end plug to a solid one and left the radial holes the same in the pipe couple. The results after a start up was a primary flare in about 4 minutes. Then switched to the filter blower, ” the big bitch” which could suck a golf ball through 100 ft of garden hose. I could hear the increase draw through the air inlet pipe . Touched off a rather spectacular blue flame just in time to hear Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds on the radio.
This time I disconnected the barrel vibrator and just let the grate shaker work, until the engine lost power and woodgas . Opening the hopper after shut down revealed some wood on the sides of the hearth due to the lack of vibrating but certainly acceptable.
Granted it was a short run but I like the results so far.
Keep stokin’ the fire.
Hbbyloggr
Howdee Bill,
Hmmm, it looks like the woodgas bugz have been enjoying a good nip on yer neck lately 🙂 .
Don’t worry, as my neck is also perty sore.
The little boogers are gonna pay for that!
It seems to me that you are gonna have a bit more of a tinker with this, to see watt you can come up with.
Right now, I am totally over the moon with the results that I have been getting over the past few days 🙂 .
My latest video shows watt this mod has dun to my gasser.
Please feel free to take you a looky here:
Keep spoiling them watten, my fellow wattage cottager 🙂 .
Best watts 2 U,
SteemeeSteevz.
Bill I’ll let the cat out of the bag with this idea. The brake rotor is too big for a small engine gasifier. They now sell ultra high temperature cement in a caulk tube that is designed to be used as a fire barrier. I plan on custom making my own disk using this stuff and embedding around 5 small steel nozzles into the disk. The disk will also be reinforced with steel screen and it will be somewhat bowel shaped to match the contour of the bottom of the wood hopper. It’s opening will be matched to the fire cone “hearth” The disk will be around .75 to 1.0 inches thick and around 9 to 10 inches in total diameter.
This will allow me to take advantage and use the weight of the disk along with a small dab of the high temperature cement to keep it into place. The new inner hearth will now slide into the feed hole on top of the original hopper where it will butt up to the new “nozzle” disk. I only have to unscrew and remove my inner nozzle and the original hopper becomes the outer shell and the insert will become the new wood hopper and the air will enter at the bottom outer edges of the disk.
The new insert hopper will have a lip that can be sealed with regular RTV cement or screws or even both so that I can secure it to the top opening of where the wood loads into it. If this works out I can simply remove the inner hopper for servicing and replacement of the cement nozzle disk as needed. I may place a layer of stainless steel over the cement disk for added protection. What I have now works but I know the best build would not have any kind of obstructions leading to the ember bed. What you are getting ready to build WILL WORK and it will pass with flying colors because it will be less prone to bridging with the larger opening so I look forward to seeing it completed.
I’m a small engine person so for now I’ll stick to trying to refine the smaller build. The only two issues I can possibly see with this change is a smaller wood hopper due to the insert and possible bridging but maybe not because I use smaller chunks than someone running larger systems. If the concept works I may rebuild my wood hopper which I want to do anyhow. I don’t know when I will do this mod but yeah I plan on doing it. The mod should be straight forward. Only the shadow really knows.
Flash, I think that is a good idea.
Flash, sitting here I can already picture what that would look like. How about, envision a stock pot welded to the brake, with a lip for the top, so it all can be lifted out for cleaning, etc.
Really, this could be a considerable design improvement….. I can come up with all kinds of ideas just sitting here. I think you should explore this idea some more.
I had to reread your explanation, and you’re already ahead of me, except welding brake and inner pot together. You guys are really making me ache for some good ol wood smoke bugs to come a biting……
Hey Pete ! Do it, man !! Do it !
Howdee Flash,
It looks like we are onto something with this kind of nozzle configuration 🙂 .
Initially, mine was like yours, but the tip of it was set about 3/4 inch below the rim of watt I call the ‘fire cup’.
This worked OK, but I noticed that I got a LOT of blockages near the base of the hearth, requiring frequent grate shakes, and regular stoking in order to keep the gas flowing.
My side nozzle fixed that, and allowed the gasser to run constantly, without any need for shakes and stoking.
While it fixed some problems, it caused others, which led me to the elevated, blind nozzle approach.
Now, because the nozzle is admitting air above the fire cup, the burn is initiating there, unimpeded by the heat robbing mass that sits just below it.
Over time, the burn extends towards the fire cup, but the gasser is already online by that time, making kleeeen gassss 🙂 .
A video, showing this, is currently in the works.
I think we agree that a multiple nozzle arrangement is the preferred option, and I think I have devised a possible solution for that.
Basically, it wood consist of 3 down pipes, which wood each feed a divider, thereby creating something that you might call a ‘nozzle tree’.
This wood result in 6 nozzles placed around the perimeter of the fire cup.
Naturally, these wood need to be rotated a little, so as to prevent them pointing at each other.
This simple arrangement should be fairly easy to maintain, as each of the 3 intake pipes wood be simply slid thru the upper wall of the hopper, and locked in place by a suitable nut.
That’s pretty much how I did mine, and it is super simple to work on 🙂 .
As for preheating, and the like, you are a lot more careful than I am, I gotta admit.
As soon as mine starts making gas, I pipe it off to the engine, and let ‘er rip.
So far, the engine seems to be OK, but Doctor Watt says it is gonna die, eventually 😉 .
I like the idea of the brake rotor being used as a nozzle ring.
If I understand correctly, you’ll be able to use it, without welding it, drilling it, or modifying it in any way.
It wood simply be held in place over the hearth by a tubular section that lives inside the hopper, behind which the incoming air is preheated, before being presented to the perimeter of the rotor.
Well, that’s how my mind’s eye saw it, when it ate up all yer words 🙂 .
I reckon this wood work perty well, as long as you can reliably heat it up, and not lose that heat to the gasifier’s body.
You see, I made me a big ol’ mistake when I created that huge fire cone from Stainless Steel.
While it worked OK, its huge thermal mass counted against me when it came to making lotsa clean gas.
I think it wood have been OK if it was in a BIG gasifier, making LOTSA gas, but mine is a low output type, limited to 2HP of shaft power, intentionally so, which means I have been obliged to get rid of hefty thermal masses, and replace them with lighter ones, enhanced by the magic of charcoal, and prayer, of course 😉 .
I really like the solid thinking that is going on between you and Bill, as this is truly the lifeblood of woodgas goodness.
Getting away from convention, and embarking upon new experiments is the only way we are gonna be able to achieve excellence in the woodenwatten journey.
Naturally, we all wanna see lotsa videos, as this super sweet idea starts to come together 🙂 .
Best watts to you,
Steve.
Hey Mike, I’ve tried sending you a couple emails but they keep getting returned. Did you change your address?
Bill I’m not sure what’s going on there but here is my actual email address. It’s actually the same email address were I get these miniwoodgas notifications.
flash001@rocketmail.com If you’re still getting kicked back let me know.
Mike, I think the problem sending emails is with the Grolen.com email. GMail seems to be working so it’s at this end. I was using your regular email address . I’m receiving alright but the sending through Grolen is not working correctly.
Bill
**************** Air-feed nozzle experimentificationments *****************
Howdee, my fellow woodenwatters,
I have been playing about with the air nozzlery on my gasser, because, well, it is fun to do, and really dusty too 🙂 .
Hey, I am a poet!
Anyway, because I have been having all sorts of trouble with my gasser, where it wood tend to block up at the hearth, and the burn zone wood often migrate up into the hopper during a run, I felt the need to have a wee tutu with it.
The gassers that we all know and love, have a single air feed pipe that runs down the middle of the fuel column, ending at the mouth of the ‘burn cup’.
This works well for most builders, but I really couldn’t quite make it work properly on mine, for some reason 😦 .
So, in desperation, and a dirty old shirt, I took that nozzle system out, and replaced it with one that runs down the inner wall of the hopper, and turns 90 degrees, to point at the rim of the fire cup.
This new feed pipe resembles a hockey stick, with the bent end of it pointing at the edge of the burn zone.
It points towards it, but does not encroach upon the space above it.
The outlet of this hockey stick is raised about 2 inches above the rim of the burn cup, and, in this regard, it resembles the nozzle system of a standard Imbert gasser.
Ideally, I wood have 3 of these arranged around the burn cup, but I currently have only one.
Well, to cut a long story short, this works like a charm!
I got rapid ignition, and a steady burn, for the entire duration of my 6 hour engine run last night 🙂 .
So, if folks were wondering about this idea, you’ll be pleased to know that it works wattfully, oops, I mean wonderfully 🙂 .
Keep watting those woods, my fellow woodgas bug necknip victims 🙂 .
Steve I’m glad you got it to work. That’s how I originally set up my build and it did work out for me. Running a single nozzle won’t hurt a thing and there are industrial builds where they have only one sideways nozzle but yeah I can see why you would rather have a multi nozzle setup. I even entertained the thought of making a round ring with holes drilled in it kind of like the pattern you would expect to see on a gas stove but the issue was finding a piece of round pipe that would hold up to the task. The way I got the build I have now to behave was to make sure that the air had to exit sideways on the nozzle and not straight down and I also had to make sure that the nozzle itself was the same diameter as the pipe so in other words, I didn’t add anything on the end to direct the air other than a end cap that was the same diameter as the nozzle itself. You’re using yours much more than we ours so if there are hiccups you’re the one that would see them first. Do you plan on making a video in the future so we can see what you did? We like videos. Ha!
Howdee Flash,
When I installed this into the gasser last night, it totally changed its personality, for the better 🙂 .
Prior to this, I wood get a ‘fair’ run, then the gas flow would choke down to a mere pittance, and the engine wood duly stop.
After poking a hole in the charcoal that was choking the hearth, I was able to resume the run, until the process repeated itself.
This single nozzle works well, but it does tend to blow the reaction towards the opposing side of the hopper, which seems to promote bridging of the fuel.
Hopefully, this problem will be gone, when I really nozzle this little puppy up 🙂 .
Your idea of a nozzle ring that sits over the hearth occurred to me also, but it seems that it wood be hard to make.
Perhaps it could be done in two parts, that fit together, as if you were assembling a donut – in two storeys.
Hmmmm, imagination module activated 😉 .
Yes, having your nozzle deliver air in an axial style, is surely the key to this, as that wood distribute it in such a way as to avoid concentrated hot spots and cool spots in the burn zone.
My single nozzle probably doesn’t address this correctly, but I will fix that, soon enough.
As for sheer diameter, that is important, as having it too small wood cause the gasser to suffocate, and perhaps make it try to pull air down thru the lid.
