Mark, gateway drug try Gary gilmore’s charcoal simple fire; basically a drum, a nozzle, filters.
Then you could try all power labs open source entry level gasifier.
I bought Ben Peterson plan book and it is awesome. I’m still accumulating scrap for it.
Next you could go premium here, get the book and access to members builds on the premium side. Several scaled down wk units…
David Baillie
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Hi Mark Brown. I echo welcome to the DOW too.
First your goal is now well 21st century advanced, proven and DOable.
For your best info traction here on the DOW open up that horizontal stacked lines icon on the top tool bar to see all of this forums topics sections.
You will find Gary Gilmore “the Charcoal Man” and others doing this as DavidB says with that made fuel in CharcoalGasification.
Next if you are a cut/chipped/pellet raw wood fuel intended; look over all of the Topics in the Small Engine Systems section. After reading some topics for background you will get your best specific to you advises by starting your own project line/topic on one of these sections. These are intentionally on the public side of the DOW and do NOT require a premium membership application.
You WILL want to state you actual wood fuel availability. Ability to get a continuous source of wood fuel.
For numbers on a 5kW electrical generator set you can easy read here: Contrary to internet myth now DYI electrical power from wood is not free. Your system Beast will always be demanding a fuel imput just like any other!
Now “for free”, read:
www.woodgas.nl “Micro Gasifiers” - this is Dutch John microgasification personal projects info with pictures. Read his words, and outcomes carefully and he will lay out his “stepped over a boundary” too-far failures, as well as his put it to work successes. He does back up generate with his one system. Ha! And really, really hard to match, let alone beat his effeinecy/use numbers!
And read back here for Ben Peterson’s Victory Shop developed systems fuel use/powers made numbers:
www.elmiraohio.com/Gasifier%20Docs/VictoryGasifier.pdf
His book system is a later DYI let-out pictured step by step to a carbon steel build up for these use/production numbers.
The APL/GEK info and designs are valid for a DIY make fuelwood chunked raw wood fueler only up through Versions l, II, and early III’s. After later III’s then only usable for augerable-in capable “biomass” fuel stocks.
The downsized WK systems info and projects details are here on the premium membership side.
We are all just On The Road to Better personal freedoms
Steve Unruh
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Good Morning All
I am 1/3 the way through our wood-for-heating season.
US retail gasoline price now bumping below $2.00 a US gallon even out here on the PC, Left-Coast with our States mandated more expensive to produce Clean Air Reformulated Gasoline’s.
And now ChrisKY, CarlZ, HerbH, JerryH and others now saying they are at 10,000’s miles driving on wood.
So as with the topic of, Are You One In Million; I feel safe predicting wood-for-power in real use will remain a one-in-a-million user experience.
Why?
Only one in a millon willing to year after year commit to the ongoing year after year personal sweats investments to grow, source, size prep, dry and store the amounts of fuel woods needed.
These felows saying they have put multiples of 10,000 mile traveling on wood gas at the “best” one pound of woodfuel per mile had to source/process/store that same amounts of wood fuels by weights. These get used up quick. Have to be re-sweated continually. Have to feed the Beast.
A still must remain confidential, pdf sent to me, written by VesaM says 0.8kW/h per kilogram (2.25 ponds) of woodfuel in standard 8/1 compression electricity making generator engines. 1.0 kw/h per kilogram wood fuel consumed in better specific 11/1 compression generator/engines sets,
This corresponds to APL/GEK and VictoryShop fuel use experiences data.
AND efficiency manic geeks you will spend years developing/building/experience learning just coming up-to the actual fuel use numbers of these three different endeavors.
So for me to replace ALL of the electrical energy annual we use in our 1300 square foot, small, made very efficient now house, it would take me just as much annual fuel wood sourcing/prepping and storage as I have to already commit to wood source space heating.
“We” here household drive a combined total of 30,000 miles a year. Her: a two states, five counties to your own home visiting nurse is 22-24,000 of that. You do want your loved one the best taken care of in their own homes now don’t you? The remaining annual miles driven; old-man, retired, me.