On mine, I had a lot of problems with de-stratification, until I discovered that the cause was surely due to too small a nozzle/air pipe diameter.
Our lessons from these beasties never seem to come to an end, as we are always learning new things 🙂 .
Indeed, I have amassed some 1600 hours of runtime on this gasser frame so far, and I am sure that I can easily squeeze another 1600 out of it.
It has kept me powered up, all thru the winter, even though it is subject to changes and corrections.
Ahhh, watt a wonderful web we weave.
In my collection of gasser vidbits, I have some little clips that I may be able to cobble together for a video.
These aren’t too good, as the lighting was a bit wonky, and I was kinda mumbling while waving the camera around – in the general area of the gasser.
This beast has changed, a fair old bit, since my last video, so it seems only fair that I glue my latest findings onto my YT flannel 🙂 .
Howdee Mr CNC! I had 5 small air nozzles and it worked beautifully. I think my videos are still out there somewhere….
Unfortunately I had to leave her behind when I moved…. I still miss her so much and wish I could have brought her, but, oh well.
Good luck, my friend- don’t forget to video
Pete
Howdee Pete,
Indeedee, 5 air nozzles is watt I wood like to return to, but I am not sure that I will be able to fit any more than 3.
3 is surely the minimum number I wood ever want to go down to, but I think it will be OK for the rest of the winter here in New Zilda.
This gasser is running a bit dirty at present, and I think it is because I have made the hearth too hefty.
A refined version is in the works 🙂 .
It is a pity that you had to leave your love behind.
Even now, I can hear here calling you.
She is calling out to you, saying “Pete, come back and light my fire”.
Perhaps she is getting jealous of your other projects!
Yup, got some video clips here. Gonna glue them together, and smear them all over my YT flannel 🙂 .
Steve, I’m glad you came up with something that works well for you. I don’t know if you remember, but we love videos around here. Looking forward to seeing your setup. Are you still running those small cubes of pallet wood as fuel?
Howdee Joe,
Thanks kindly.
I am pertee happy with the way this is performing, and I think it will be even better when I add 2 more nozzlers to the mix.
The idea has been buzzing around in my head for a wee while now, and it finally got out, thru my left ear, and became reality – inside the hopper 😉 .
Hmmmm, I had forgotten that folks like to see videos, so I better get the moovee crew out here, to capture the magic moments of woodenwattery.
I have some vidbits on my copota, but it is gonna take some time to stitch them together in a useful way – as they are somewhat random, coffee fueled, lumps of weirdness 😉 .
Yup, I am still using my little gasoline granules, as these are the perfect feedstock for this hungry little fire breathing dragon.
Sadly though, I am kinda running low on pallets, so I will need to plant some pallet treez, perty soonly.
Steeme, Ah ha ! You found the magic. I’m reading your comments and it sounds like the main problem was the lack of incoming air supply was the culprit for the incomplete and somewhat stagnant burn in the hearth. I would submit that anything we use for the nozzle should be regarded as a consumable item and be easily replaced as needed. Infact, I just ordered an half dozen 3/4 ” steel pipe couplings and same number of cast pipe end plugs for my little flower to keep on hand as spares. I will have them all cross drilled and ready.
Pete used ceramic nozzles used for sand blasting and had good life from them, but you had to be careful not to hit them while poking the wood down when necessary.
We all have a lot of different ideas and it’s up to each to try it out and pass along what we’ve found. Glad to see you’re smiling again.
Bill
You made a good point Bill. When I first built this gasifier up I had the nozzle running down the side of the hearth like Steve has now reconfigured his but my nozzle diameter was too small and I seen issues with the engine appearing a bit more under powered that I thought it should be then I went to a larger diameter air nozzle which took care of the issue. Steve is using wood chunks where we are using odd sized wood shavings or in my case odd sized in diameter cut up sticks. The difference in the type of fuel he’s using could be the core issue Steve is dealing with so he may need to rethink his air nozzle setup. He had his system worked out for his original gasifier and the new build appears to have thrown a monkey wrench into his build at least until he figures out his workaround.
Mike, The only problem I see with the air tubes running down the inner walls ,they stay relatively cool. If my set up is any indication, then I think the gasses condense and stick to the pipe and the contact area of the hearth walls. That causes the wood chips to stick as well. Being that this gasser 3/4″ dia inlet drops vertical not much sticks to it.
With the new temperature thermal couple installed I’m trying to find where the ideal temp needs to be in order to run the system cleanly. So far the best run with the 13 hp Predator running wide open with the 3/4 hp 110 vac blower motor plugged into the inverter plus a couple lights drove the temp in the hearth to around 950*C ( 1750 F ) . After the run everything was nice and clean. I’ll bet with a 3-4 kw load it would be in its glory.
I did a couple short runs at the Farm show this weekend for the crowd and the best I could do was 680*C. But it was a short run. My point is it would be of benefit to figure what the load will generally be on the system and adjust the restriction plate and incoming air for that sweet spot.
Yeah that makes sense. In reality it’s harder to get the hotter temperatures with smaller engines. This was one of the reasons I went with a cone shaped hearth or a fire cone idea that it acts like a magnifying glass or better yet, it works on the same concept of a fireman’s hose nozzle where the pressure is built up on the smaller end. My idea was to force the heat through a narrowing path to concentrate it if that’s even possible. Our hearths are on average a bit deeper than the average hearth designs so that can play two ways. It can act like a filter and because the gas is traveling a bit longer you may record lower temperatures at the restriction throat. If you measure too high or in the ember bed you will see temperatures that exceed the tar cracking temperatures but they’re not going to be accurate. Maybe I got lucky tinkering over and over because what I found was no tar in the gasifier or the pipes other than in the wood hopper. I couldn’t say that with the FEMA and there was tar all through the system. I would love to have a round ring pipe with air holes to feed the ember bed where the center nozzle is now and run the air supply to the round ring nozzle. Your idea with the break rotor was an idea that ran across my mind because it already had the cooling holes between the layers which would have worked for air nozzles but I only thought of that after I constructed the gasifier then you turned around and thought of the same thing.
Mike,
I got started on the brake rotor hearth but had to set it aside for the time being. I’ll get back on it late Fall when the wood orders slow down. I’m going to try a massive reduction zone 8″ dia X 12″ long which Matt Ryder suggested along with a dinner plate shaped grate which oscillates. Actually, the reduction zone near the bottom will be a retention ring allowing char to pack the sidewalls . Actual outlet size would be more in the order of 5″Dia.
This build is for the 20 kw 4 cyl engine I picked up a couple years ago. If you recall I did a quick video of it running off the present gasifier.
Bill, I thought everyone had forgotten about me…….
Lol- I didn’t have to do much poking around, I had kicked that problem in the butt, except the stirrer had a short life as it ran right up thru the hottest part of the gasser, so I was replacing those on a regular basis.
Pete
Naaaaa we didn’t forget about you. I hate it that you had to leave your build behind.
I’m looking for a little rural land down here….. thinking totally off grid. I still have my solar panels, and a vawt generator….. and oddly enough I came across a steel trailer wheel the other day that I think I might have an idea what to do with it. And living in hillbilly country I keep thinking”still”…….”hooch”…..fuel!! But perhaps I just think too much.
Pete
Hey Pete, just thought I’d take the opportunity to say hi. How’s Casey doing? Maybe if she’s doing okay you can take a video of her curiosity and share it with us. She always puts a smile on our faces. Hope you’re doing okay. Joe
Howdy Joe!
Casey’s doing great, and says hi! I will see what I can come up with…. she’s always coming up with a new way to show me she’s smarter than I am.
Hey Pete ! You are the 9/11 in the gasifier world. We will never forget.
Howdee Bill W,
Yup, limited airflow appears to be one of the problems with this.
The new nozzler seems to have fixed this, as the gasser heats up faster now, and I also get HEEEEEEPSSSS of pyro-gas over the burn zone.
I totally love setting this ablaze each time I open the lid, as the heatwave really melts the ice off my snozz 🙂 .
Nozzles do indeed like to wear out, so it pays to make them easily accessible.
In the original version of this gasser, the nozzles were there to stay, as they simply wood not come out, even when I asked them nicely!
Ceramic nozzles are a good idea, and I think they can be protected with a sort of hood over each one, sort of like mudguards over the wheels of a trailer, perhaps.
My gasser is a bit tarry at present, so I have to run it carefully – in order to keep the engine safe.
Still though, I have had a couple of hundred hours out of it so far, and all is well.
A wee bit more ‘messing about’ is surely called for in order to get this gasser working just right, methinks.
Many wooden watts 2 you,
Steeemee.
i like your automation i live in LaPorte Texas by the gulf of mexico we have lot of hurricane “Harvery Ike” we have loss of power fore weeks at a tine i have bilte a feama gasifire and have lot of tare i can pave my drive way how did you get tare from your system Im am gomg to try your tire rim dezine and im going to try a windsheld wiper motor and swich for my automation i thing i can use auto parts for that dezine
Patrick,
The design of a gasifier depends on the size of the engine you want to use. The restriction zone and the inverted bell leading to the grate are the most important.
Dry wood is a must or all it will do is make tar. The Flash001USA design is proven itself very capable for engines 5hp to 15 hp . Give us a little more information on your generator size, engine and whatever else you can share, such as the electrical load you plan on putting on the generator ( watts )
The windshield wiper motor will work once you figure out how much swing to give the grate. Upload a youtube video for all of us to check out once you do the mods.
To PLATAOPLOMO , I to am in the Philippines . Took a wrong turn of the Canso Causeway leaving Cape Breton Island in the fog and ended up in the Philippines, almost 15 years now.
For fuel for the gasifier, we have a great source of cheap fuel that produces excellent biogas, namely coconut charcoal.
I’m in the process of getting my farm livable and workable so that I can put my gasifier together to make gas for cooking and power generation.
Thank you. I’ve read where Coconut husk charcoal was used. I’m told it was called “Ipopi”.
I am still planning on a wood gasifier.
I am finished with the paper phase and into the scrounging phase. I’ve had to vary from the Flashifier design to fit materials so often I should probably call mine a Phlashifier.
Who woulda thunk of using a thin wall metal broom handle tube for a cooler / condenser segment?
Hope to start cutting and welding next month.
Thanks Flash for the posting space.
Hey you’re more than welcome. That’s what this blog is here for
Hi guys. For all those that have a working gasifier, do you find that water comes out of the engine exhaust, and if so how much?
I do see condensation in the lines sometimes so it’s possible to see water from the exhaust if enough water vapor manages to pass through the gas lines especially during a long run.
Any time fuel combusted the end product result is H20 and CO2, along with NOX and others. The exhaust gas is hot, so the H2O is vapor at exit . It would not be expected to see H2O in the liquid state running out of the exhaust unless at the first startup the muffler or pipe is cold and the water vapor condenses.
I have another basic question. I am sure there is a simple reason for it. But I’m kinda slow today.
In all of the build/flare videos I’ve found … everyone is “pulling” the gas stream out of the gasifier for testing/startup purposes.
With either with some sort of direct vacuum, like a blower/vacuum cleaner, or LP air connected to an eductor to create a vacuum on the gas stream.
I understand that “run-time” will be vacuum driven because the engine needs to suck fuel gas out of the reactor.
Why not use LP air pressure in on the air input to the gasifer during the building/testing/startup phases?
Blow air into, instead of sucking air out of, the burn zone.
Seems to me that would save a lot of grief with gunking up blowers and fans.
I asked the very same question when I started toying around with gasification. The short answer is if you have a blockage you’re screwed. The last thing you want is more oxygen in places where you are trying to create an oxygen restricted environment. Things just go boom. Remember, after the reduction zone, the entire gasifier and all of the pipes are full of hydrogen and co2 just waiting to be ignited ( preferably in the engine). This fuel can’t burn until you add oxygen. Hope this helps. Remember, biochar is your friend when starting your gasifier. Once it’s warmed up, you shouldn’t be making tar . Joe
Uhmmmm …. a don’t mix the streams kinda thing. I get it. Thank you very much.
Hi Plataoplomo Flash here. Gasifiers are basically a negative pressure device and work exactly like a cigarette. As others have mentioned you can create a dangerous situation by forcing fresh air in through the gasifier intake. Yes “foops” are common when the fuel runs low or bridging occurs. Gasifiers are really designed for negative pressures or small vacuums and they are pretty safe so my advise would be not to use positive pressure to move the gas through the system with. If your burn is correct you shouldn’t be seeing goo that gums up the system. Goo is for FEMA gassers. You will however see soot and sometimes damp soot “fake tar” that can be messy and require cleaning. Since I built my Imbert I haven’t had an instance where the system got gummed up with tar but that doesn’t mean you won’t see some on a start-up if you use raw wood instead of biochar as a system starter or if you have a poor run but even then, as long as you catch it you can avoid the kind of mess that requires gasoline and a brush to clean the blower or the gasifier with. I hope this helps answer your question.
Negative pressure only! I tried a few times to push air through- the blowback threw char( red hot) everywhere. I ran my generator for hundreds of hours and never had a tar issue in the engine.
Thanks for the schooling. For a second there I thought I might be smart. Oh well.
Right now I am still on paper, and gathering materials. I see in a lot of the builds where folks were struggling with blowers.
I am going to build for the 5 -> 10 hp range. For use with both petrol and diesel engines. Primarily small electric generation and water pumping.
I’ve read where rate of air flow by in large determines the burn. An Imbert gasifier can burn clean at one engine speed, and dirty at another.
I have a small hand held anemometer. I occurred to me that I could duct this tester in on the air intake of the various engines I am building for.
Run those engines at different rpm’s. Get “relative” vacuum flow readings and chart those. Try to target and build for the sweet spot of what my engines will pull.
The measurements would not be accurate in the scientific sense. But it would be relative from engine to engine, and more importantly from engine to blower.
Thoughts?
Because I wasn’t exactly sure about calculating the restriction throat for given engines I used the FEMA guidelines. Most people see the FEMA builds and they automatically think of a 4 inch diameter steel tube with a grate at the bottom but if you research it they tell you to restrict the bottom of the tube down to a two inch opening for engines in the 5 Hp to 7.5 Hp range. I made my fire cone with the top of the cone at around 5.5 inches and the bottom at 3 inches. I then made a bolt on restriction throat inverted bell combo to allow me to tune the gasifier and what I found that worked for small engines was a 2 inch restriction. It works and the gas is clean. The calculations will get you close but there are just way to many variables such as the wood you use including the elevation you are at so if you are wanting to run small engines start off with a 2 inch restriction throat.
Just thought I’d mention that when you measure the air intake of any engine, you have to remember that it is running on gas and the air/ fuel mixture will be different. I believe wood gas is approximately 50/50. Just keep that in mind when calculating your numbers. Joe
Thank you Flash, Joe, and all. Good stuff for me to noodle on.
Flash, as far as back pressure goes, what does that mean? Was it because the engine had to tough a time drawing intake with water in the way? Please elaborate a bit on your efforts. Just what happened when you tried it? Thx.
Bill the gas has to displace the water in order to bubble through it. Even running with shallow water the back pressure was tricky especially if the engine starts to loose RPM for whatever reason. I was going with the idea of using lava rock or even stainless steel pads with the pipe being immersed about 1 inch into the water so that the bubbling action would work it’s way up into all of the tiny pathways through the pads or the stones to diffuse the gas bubbles in the hopes it would thoroughly scrub the gas. Normally when people build Venturi water filters they will normally have a thin curtain of water that pours that the gas breaks through. Trying to use a “Water pipe or a water bong” approach isn’t really feasible at least not for what I tried.
Guys I, and Joe ppaz both built”water bong” type filters, and I know mine worked successfully for over a year and I was prone to running my generator for hours on end. I think if your gasifier is sized to your generator it’s a very feasible idea…. but that’s just one mans opinion.
Hey Pete, How have you been ? What’s new out in the bad lands? Still running the gasser? I just put an arduino control system on the little flower and it’s now computer controlled ” full auto ” capable.
Hey Flash, what ever became of the homemade woodgas wet scrubber from about three years ago?
Bill I did play around with it but I felt like the back pressure would be an issue.
Hello,
I have been looking for docdcox’s method of making gaskets. Utube and web are not very helpful. Anyone have a link pointing to this info. Fireplace / oven gasket rope is not readily available in my location. I’m gonna have to work-around it.
Thank you.
Plataoplomo, I actually used his method of making gaskets. I looked for the video he posted about making them, and it looks like he removed his videos from YouTube. You are welcome to check out my video showing the results of my gaskets. Here is the link https://youtu.be/1h8MbdvA5X4. Skip ahead to 5:40 or so. There is some important advice there you should take into consideration. One of my older videos than this one shows the materials I used and a little more on how I made them, but you basically staple down fiberglass mat material on top of high quality wax paper and unload a tube or two of high temperature silicone red caulk tubes and use some sort of body filler plastic applicator to spread it as deep into the mat as you can. Then cover it with another layer of wax paper, and lay something smooth on top of the wax paper and put weight on it so it dries with a smooth finish. Then after it dries, flip it over and apply a coat of high temperature silicone to the back side of the gasket and put a layer of wax paper and smooth panel with weights on it so it dries with a smooth finish. Now you will be left with a sheet of gasket material to cut out whatever size gasket you need. I recommend using good scissors and a hollow hole punch set to cut out the gaskets. Mine seem to be holding up nicely. I bought the fiberglass mat from advance auto. By the way, do this in a well ventilated area. The silicone stinks bad. It will take your breath away. Joe
Joe it looks like Dan pulled his youtube channel. I know he was experiencing some health issues a while back that had him really concerned. I hope he’s OK.
Mike, I hope he’s ok. Keep us posted if you find anything out. Joe
I can’t remember who told me but somebody mentioned a while back that he had some major health issues and he was concerned that he wasn’t going to get through them and survived it. I hope he’s okay.
Thank you very much.
I follow you, flash, and about 5 other folks, on u-tube and D.O.W.
I am a Missouri red-neck retired in the provincial Philippines. We have 4 hectares that I farm organic rice, beans, and corn off of. Keeping the jungle cut back is a never ending battle. As a consequence I harvest about 10 or so cords of tropical soft woods a year.
I will attempt a build next monsoon season in June. Long rainy days means working inside the shop and not in the fields. Currently it will be a “flashifier” with the mazdalorean condensation collector. Our ambient humidity averages 80%. I would be hard pressed to dry my fuel-stock below that.
Most of the common materials y’all have are just not available here. I probably could find oven door rope in Manila but that is a 10 hour drive, through Filipine traffic, away.
Once again thanks for the help.
Hey guys, I posted a video. Here is the link. https://youtu.be/p_LZb5ZDv70
Let me know what you think. Joe
Joe, YeeHaa ! Running on wood gas . Bravo ! They sure do pull a lot of moisture when the RH is high. Kind of like cooking dinner: it always tastes better when someone else makes it… That’s why we always enjoy watching the other guy’s run ! Haha.Keep up the good work.
Guys, the more I think about it, I may have done this right at start up. I was warming up on hardwood lump charcoal that I broke into smaller pieces. I also didn’t add any fines like I have done in previous runs. The reason I skipped the fines was the last 3 runs ended prematurely due to packing the bell. I thought if I start without it, and leave my hopper vibrator off, and just gently poke through the hearth when I heard it bridging, I would have a better result. And I did to some extent. At least this run wasn’t cut short due to packing the bell. Joe
I’m in my element, this 22nd of November 2018 with 6*F nights, teens and twenties during the day and a good reason to tip my hat to Flash001USA and say thank you.
And by that I really mean THANK YOU for blazing the trail for us wood gas junkies with your well thought out videos and How To explanations , your time to answer questions from wanna be builders and sharing with us your wisdom gained from trial and error. You definitely made a huge impact on most of the people reading your blog.
The day before Thanksgiving I decided to smoke a turkey for the Thanksgiving meal which we always share with our neighbor. It was supposed to be a cold night and the way I looked at it, smoking a 20 lb bird would take about 9 or 10 hours in decent weather and probably a day in single numbers as predicted. I started at 3:30 pm the day before T-Day, finally finishing at 2:00 am with temps dropping rapidly. That said, I had to finish the final 2 hrs in the house oven to get the internal temp to 170*F.
At 4:45 am my wife woke me up , telling me the grid power was off. Just wonderful ! With almost 3 hrs of sleep I was back on the clock, hustled down to the shop, plug the wood furnace circulator into the battery band/ inverter to keep the wood boiler from overheating. Next, get the small generator going to make coffee and the house refrig powered up. The Jolly Green 30kw generator failed to start right away but finally did start after jumping the battery with the delivery truck. By that time the outside temp was 6*F. With the Jolly Green running everything else was shut down ,
Six hours later on thanksgiving morning the grid power was restored .