SHE ainta’ gonna’ dink around with a wood fueled vehicle. Hasn’t the time, or the patience.
I could . . . if I could do it, and stay out of crippling fines and jail time.
What I Can NOT DO is triple my annual wood-sweating outgo.
So this is why I say just from a practical wood-sweated fuel-use standpoint their will only ever be one-in-a-million doing this.
All of you make-wood-chips-for-all; make-wood-fuel-pellets-for-all are gum gnashing, fantasizing.
Read the 1990’s FOA72 paper here on the DOW. Shows well that as soon as an alternative energy tech is developed, proven, and going on-line the current Dino energy suppliers will supplier prices tank it.
Same with all alternative energies. Big ethanol investments and celulosnastic producers got big-energy price tanked out of their investor bases.
Our current US retail gasoline is a kill the up-coming independent competitions by price tanking out as a multilevel source event. Then take their big-lobbied got-profits to buy-up, buy-out these alternatives cheap for later centralized ownership and profit making centers.
And the Eco-Greens just pawn shills in this all. Tools to do a final stake-in the-heart of any surviving alternative independent.
So only ever be one-in a million who will Refuse to be personal energy use bought out.
Who will insist I Will Do It Myself for me, and mine. F’ck ye’ all, and the horses you rode in on.
All of course my own opinions. BUT based on actual visiting too many woodgas rah-rah espouse’ers who will not even, real, annual, use it themselves. Too hard to wood-sweat these beasts.
We Are All On the Road to Better
(Better: is doing something better than you were previously doing it! Ha! So You actually have to have been DOing something, anything in the first place to be able to to better, later!)
Washington State Steve Unruh
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Thanks Steve.
With an abrupt decision this past summer to pack up and move out of the city, my wood gas projects sadly had to be set aside. I do pack everything up and brought it north , including my already processed stove wood for warmth and cooking this winter. It won’t be enough but I live in the middle of all the fuel I need.
Next year will be much different. I will have to process for fuel needed in the same year. Therefore I will need to build a solar dryer for my heating wood. I have some ideas of how this will be done.
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Steve, my own personal opinion is that wood will take off for all uses when the availability of high wage income dries up more then when it becomes cost competitive with fossil fuels. Honestly in my rural seasonally employed area the math is shifting already. It’s not that the fossil fuel industries wouldn’t try to undercut the alternatives it’s that they cannot cut their costs low enough to compete with no disposable income options. With rural delivery and taxes and debt retirement charges worked in a kilowatt of electricity is costing me 30-35 cents and will rise again soon. Propane is cheap this year but hit $1.15 a liter two years ago. I’m mostly wood and highly insulated but most of those around us are rediscovering the joys of wood heat out of necessity not green intensions. How long til they cut or reduce their electrical cord? A reawakening for wood due to hard times…
Best regards, David Baillie
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Exactly why we are looking to combine technologies with battery charging along with Wind and Solar options. Not too worried about the big corps, we have a rather large market outside the US. However, myself and my competitors need to be very cautious when dealing with these entities. The market has flat lined here in the last few months partly due to gas prices and now that I have sales history this is typical so far. However, next year has big promise as now things are getting very active. We have decided to put the large machines on hold, to further develop them but most importantly develop the manufacturing around them. That is the real hard part!! For now we are fully focused on the manufacturing development of the Flex R-1. We are very close to meeting this goal I hope to complete manufacturing processes for this machine in February. As soon as we get there and depending on my work force and work load I plan to launch new development. Once this next round of development is complete we will scale it up for the large machines and relaunch them. My timeline goal is for the 2017 model year.
But in the end practical use is what makes or breaks the appeal of the machines. The DIY guys are more willing to turn valves, light ports, make their own fuels etc. The folks that just want to purchase the machine don’t want any of that. They want to push a button or turn a key and the machine just works. This is where we are headed in order for this to ever make it outside this niche market this is the way it has to be. Chipped fuels are what the machines are designed to run, simply because the chipping machine is well developed and available. Besides this auger feed systems are a must for prolonged runtimes so this limits what can be ran.