That brings us to today, Friday the 23rd with a break in the activities I went down to the shop at 3 pm with hopes of starting the gasifier and the “left for dead” Honda / alternator to recharge the batteries after to previous day’s outage. It’s been a couple of months since I fired it up so I was expecting a difficult time before it would be running properly. Prove me wrong ! Immediately after lighting off the char in the hopper, adding one layer of wood chips I was amazed that the flare lit right off. A little more wood, a little bit of time to get the temps up and the secondary filtered flare lit right off. WOW ! Two pulls on the Honda starter rope and at 21*F in the shop it started right up without even a hiccup during the entire run. Now with a full basket of dried wood, fully charged batteries I’m really feeling good about this wood gas technology. From an absolute cold start to full power in only minutes…. just WOW !
It instills confidence, knowing that during the worst of times it really works, is not dependent upon outside energy sources and I am confident that if TSHTF this will become our saving grace.
So, hat’s off to you Mike, and thank you for all you’ve done.
Best watts to all,
Bill W. NH Hbbyloggr
When SHTF…..”if” has been off the table for a couple of yrs.
Seems that way sometimes, Pete.
” If” – is really just a delay word allowing us to get prepared , fortified, and focused. There are days when I take notice that one particular finger seems to twitch more than usual.
I got 2 of those….Twitchy, and Twitcher. ( yes, I named them)
Bill all of you guy’s have done your part and added and improved this build so I cannot stress this enough that everyone should be patting themselves on the back for a job well done. That’s great that you didn’t have issues with your start-up and I know these gasifiers can be messy and temperamental but yeah, free fuel for the taking just for investing a few hours of chipping up some wood to feed a modified trash can and that you cannot beat!
Hey Bill all of you guy’s have done your part and added and improved this build so I cannot stress this enough that everyone should be patting themselves on the back for a job well done. That’s great that you didn’t have issues with your start-up and I know these gasifiers can be messy and temperamental but yeah, free fuel for the taking just for investing a few hours of chipping up some wood to feed a modified trash can and that you cannot beat!
Mike, Absolutely, the praise needs to be spread out to everyone who has gone down this path. All have made observations , collected data, and shared with us their experiences to make these ” modified trash cans” a viable option. .
Yup , a big shout out to all ; ” THANK YOU !! “
It’s been a fun ride so far. I’ve enjoyed all the great conversation, and seeing everyone’s visions formed into reality. It still amazes me that there aren’t more people out there chasing this technology. I think it takes a certain personality trait to take on a project like this. Stubborn being the #1 trait. I’m always looking forward to seeing and sharing experiences with everyone running these things. We have a wealth of knowledge between us and a broad range of skills. We can all learn something from each other. Keep on sharing and they’ll never keep us under their thumb. Joe
Howdee Bill,
That’s great news about your rescue from doom by that kindly herd of woodgas bugs.
They are obviously rewarding you for giving them so many new necks to chew upon 🙂 .
Now about the Turkey smoking process:
How in the heck did you get it to stay still in your mouth while you set light to it?
Sorry. Couldn’t resist 😉 .
Best watts to you,
Steevo.
Howdee folks,
Just a wonderin’, do you think that there wood be any value in designing a spark generator that can be easily built at home?
The ones I make have computers in them, which makes them impractical for the home builder, but I think a more practical one can be made with a couple of automotive relays – and other car particles.
One relay, along with a suitable capacitor, can become the ‘clicker’, and the other can serve as the ‘set of points’ that will drive the spark coil.
Off the shelf components could be used for this, thereby making it super simple to build.
Once the sparker is up and running, there wood be no need to keep a lighter handy, while waiting for gas flow at the flare port to ignite.
It’s widely known, among me, that this is a wood idea, oops – good, idea 😉 .
Best wooden wishes,
Steevo.
Steve you had a musical spark generator in your older videos. This could be built with an automotive ignition coil driven from a 555 timer circuit that could be set up for burst to start the flare until it was switched over to run the engine.
Howdee Mike,
Indeed, a 555 timer is a good choice for a simple sparkler.
I guess I am thinking along the lines of ‘super simple to build’, so anyone can make one with parts bought from their local auto-store.
Seems to me that this wood be more popular than using a lighter or a torch?
Best wishes,
Steevo.
Steve, I think any useful information you can share will benefit someone who wants to incorporate a sparker into their build. I would like to add one at some point, but I guess I’m just focusing on items that are more of a necessity at this point. I will be looking for your video when I’m ready for it. Right now I’m gathering a bunch of parts. Hoping to get back to work very soon. I’m stuck making many many repairs on unexpected things. Look forward to seeing how you put it together. Joe
Howdee Joe,
Indeed, a sparker is a bit of a luxury, so it can afford to go to a lower spot in the priority list 🙂 .
Like you, I am up to my neck in work, so finding the time to work on any new projects is something of a challenge.
That stated, I kinda like the idea of making a super simple sparker, as it wood knot take too long to build, and it wood be easy to maintain :).
Best wishes,
Steevo.
Ahhh… Finding time to get things done… That should be on a Tee-Shirt. That’s the story of my life.
Indeedeeeee.
There is no rest for the wicked, or us, for that matter.
Currently building a house for my new/old excavator here.
Tons of timber and drainage metal to the rescue 🙂 .
this is how I did it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_e67i5k4IY
Luk, thanks for sharing. That does seem like a simple way to get the job done. Joe
Howdee Luk,
That’s perty sweet, but I am guessing it is powered by the mains?
Ideally, this kind of thing wood be operable on 12V, so as to ensure that the whole system is independent of mains power.
I don’t have mains power here, as the authorities have decided that I am not to be trusted with sharp and sparky things 😉 .
Best wishes,
Steve.
Steve, The one I use is indeed 220V, (a salvation one from an old oil burner). But a quick search on google tells me they come in all voltages, 6v – 12v, and there are even models that are powered by penlight batteries.
Howdee Luk,
That is good to know 🙂 .
Having always needed to build everything for myself, I tend to stick with that approach, instead of looking for off-the-shelf solutions.
Those battery powered sparkers wood save a lot of lighters and gas bottles, I think.
Best wishes,
Steevo.
Steve, you are a gifted man, wish I had your knowledge. But then again, having no knowledge at all, forces a man to think all new.
Howdee Luk,
Thanks kindly.
I feel that ALL of us here are gifted, in one way or another.
Our natural inclination to share our knowledge is watt makes this a truly special group of enthusiasts.
Many folks keep their knowledge to themselves, and they lose so much by doing that.
Here, we share everything, and we all benefit from it in the best possible way :).
Best wishes,
Steevo.
Luk, I was wondering what you guys are up to with the drizzler? Do you still produce power and heat with it? I always look forward to seeing where you’re headed next. Keep us posted. We love videos. Joe
Well, Prices to feed the grid have dropped immensely in Germany. Same time wood prices got up so it is no more economical for Pascal to run his system on daily base. I living in Poland and wanting after finished my new house, go up in off-grid mode, have not so much the need to make money. When I have some spare time in building my house, I am still amusing myself from time to time with woodgas. As a mater of fact I am just editing a video where I am experimenting to find a cheaper and less cumbersome replacement for the bag filter we use. Bag filters have the big disadvantage that you must heat up your bag filter house up above the dew point prior to filtering. Otherwise you destroy the bag. Hope to post the video today or the day’s to come.
Luk, I am looking forward to seeing your video. I have been very busy with a lot of things not gasifier related, but I have been collecting parts , and hope to be really producing power this fall. I mounted a hopper vibrator, added logic to turn it on and off, have all the components to connect the power I make to my house, and I’m in the process of acquiring more inverters and alternators to generate more watts. I’m hoping the additional load on the engine makes the gasifier run hotter keeping it up to temperature. I saw my hearth temps drop while under a light load. Should be fun. Thanks for the update. Joe.
Sooooooper Simple Sparker Station.
Hey guys, I built the design that was buzzering around in my head, and it works like a charm!
Please feel free to take a looky here for an intro video on this:
When I get me a few spare tick-tocks, I will make up a How-To video.
This has got to be the simplest little sparker in the world 🙂 .
Woodgas bugz – – watch out!
Best wishes,
Steevee Sparx.
Oh yes, Count me in on this one. I’m running out of propane bottles and lighters.
As a matter of fact , today I’m moving the entire wood bug clam along with their home to the Musterfield Farm Old Far Day show in N. Sutton, NH . I’ll put on a full blown run several times a day during the weekend event. Already I’m looking for that danged propane torch and lighter. Also hauling up the logging arch and side by side ATV for a log pulling demo. So yes, Steve I would be very interested in your sparkler ideas.
Howdee Billyloggr,
Yup, those pesky fire lighters have a nasty habit of vanishing, especially when it is time to fend off a woodgas bug invasion.
As I see it, they are scared of woodgas bugz, and I really can’t blame them 😉 .
Wow – that show in Musterfield sounds like a lot of fun.
It’s exactly the kind of show I wood like to get into, in order to spread the addiction, oops, hobby of wood to watts conversion.
Yer gasser, and yer logging arch are gonna be a real hit out there, especially among the folks who have a hankering towards building their own ones 🙂 .
As for the sparkler idea, there seems to be two ways to go with it:
1) An electronic one, with transistors and a silly-kin chip.
2) One made from a pair of automotive relays, a spark coil, a capacitor and perhaps a ballast resistor.
The first version will be very powerful, indeed sufficiently so to get the spark plug really hot – at 1000 sparks per second.
The second version wood make 20 to 50 sparks per second, and will sound kinda like a buzzer.
Both will light the flare, even if your lighter is hiding from woodgas bugz 🙂 .
Seems to me that the second option is better, as it ought to be super simple to build.
Gonna collect me some bits, and give this a go – before I make any claims about its goodness as a buggy-gas-burner 🙂 .
Wish me luck 😉 .
Best wishes,
Steevo.
Anybody know what allgood automation has been up to. I just came across his videos, watched all of them and it seems like he disappeared from the planet. I was just curious because it seems like he corrected his issues and never ran it. Hope he’s ok. Joe
Joe, As I recall there were several suggestions to help him along but there was never a reply from him. No idea if he pursued it further. Too bad, he was almost there.
Well you are right about dropping off from the planet because i kinda have. I have not yet fixed the major problem with my gassifier. The problem being the throat is to large 3.5 inches. I need to make it smaller and longer. The reason I have not worked on it is because I cant be around it when it smokes. A year ago January 17 months ago I was diagnosed with interstitial Lung Disease. I am pretty sure it has nothing to do with the gassifier. The Doc’s seem to think it is some kind of autoimmune disease, But they don’t know for sure. I have never smoked a day in my life. I now have lost 60% of my lung capacity and am on oxygen 24/7. I have a good friend that says he will help me do the modifications and testing and finish it up. Maybe this summer.
In the last 5 months I have had over 20 doctors appointments and tests and have seen 9 different doctors. insurance has Spent 6 figures. I am just grateful just to still be here. In January of 2017 I went to the doc with what I thought was pneumonia and then was diagnosed. Crazy thing is my wife had the same crud at the same time and she got over it. I now have fibrosis and scarring in both lungs (permanent damage). Hope this helps and answers you questions. I would love to do more of this stuff but its extremely difficult for me to do any of this stuff any more. But I haven’t given up completely, I am working on some electronics projects for a medical device that i hope to market. Its a device to help people like me that has to be on O2 24/7.
God Bless you all and I hope I never need to use that gassifier because the light’s have gone out for good. A EMP or the like. Thank for being interested and thank you all for your willingness to share your ideas and projects.I still enjoy watching this kind of stuff on YouTube.
Thanks Again All.
Thomas Allgood
AllgoodAutomation
Joe Pass it On.
Thomas, I’m really sorry to hear about all of your health problems. I know that stuff can really get you down and keep you down. It was little over two years ago that I broke my ankle and didn’t know I had a clotting disorder . I had some internal bleeding with the break , and also developed a bunch of clots over the next month. I ended up with what they call a saddle pulmonary embolism. Both lungs were a mess for a long time.I still don’t feel like I fully recovered from it to this day, but like you said , am glad to have survived it. When you look up the symptoms for saddle pulmonary embolism, they include sudden death. What kind of symptom is that? Anyway , thanks for the response and I’m looking forward to seeing what you guys come up with . Remember , we love videos. I’m sure if you take care of those pesky air leaks, and get enough draw on the gasifier, even with the larger restriction , you will make good gas. Just don’t forget to start on biochar or royal oak hardwood lump charcoal. That stuff works like a champ. As for the plc, I know I chose a very expensive, hard to program platform for my project. There is a reason for it though. I work as a maintenance mechanic in a plant that has these plc’s all over the place. I felt like it would be a great training exercise for me to better understand my job and having an application to write my own logic, it gives me the motivation to get it done and I consider it home schooling . There are definitely cheaper ways to go about doing it, but I’ve enjoyed it so far. We all put our own twists on these things , but it’s better than reality shows watching the results of everyone’s ideas. Hopefully between everyone that is using these less expensive , easier to work with controllers, we can put together a how to series for anyone looking to duplicate all of this automation at as low a cost as possible. I know Bill aka hobbylogger is also working with arduino stuff. It should be great to see where all this goes. Hope things get better for you , and I’m looking forward to your progress. Joe Papa
Thomas I just wanted to say that I too am sorry for this ordeal you are having to endure and that my prayers are with you and yours sir.
Thomas, We were thrilled to see a new face when you came on the scene . Sometimes we have to abandon what we love for reasons we don’t understand. I want you to know I thought you were right there on the doorstep to making a flare from the wood gas. Wish I was closer , I’d be real happy to get it going for you. I wish you success in your new direction and strength to deal with the afflictions. Keep in touch with our group and let us know how you are doing. Best Watts, Bill NH Hbbyloggr
Hey guys, just thought I’d take a minute and post a link to the first run of the ninja on woodgas. As usual it had a few impatient bumpy spots, but over all I was happy to finally see this engine running on wood. I will be recording a clean out hopefully today showing what I find in the filters . Not sure if I will totally clean out the filters if I don’t see any tar, but I’ll keep you posted. https://youtu.be/GYNcdFYoAM0 Hope everyone is doing well. Joe
Hey Flash, from what I have seen you do, you certainly have the skill to build a wood chipper. Just think of it as a paddle wheel. Each paddle has a bolted on blade. It’s really that simple. Start with two discs welded onto a one inch shaft. The discs have slits to hold the paddles and weld them in. The blades bolt on and get a little wider at the circumference of the disks, sort of shaped like a T, so that the edge of the disks are covered. The cutting edge is angled at a 45 degree. Have a magnet handy, then heat the blade till the magnet is not attracted to it, which is the time when it gets dropped in a can of water. Let it cool. Now it’s hard but needs to be tempered, which means taking it down a step in hardness so it’s not brittle. You do this by heating it again, but do not put the torch to the cutting edge, but rather start at the back, hold the torch in one place only and watch the color changes. The last color you will see is blue, and then just watch the blue travel to the cutting edge. As soon as it reaches the cutting edge drop it in the water and it is done. Then build a box from half inch steel, drill and tap, and bolt together. The top and bottom are open. Of course it needs holes for the bearings but you can work that out. Arrange it so the cutting blades are a hair away from one side. Drop the branches in and it’s chop chop time. First thing to do is figure out the ideal size for your fuel, then you can size the disks and how many paddles and blades you need. The space between the cutters is the length the fuel will be. The thickness of each branch is up to you, but make the depth a little more than is needed so it can handle everything that might be a little big. Maybe you can put a lean-to roof on the shed, and hang burlap bags filled with fuel to dry it out. To do any serious damage and truly make some real use of your gasifier you will be needing a lot of fuel, so at least start collecting it when ever you have a chance. I hope this helps.
Regards, Bill B.
Hey Flash, just had to write, since you stated that your next move is a chipper. Man did I ever find the perfect solution. This thing is very compact, very simple, very fast, very easy to build, very inexpensive, and highly portable.
First I want to say that from everything I’ve seen concerning wood gas, I believe that the size of the fuel must meet the size of each particular gasifier, and this is a major point. Second, and also very important, each piece of fuel should be as close as possible in size to each other. I believe this combination, along with properly dry fuel is key, and will give the best results.
Okay, this is on youtube. This subject line is long, 13 words, but just have the patience as it is so worth it. (amazing homemade wood chipper firewood processing machine, fastest wood processing chainsaw machines) This page has an assortment of chippers, but the one I want you to see starts at 5:20. You gotta love it.
It looks like a pile of junk, thank god, these are the best, and of course it can be operated on woodgas. You can build it to put out any size chips you want, and feeding it branches that are approximately the same size would be a winning combination.
As far as our last conversation, about the red flare, I know from experience that it can take years for wood to properly dry. I had suggested years ago that anyone that wants to build a gasifier should start collecting the fuel right away. I know by you it is very humid so perhaps you could build a chamber, lets say an old water heater tank, fill it with fuel, and run the engine exhaust into the bottom, cut off the top to let the moisture escape, and then close the lid after the run. Enjoy.
Bill B.
Yeah I went and watched it. I like it and I already have a heavy duty kick-ass gearbox. Where would you find that kind of chipper at? I don’t have the kind of skills or tools to fabricate something like that from scratch.
Flash I do not know where to buy one, but first of all it needs to be determined what the correct size fuel is. If each piece of fuel is to be 1/2 inch long, then the space between each cutting edge needs to be spaced at 1/2 inch. For 3 inch long pieces a larger diameter cutter is needed and each cutter would be spaced at 3 inches. The depth of space between any cutter blades could be made to be a little deeper than would ever be needed.
Now, fuel size is important, but to find just the right size branches would be a monumental task, so for that sake you could determine the approximate size/range for each gasifier and just go with that. But uniform is best for even heat.
If one really wanted exact size, 3, 4, or 5inch logs could be cut to lets say six inches long, and fed through a mini log splitter, splitting them into sticks. This ought to make them very close in size.
There are several ways to make the cutter and one is to have the local machine shop mill one from a solid billet, and another is to weld pieces of heavy duty angle iron to a 1inch diameter shaft. Each piece of angle iron would be cut to look like an L. The short side gets welded to the shaft.
The machine shop way may be a bit expensive, but even so, consider the years of service you will get from it. Lets face it, even with the best gasifier in the world fuel will always be needed.
I want to say a little about having a system. I have heated my house with wood for 41 years. Most people buy a pile of wood just before the heating season and they struggle with it. When I burn, I am burning wood that was split and stacked three years prior. Just before the heating season I cover the wood to be used with a plastic tarp. I use three cords a season. The heat generated and the efficiency achieved is the best one could ever have. A system also makes it easier. Once set up, you don’t use good hours on a Saturday morning to split wood, but rather dead time is used. These times are times when you know you can’t do anything else, like go out, because dinner will be ready in 15 minutes, so spend those 15 minutes working on the wood, or lets say your evening shower is 30 minutes way. Once you have a system set up you can do things like that. It’s just so much easier with a system.
So now that you have come this far with your gasifier, take it to the next logical stage to keep it running without breaking your back.
After seeing all the super fabricating you have done I thought for sure this would be a cinch for you to build. But I do get the feeling somehow that you are pressed for time. So just think of all the time you will save in the future, so make your plans for the build and eventually over time you will have it. Really it’s just cutting and welding on a small project.
I also think that right now, fuel is your problem, considering that red flame after the filter. So think about it. It actually took me years to realize I’m killing myself and that I need a system. I suppose it actually comes down to organizing. This way you could always keep the batteries charged, and from there expand it to power the house too.
Regards,
Bill B.
Question for Flash. I viewed the 3/31/18 vid, and just before you started the gen you had the flare going down by the gen, which must have come from the filters because you pulled the gas hose from the flare and put it right to the gen and started it right up. Why was the flame red instead of blue?
That’s a good question because normally I will see a blueish white flare or even a white flare and at times a faint reddish flare. I’ve been seeing red and orange flares from the filtered side for quite a few runs now. The main thing I’m looking for once the gas is filtered is for ANY fog or faint smoke coming from the flare port before I light it up. If I see any fog or smoke I will not run the engine until I determine if what I’m seeing is tar in the gas or just steam vapor from the heat passing through the filters that could have been caused from residual water dampness from the washed filter media evaporating into the gas. Tar will almost always burn yellow and a purple flare is from a semi-clean gas that contains a tiny bit of tar in the mix. To answer your question before I ignited the flare the gas was invisible so the only thing I can think of is maybe trace minerals or other things other than tar being passed along with the woodgas. If in doubt the correct way to test the gas is to lay a cloth over the flare port for about 10 or 15 seconds and if the stain washes out you are OK but if it stains the cloth you have a tar issue. I didn’t even have the need to do a cloth test because the gas from my filtered side is invisible.
Hey Flash, seen your automated system. Man that must give you a thrill and a boost every time that bugger kicks in. Good job, congrats.
Saw your garden area, mr homesteader, very good. Saw the greatest thing at dogdecoys.com. No more deer or pests in your garden. I haven’t had a deer in 6 months.
Keep up the great work, we want more.
Ok, you got me. Flash it’s all your fault Man those videos sucked me right in.
So now I know what my summer project will be I already ordered the rim.
I would much appreciate someone sending me a copy of those mentioned cad files and any other useful tidbits that may add to the excitement.
Thanks!
hjackj@yahoo.com
John, welcome to woodgasaholics anonymous. The first step is admitting you have a problem being held captive by oil and power companies. From there we slowly work toward getting out from under their thumbs. You’ll find plenty of people here, with all different specialties, willing to offer help however we can. Most of us have already been through the challenges that you will be encountering, and share what works well, and what has limited success. This is all open source with the goal of getting as many people on the road to energy independence or whatever your intentions are with gasification. It is a subject worth investing in, and a design worth building . I have some of the cad drawings on my home computer. I will try to send them your way later today. my YouTube name is mazdalorean. Welcome to woodgas, and be sure to post videos of your progress and share the links with us here. We love videos. Keep us posted on your progress. Joe Papa
OMG, I have another problem?
Thanks Joe, I’ll be starting it this summer my main questions right now are about possible different filter materials especially natural ones for future times when things will be harder to acquire.
Hey John,
First procedural order of business before undertaking this project will be taking your wife and children aside, tell them you love them but you have discovered a new love. Life will never be the same again for you or your family.
We have great amounts of experience in these manners and understand what you will be going through.
We are here to help, offer marriage counseling ( to some degree) and a full guarantee that you will enjoy the ride, at your expense.
Now, what ever possessed you to try this out? What’s the story behind the story?
And yes, we thrive on videos, pictures and exaggerated stories.
Best of luck and welcome aboard !
Bill W —- NH Hbbyloggr—-
I think that I got lucky there Bill. I have a few of these “problems” and she is a tough one. The Kid is even helping.
I’m one of those “survivalist” types and one day hope to have a totally self sufficient farm- homestead and this technology could potentially be a big part of that goal.
I have always been a “tinkerer- rigger.”
Hey John, We are all about good humor here. We have some great builds here and are happy to share our success and failures with you. Good deal with the family being onboard. Mine was too. They are a hardy bunch and can tolerate my creative side to a point. Of course it helps to lose power now and then so that my reputation is vindicated.
Bill
“It helps to lose power now and then so that my reputation is vindicated.” Bill that needs to be on a Tee-Shirt.
Mike, LOL But the phrase is long enough that it would have to wrap around the whole shirt. I’d have to spin like a top to get the message out.
Bill, it’s like job security. Every time something fails , your family is always happy they have someone around that can take care of the problem for a fraction of the cost of someone that knows what their doing. As for the filter material questions, I’ll let you guys field the question. You all have much more experience with different filter materials. Thanks for the laugh. Joe
John, As far as filtering material found in the wild, dry straw, dry wood chips, shavings work as long as they are not tightly packed. Also, I have two pre-filters which use 3/8 Pea Stone. They really grab hold of particulate and further cools the gas, trapping moisture as the gas is pulled through. I’m probably going to change from the more round type pea stone to a more angular screened crushed stone.
Be sure to wash the fines out of the stones before you use them. You can get a ready supply of stone from any gravely creek, brook or river. Totally renewable and washable. I keep three full batches , washed dried and ready for easy change outs. Stainless steel scrubbers top and bottom of the filters keep the stones in place.
BTW Steve T in NZ also uses this filtering method.
Hope this helps. I have a couple videos on them on YT at” NH Hbbyloggr” channel.
Let me know if you need more detail
Bill — NH Hbbyloggr
Bill, I did see your pea stone vid. Are you switching because of flow restriction?
I wonder how lava rock would work very porous and lite but it’s not readily available at the creek in Pa. though.
John. 3/8 round peastone tend to pack a little to tightly. I’m going to try 1/2 crushed quartz. More angular and will allow better flow I think. The experimenting, It never ends. I had another run this morning and will probably fire it up tomorrow too. I just like doing it even if there isn’t a reason.
Now, Matt , over at Thrive Energy systems doesn’t use any filter media. Just a series of cyclones. He even says they don’t need to be ” conical “, just cylinders. I have a bunch of 4” metal conduit piping which I used for the P Stoners and may set up a rack of those hollow cyclones to see how it does. He is pretty successful and way ahead of us, so he might be on to something. That said, he does have one paper filter installed just before entering the engine. If that gets contaminated it shuts the engine down immediately. Makes sense to me.
The more ideas and tales of success or failure you add to your tool box the better you will be able to work with these little flowers.
What do you plan on running, Generators? alternators? charging battery banks, or keeping the coffee hot?
Bill
Bill, There’s no reply button after your other comment so I’m replying here.
I’m going to start out just running my small generator for outages and use that to “cut my teeth” on.
I do one day hope to have a working farmstead and run the whole thing with wood gas including vehicles.
Does anyone know why some comments don’t have reply buttons and are we missing a step?
John,
I suspect leaving a return reply has to stay within the original thread. Not sure but Mike ( Flash) is the moderator and he would be the one to ask. If you want to get in touch with me, email is hbbyloggr@grolen.com . I’ll include you in our regular shared discussions. There are a few of us who chat quite regularly. I’d say we are family in my book.
You are starting out like I did. Just want a back up source of power not depended upon the grid. The ice storm several years ago which shut down New England for a couple weeks was the inspiration for me. I’ve been working on this gasifier ever since and have had a great time with it, met the best people in the world and I’m grateful for taking this path. Bill- NH Hbbyloggr
John I’m not sure why they set it up like this but if you leave a reply or a remark we all get the messages and we can actually see who is talking to who. It’s kind of like a digital party line.
John, This is Mark, aka mada94fx and have the full set of CAD drawings if you need / want them. Just let me know and I will send them to you
Flashlove your work viv please call me 620 617 4738 Ray in central Kansas I am ready to build one of your gasifiyers haveknowlge welding build tooling 30 years
Hey Mark, would it be possible to get a copy of the PDF files also. I have been taking notes and making rough sketches of your build. I can use all the help I can get and it would be greatly appreciated. I am not going to start my build until after the holidays. Gathering materials, now and getting ready. Thanks for all your video’s. They are a great inspiration. I have been bitten by the bug, and can;t wait to get started. Thanks. Jack ( Tater Tot) nrmracing@yahoo.com
Jack, I sent a copy of the cad drawings to your email address. If I sent it right you will also now have my email address. Any questions just ask. Joe
Hey Joe, Thanks so much for the PDF drawings. They are so much easier to read than my sketches I made from viewing Mikes videos. I have one question. On a later video, Mike was talking about the extension tube modification. He suggested a straight tube about 3 inches long.. And on one of your videos, I believe you made a modification to an extended tube. Would you like to elaborate on that and what benefits it had. Thanks and really appreciated the quick response to my request.
Jack (Tator Tot)
Jack, the modification was Mikes idea. Originally it was just a straight tube with a 3″ id. about 3″ long. Mike thought it would be better if the tube was a little bit longer, but didn’t want to keep it a straight tube , so it is a slight inverted bell. Here is a link to one of my videos that show a series of pics showing the build of this part. Now this was my interpretation of the part. I machined a solid piece of round steel down so the 3″ opening at the bottom of the hearth had more of a funnel to it rather than a plate that reduced the the 3″ diameter hole to about 2 and 1/4″ at the top and 2 and 1/2″ at the bottom about 5″ tall. The idea was to not make it difficult for the char to make its way to the ash grate by making the reduction zone open up slightly as the char moves downward. The extra 2 ” in length add to the amount of filtering that can be done by the char to make the gas cleaner . Here is the link and sorry for the crappy quality. these pictures were taken on an old phone and I couldn’t get them any clearer. https://youtu.be/ZFDNzRl2XZ0 . Just skip to 7:45 and it will take you to a drawing that I made of the side profile of the part. Hope this helps. Joe
Thanks again Joe. I will definitely double check any charts and info I can find before I fabricate the size of the cone to make sure it will work with my generator. From what I read so far a 420 cc 16 hp should work with the 5-inch cone. I will keep searching to verify before I build. On another note searching thru the older comments, I figured out what happened to Flash. WOW! Flash I hope you are healing and getting back to your old self. Wish I lived closer maybe I could help out in some way. We don’t have much but Franklin County VA is the moonshine capital of the South. Maybe a little MaMas recipe might ease the pain. Get well my friend, our prayers are with you and your family.
Jack, the hearth dimensions don’t change. It is 5″ at the top and funnels down to 3″ at the bottom as per the cad drawings. The part that bolts on the bottom of the hearth is what we refer to as the reduction zone. It almost resembles an upside down top hat. Hope this makes sense. I think you might be ok with the 2 1/4″ at the top and 2 1/2 at the bottom dimensions I told you about earlier. Maybe someone else can verify the approximate reduction extension for a 16 hp engine.
Hey Jack. Mark here. I see that Joe sent you the drawings and they helped out out with your understanding of the system. I also have a pile of cutaway views of every part of the system if you think they would be of help. I am not sure if Joe had the filter drawing as of yet. I sent them to Mike to add to the PDF file. Let me know if the filter build was included. Any questions you may have, or if you would like pictures of my build, feel free to contact me at mada94fxr@gmail.com and I will be happy to help you with what ever questions you may have. The main thing is to take your time with the build and make sure it’s air tight. Each or our builds are slightly different than the Flashifier. Mine is the closest to Mike’s original build almost to the tee, including the 3″ dia. x 3″ long straight extension. I have 4 different engines I have run on the system so far, with different HP and all have run just fine to this point. I just replaced the engine on my DC generator from a 9 HP Briggs to a 16 HP single cylinder Kohler. I haven’t tried it on bug juice yet. But I will be doing that soon.
Mark
Hey there Mark, Thank you for your reply.
Joe was kind enough to send to me the 4 page PDF file on the trailer hub fabrication. Which really helped. I would appreciate any information on the rest of the build you would be willing to share. I have been compiling my own notes and sketches from the Flash videos. Any sketches or additional PDF files would be more than welcome. Thanks again
Jack
Yesterday’s news today: Embellished, of course.
Steve D , a nuclear scientist, high temp expert entrepreneur and prepper ! stopped by to see a NH Flower performance. He is a real down to earth guy as I’ve mentioned, hands on, and very interested in the alternative energy sources. I had the gasifier cleaned right out, no char or wood in it , the nozzle removed for him to see up close to show the oxidation effects .
First thing he does is dig into the 5 gal pail of char with both hands to feel what the texture is like of those little carbon nubbers. Yup, he is now a member of “ Black Hands Matter “ group , the anti-energy establishment movement not at this time sweeping the country.
One of the most telling expressions on his face was when I snapped the LFD to life. Here is this scientist, over the top knowledge guy, with the biggest twisted grin I’ve ever seen. I mean, this was a grin usually only seen on 10 year olds when they have been told what to watch for but then to actually see it with their own eyes, was a moment in time for me. Ahhh, the first nip of the bug bite.
The flares, the effects on the flares as the grate and vibrator added their timed input, were all recognized by him. Even as the LFD was running, he was over at the air/gas mixer flash carb twisting the adjuster back and forth , evaluating the effects just a slight twerk makes for optimum performance. . I mean, this guy was picking it all up, almost giggling over the effect he was having on the little LFD Honda.
He says that we all have something here to be very proud of here.
It was then that I realized that I had not turned on the cameras. A couple of hours had passed rather quickly and we all had other things to do for the rest of the day…at least he did. There was still wood in the hopper when I shut it down and he went along on his merry way , skipping down our old dirt road with butterflies following along. He was last seen rounding the corner, whistling and singing to his flighty little followers.
For me, a firm believer in never leaving a good piece of wood un-burned, I opened the air nozzle , turned on the blower and restarted the process…with the camera turned on this time. I have in my array of diagnostic tools, normally just a big hammer and garden hose, a laser guided infrared temperature gun and like with a new toy at Christmas , took readings of the barrel, rad tubes, Expansion tanks, P-Stoners final filters, LFD exhaust pipe, a mouse running along an overhead cable( who was not impressed having a laser beam tracking him) , and, back to business, the internal temp of the wood . Surprisingly the wood temp at the top was 211*F. The mouse escaped .Ha !
This was by far a great day for this NH Hbbyloggr and a real morale booster for the little wood gas buggers who have been so patient.
At this time I would like to introduce Steve to our group of enthusiasts. His knowledge of high temperature materials , real time measurement instrumentation , would be helpful to all of us. His immediate interest is in building a gasifier using coal as a fuel source. Any input from our fellow gasoholics would be welcomed.
All the best watts,
Bill
Welcome Steve D, I think you’ll find that there are no shortage of people willing to answer questions and give lots of useful advice. The prints that are floating around are very thorough and should be pretty straight forward to follow. You will find that this is a solid design and gives great performance compared to lots of other designs out there. Mike hit a grand slam with this build and I can’t wait to get to the point of real power production. Feel free to ask any questions you may have. Joe Papa AKA Mazdalorean
Howdee Bill,
Ahhhh, I love your colourful use of the mother tongue here 🙂 .
As the computer read it to me, I chuckled, lotsly, and almost suffered a keyboard sized coffee tsunami 😉 .
Luckily, I was testing a sample of Mr Trump’s new wall at the time, and it successfully held back the flow of caffeine enhanced goodness for long enough that I could suck it up with an extra absorbent woodgas bug 🙂 .
Here’s hoping your newest bugbite victim will become hopelessly addicted to the goodness of woodgas power in the very near future.
You sure are hooking lots of new victims, and you are duly making your woodgas bug slave drivers very happy indeed 🙂 .
Best wishes, oh addicted one,
Steev.
Hi Steve, cannot wait to see what you make! Keep us posted
have you guys seen this study?
Click to access FA8E776E5DF04FA28DAECBB50DE12536.pdf
Tim, it’s nice to see schools working with gasfication. The all power labs guys have some great videos on the science of gasification. Im not sure if you’ve seen them , but they do a great job of explaining what is really happening iside the gasifier. Joe
Tim, Thanks for the read. One of my wood customers, a professor at a community college, took an interest in our gasifier and submitted a proposal as a senior project to help build an air/fuel mixture control to any students interested .
Unfortunately there were no takers this time around. Too bad, a missed opportunity for some student who might have discovered a new path.
At least the idea was presented and some young thinker might have been nipped just enough to look in our direction. You never know.
I’ve been keeping an eye on your build- looking like a fun ride. As for me, um, I”lost” my place Aug of 17- and now I’m a Arkansas hillbilly….. for now. I had to put my gasser down, sadly. But don’t fret- I still have a little sawdust flowing through my veins, and I still watch everyone’s videos…. and I still think about my next one.
Pete, Oh man, I’ll bet that hurt when you couldn’t take the gasser with you. …and you had yourself a pretty decent runner , too. Lot of good ideas there. Must be the management at RP beat on you, eh? Sorry to hear about that. How’s your little girl Casey doing ? Hope she’s good.
Do you have family in Arkan ?
Drop a line when you can ! Stay well, my friend.
Bill
Bill, the gasser was hard to leave…. my only regret, should I have one. Between the bank and that hellhole I worked for, I got into a money pit I couldn’t escape- but such is life…. I’m alive, healthy and happy. Casey will be 25 in March- I’ve almost spent half my life with her- she’s doing great, also. I am down here taking care of my mom, and glad I can, funny how things work out sometimes ( seems God does have plans for me ) I got lots of fishing holes here, acres of land to explore, it’s beautiful here, unlike Nebraska…. even killed me a couple of copperheads so far! I got no complaints, the winters are mild on my aging bones, plenty of shade in the summer. My bike gets me through the mountains so far, so yeah, life is good. Hope you and your family are doing well. Keep in touch, dude, always willing to watch a video or talk on the phone.
Take care
Pete
hello everyone, im getting into this gasifier building , i jumped in and just threw one together before i knew anything about them, yep you guessed it, it doesnt work , so after finding out about flash001usa on youtube, ive opted to start all over and build me a flashafier, and thanks mike for all the information to build my own, if i can get it figured out , i would like to do the same as you and pay it foward and help someone else, mark-tennessee
Welcome ! Good choice with the Flash001USA gasifier. I’ve got a couple hundred hours on the one I built using his design and never stop learning as we go.
Good luck to you and give a shout if we can help. Bill W.
NH Hbbyloggr
Welcome Mark , I’m with Bill saying if you have any questions, just ask away. You shold be smooth sailing with a copy of the prints on auto cad . If you don’t have them yet let us know. Mark from Florida drew up some nice plans for us all. Makes the build much easier. Joe Papa a.k.a. mazdalorean.
What’s up Mark, Flash here (Mike here) If you have any questions there are enough of us to help you out with any questions. If you have not started on the new build yet hold off. I just did a updated build that may be simpler but I won’t be able to test it and upload a video for at least a week due to going out of state but I will test it and upload a video as soon as I return.
Mike , I’m super excited to see you’re back at it. I am really looking forward to seeing your new build in action. Keep us posted. Joe
Looking forward to seeing the new creation, Mike. Another home run from your camp ? Bill
Bill it’s the same build but simpler and smaller with a few twist. Stay tuned.
You’re killing me, Man !
Hey there Mark from TN. This is Mark from FL. Welcome to the group. If you would like the PDF CAD drawings and instructions, post your e-mail address and I will be glad to send them to you. Mike should have his new build done very soon. But, I also have a pile of other CAD drawings that I can send you for different components like the filters, controls for auto shake and vibrate. Just let me know
I would like a copy of the plans Mike. Where in FL are you?
Hey guys, just thought I’d let everyone know I did some more testing on the ninja and the electrical system. For some reason , notifications were not sent out, so here is the link if you want to see the progress. https://youtu.be/7bplTdCwXsM
I still have a few bugs to work out, but it’s finally making power on demand. I will continue to test on propane till I get things all squared away, then I will be able to fire up the gasifier and run on wood. I’m looking for suggestions on why I’m only seeing about half of the rated power output from my inverters. Bill did leave his feedback and I will try his idea when I get a chance. Later. Joe
In answer to all the talk I’ve missed…. I use biochar mix, and burn up a fair amount of plastic, too.
I just started a methanol cow to see what the output is…..been wanting a still, but haven’t had time.
Keep in touch,my fellow gassers.
Pete
Hey Pete,
Question for you about the plastic. Do you chop it up small? and what do you figure the ratio is to the wood ? Do the still , Man ! Just Do it !
I run it thru a cheapo wood mulcher, I also just save all small bottle lids and they go in like that… I go about a20 to 1 ratio- works pretty good. depending how hard you’re pulling on it. As for the still….OK, I pretty much accidentally got most of what I need. I see some possibilities!
Cool Pete. Definitely keep me in the loop with that experiment my friend.
I actually have a pretty decent phone ( camera) now too. I was thinking this fall?
I have a question for everyone. What are your thoughts on adding some biochar to your gasifier fuel? I’m thinking you can change volatiles to fixed carbon ratio from 80/20 to more of a 50/50 ratio allowing more carbon to be available for the reduction reactions. I think there are more advantages than just the ratos. You can lower the pyrolysis load on the combustion zone by diluting the amount of raw fuel passing into the combustion zone. Plus everyone talks about having leftover usable biochar, and it can be a good way of getting the rest of the energy out of the biochar. I just thought it would be interesting to hear what everyone’s thoughts are on the subject. Joe
Howdee Joe,
Yes, I think you’ll find that this idea works quite well.
Bill does it, and I seem to remember that he gets good results from it, while also getting rid of all that leftover chark-o-cola 🙂 .
Best wishes,
Steve.
Joe,
I’ve been doing that for awhile now. I do save some for starter char , screen the fines out from the accumulated char collected in the bottom of the barrel. Most of the salvaged char gets mixed back in with the wood chips at about 5:1 , The fines go into the garden or sometimes get tracked into the house.
I also just started snipping little pieces of plastic and adding that in to the mix. Jury is still out on that one.
Bill it’s strange to hear you mention plastic as an additive because years ago when I started this I talked to this guy that like “down under” Steve lived totally off grid and he used to swear by it. He used old plastic coke bottles and chopped them up into tiny pieces. He said that way it wouldn’t turn to melted goo and clog things up. I’ve never tried it but I do see where biochar would work. I’ve tried biochar but I couldn’t tell you how well it works since it’s been a long time. I’ve also trued pure biochar during a run and yeah it produced gas but it isn’t efficient with our types of gasifiers so you really need to build a gasifier that is designed just for biochar. but that’s another story for another time.
Yeah, that Steve guy from down under is a bit of a strange booger.
He chases camels around the farm with his infernal flying machines, while living off grid like some sort of weird hippie 😉 .
Yup, plastic bits, mixed in with the treezel bits, works like a charm, and it certainly does add a noticeable degree of watty oomph to the volty goodness coming from the generator.
I wood suggest that you don’t add more than about 5% by volume of plastic to the wood, so as to ensure that your charcoal bed doesn’t lose its integrity during a run.
Mine eats a lot of plastic during the year, and it is none the worse for wear, other than getting kinda old and worn out 🙂 .
Hey Mike, How’s the arm doing? Yeah, I’m in pretty close touch with the wildly talented Steve from down under and all the trials he’s had. I think he said he runs 20:1 wood to plastic when he has it from the CNC turnings.
I have noticed the flare goes from blue to red-orange when the bits hit the jack pot. I’ll try it out on the Left For Dead Honda by and by. Hope everyone is well !
Bill NH Hbbyloggr
Bill the guy I used to talk to when I got into this went by the youtube name technofreak and he said it gave the gas some more punch but like anything else I would have to tinker with it to get an idea if and how much it contributed to the engine performance. As to the arm I’m just glad it’s still attached to me. It’s still sore and I can only get temporary range in it because once I rest it, it gets tight. Only the shadow knows how long it will be before I get free movement back in it.
Flash, try putting Knox gelatin in 1/2 cup water let it set out till it turns to gelatin, then gag that down your hatch for a month- ya read up on it, the stuff can do your joints slot of good. I’m not a doctor, but I play one all the time, check it out.
Pete
Pete, I think I just turned green.
It’s really just a lot worse than lumpy malt o meal, but man does it work. There’s also turmeric curcumin, or cinnamon, both In the vitamin aisle, true cinnamon has a lot of good properties, once again- I am not a doctor, but I do offer free medical exam’s to pretty girls, I do not get a lot of willing ladies, unfortunately.
Oh well, it’s a numbers game.
Pete
Pete, No girls are interested in medical doctors, but hang out a shingle saying you are a recovering woodgas voodoo doctor of questionable moral character and you will have to buy a reservation book…..maybe even start a lotto. They can call me for references if you need me.
“here’s also turmeric curcumin, or cinnamon” Hey man I’ve been taking this stuff religiously even before the accident.
Mike, sounds like you’re on the right track, you know those surgeons can be a little rough, I’ve watched videos of surgeries that make me cry…. try the Knox, it’s got no flavor, just the consistency that can be” hard to swallow”…. it really turned me around, but I was just sore- nothing like your situation, but what can it hurt, and it’s cheap. I use them all, I, too, am a ” health nut” and like natural medicines over pharmaceutical stuff. even the Bible tells us to avoid pharmacist, but anyway, keep moving, I hope things improve.
Pete
Pete at this point I would eat horse shit laced mud pies for a month if I thought it would help my arm. Thanks, I may give that a shot.
Mike- do not go for the pies! We have all kinds here and while they might work in the gasifier, they’re still turds if ya eat them. I switched shifts and jobs and I was hurting, every tendon, ligament and muscle.knox did wonders for me. Also try glucosamine chondroitin- that also helps your joints.
Good luck I hope ya find some relief!!
Pete
Pete I started taking glucosamine chondroitin again this week. I’m not sure if this is tendons or what. The only thing I can think is when they had my arm cut open they probably pulled the bone they were putting back together out enough to reattach the broken pieces so my thinking is they stretched things in ways that they would not normally get stretched plus I did have a muscle that was ripped in half that they put back together. Dude this has sucked but all I can do is continue to work out and hope for the best.
Joe it sounds logical to me. The only way to know how effective it is is to actually try it.
Bill, I’m chiseling my shingle tonight- I knew I could count on you!!
The day begins with soft cello music in the background, the sun about to peek through the trees. The predawn breeze shimmers the leaves as the music builds intensity.
It is the day we have all been waiting. A new dawn, a new bug bitten wood gas victim is about to wander into the shop as a willing subject, soon to become a convert, one of the chosen few to unlock the secrets of the sweet wood tea.
He shall have is pockets filled with precious chunks of Butt Cut puzzle pieces upon his initiation. His palms pushed into the puddle of post gasification wood tea. He will smell his fingers with pride, knowing the release of pure energy was good, magical and he now shares the power to turn the key to unlock the chest filled with volts and watts. Amps be unto you who believe. Before you lies the freedom from the grid. Now go forth and set forth a flurry of hatchet swings, chunk wood and bring peace to your soul.
Anonymous Hbbyloggr
Just thought I’d share the link to a short update. The are a lot of details that I would have liked to put in this video, but I know it would take a couple of weeks till I get the time to get the editing done. So this is more of a teaser video right now. https://youtu.be/Y-deFXS5vcs
Thanks Flash, I have emailed Bill and plan to pay him a visit with in the next few weeks. Al
Hi Guys,
Thanks for the quick response! I have started to construct the hearth and wanted to make sure the fire cone dimension were capable of supporting a 20HP (12KW) generator. I found a sweet deal on a slightly used generator that was hard to pass up! I do see in Flash’s videos that he is using a 5 HP engine and his design should support up to a 15HP generator. He mentions increasing the size of the air intake nozzle (1/2” to ¾”) and the reduction zone cone for the size of engine that you plan to run. Any recommendations on the reduction zone cone would be greatly appreciated. I know there is a chart for the sizing of the FEMA burn tub to engine size, does such a chart exist for the Imbert style gasifier?
I also did not see the thickness of steel used to make the reduction zone cone called out. I assume it is 1/8”.
Al
Hi Allen Flash (Mike) here. When I built this design a lot of it was trial and error and The true upper end of the gasifier may be closer to 12.5 Hp. Bill (NH Hbbyloggr) has tested larger engines so you may want to pick his brain too. I’ll be more than glad to give you as much feedback as I can if you need it. Good luck with the build.
Hello Everyone, first off I wanted to thank Flash for building this web site. I know that making all the videos and compiling all this information on wood gasification and no easy task. I would also like to thank all the other Wood Gaser for contributing and sharing their knowledge. I have watched all the videos at least once and read through the blog. This was very educational, thanks again! I have heard mention of a PDF file of drawing of the Flashifier. Would it be possible to get a copy of this file? If possible could someone email it to me at afraser@metrocast.net. I have started to gather the materials needed to build a Flashifier and think these drawings would aid in the process.
Hi Bill, I live in central New Hampshire and would love to pay you a visit and see your gasifier. Please let me know if that would be possible. Al
Hi Al, and welcome. We have all had good success with Flash001USA’s basic design. Everyone building one of these has modified their rig to suit their needs and have lived to tell about it here on the Blog. There are a couple of other builders with different designs but as we know ” all roads lead to Rome “.
At the moment my gasifier is apart being modified , though all the components are here waiting their turn for restoration. You are more than welcome to come have a look, share your story and I’m sure we can be of help if you need it. I’m hoping to be back together in a month but there are forces out there competing for my time. That said, all I have to do is weld on one pipe and I can stitch it all back together to demonstrate a run for you. I would be happy to do that. Where in the Granite State do you live? Send me your Email address to hbbyloggr@gmail.com and I’ll tell you our address. Basically we are 20 miles west of Manchester. Even if it is not running there is plenty to show to help you get started.
Give me a heads up in a week or so and I’ll make sure it is operational for you.–Bill NH Hbbyloggr
Hey there Al and welcome. Bill contacted me and told me of a new victim on mimiwoodgas. I will send you the PDF files later this afternoon after I get finished with my dirty deeds for the day. I will send them in 3 to 4 e-mails as there are like 12 separate pages. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.
Mark
Welcome Al. I think between Flash’s videos and the pdf’s and a little time reviewing the details, it will all be very clear. If you do have any trouble, all of us will offer help. Just remember we like pictures and videos so keep us posted. Let us know if you need anything. Joe
Hi Everyone,
So I’ve been buried with work and spring tasks at my lot so I had shelved starting my gassifier until the fall.
Completely unrelated to woodgas I was looking into a still for making …. water. I stumbled across an article about distilling methanol from wood. Where I am distilling fuel is legal.
I started thinking about switching my power focus from a gassifier to a methanol plant. Then instead of having to startup the gassifier every day to charge my batteries I could run the methanol plant periodcaly (monthly maybe) and build up a reserve to run the generator. Then the generator could even be started automatically when needed even when I am not there, something that is not possible with a gassifier.
Another added benefit is for methanol production the smaller the wood pieces the better so running on wood chips is ideal. This means wood production should be easier given my potential fuel source (logging slash piles)
Has anyone else looked into creating methanol for running their generator on? Would love some feedback even if its that you think I’m crazy.
Thanks
You could check out the all power labs videos. I do believe they are doing some research on gas to liquid fuel. Here is the link . https://youtu.be/KFtrhz47K3Y I’m not sure if this is what you are referring to , but I knew I saw this so I thought I’d share it. Joe
Joe I seen this. Very interesting. It is a little involved but a good concept.
I have all the parts and pieces to make a still as well for making………water………
Actually, I have 16 big batteries on my solar system that need it and had thought about making hooch to see how it works in one of my spare engines. I know that during prohibition, the moonshiners would run the hooch in their tanks for a boost to outrun the Feds that were chasing them. That is also where NASCAR kind of got it’s start. Think Junior Johnson. But in today’s engines with the rubber parts in the carbs and the valve material ( think unleaded fuel compared to leaded), it may be a problem. But, if you are planning on having solar out at your place, a still is not a bad thing to have for your battery bank. Beats buying distilled water.
Mike, sounds like you’re on the right track, you know those surgeons can be a little rough, I’ve watched videos of surgeries that make me cry…. try the Knox, it’s got no flavor, just the consistency that can be” hard to swallow”…. it really turned me around, but I was just sore- nothing like your situation, but what can it hurt, and it’s cheap. I use them all, I, too, am a ” health nut” and like natural medicines over pharmaceutical stuff. even the Bible tells us to avoid pharmakia, but anyway, keep moving, I hope things improve.
Pete
Marvel mystery oil mixed into hooch, or gasoline, will lubricate those plastic and rubber pieces, helping to keep your engine from the deteriorating effects of” strong gas”