If it they ever try to buy me out it wont happen. They will need to bring a very strong orangutan to pry my plans out of my hands. lol
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Ha! Ha! I knew I would get called to task about my “anti-chip” bias.
Here is three for a power gasifier woodchip fuel making videos that I feel that show it relevant, realistic:
Stephen Abbadessa
note he does show a more than cord measure stovewood pile off to the left. Shows he knows the annual need and willingness to realistically personal use wood-sweat for usable power…
note he is NOT chipping up leaf/twig ends into his motor grade woodfuel chips.
Vesa Mikkonen
note the the size of his fuelchip storage bins. He KNOWS how much he will need to do his traveling around. Also his pdf tells that he has a lot of woodgas stationary systems power usage/needs experiences.
note he is letting the fines dribble out below the chute. What you do not put in; you do not have to screen sort out later!
3rd I wanted to put up Gregg Manning sap-down winter Chinese Disc chipping of his aspens trees system. Video seems to be gone. I KNOW GreggM is accustom to dealing in multi-millions btu’s of fuel wood volumes for annual needs.
Try this one instead: John Kather
note the huge very realistic van trailer they are loading into.
note they are also NOT leaf/twig ends chipping. Again: what you do not put in, you do not have to screen/sort out later. Plus I figure these fellows like me think that the leaf/twig ends a the tree growing site should be left as Ma’ Natures give-back.
Here is the Real World of it: in log form it always took for house space heating here ONE full 40 foot long LOG TRUCK load to do a full 6-7 months of home heating.
That is ~28 tons of live/green wood weight per truck load. That cuts out to ~10 cords of stovewood cut, split and stacked in our conifer woods. That is 10x132cu/ft for 1320 cubic feet. Be 3.63 cubic meters per cord, so ~36.3 cubic meters of cut, stacked stove length fuelwood.
Air dried down that 56,000 pounds beginning becomes then ~39,200-44,800 pounds of fuel wood. That’d be 17,700- 19,900 kilograms of fuel wood.
Now make these weights into chip form and for the same weights, your volumes to handle, transport and store will be one half greater volume at 1980 cubic feet, or; 54.45 cubic meters.
When I see fellows actually showing handling wood fuel in these quantities for Real, Consistently, Annual repetitively for any one of the big personal use Three: wood fuel space heating; wood fuel driving; wood fuel electrical generating only THEN do I know they are for Real.
Few. Few even here on the DOW can show me this. A few of them, named above.
S.U.
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MattR with all respect how I’ve personally seen now an operation like yours shut down is by a hired mischief maker.
A fellow hired for a few thousand to go follow your employees/helpers around. Learn where they drink/recreate.
Buy them; bent elbowing, or nose snorting off; then into discontents.
You end up fireing them for job performances later.
Then they tie you up in reported claimed; labor, wage, and safety issues.
Another mischief maker approach used out here is to get a radical Eco-Active-Green group into pursuing you. Easy out here. Easy to get them to see you as a threat to “their” sacred trees. These folks work in spontaneous formed teams of at least 4-5. Look-outs. Distractors. The Actual trees spike’ers, equipment’s sugar’ers/tires slashers/burners.
And there are growing parts of the world like here in Washington State where once you offer up a wood fueled system claiming HEAT then you can be tied up with wood-for-heating enforceable standards and regulations.
Here making/selling/promoting ANY space heat making wood fueled system it MUST certify with a very specified weight of only can be crib stacked fuel wood. test load.
I’ve now seen two different chipped systems run afoul of this requirement.
Always been questionable to me who, and why these operations were reported. And then insisted to come into compliance or be fined out of business. Clean Air enforcement cops need to justify their jobs, their salaries too.
All this works by the numbers.
One late night group brainstorming session I’d once said that it would only take say $100 million applied in different ways to tank every single bio-mass endeavor worldwide for a ten year period.
You been following the new national ExxonMobile “clean energy” and the “blue flame” ads recently? These things are just budget items.
S.U.
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Hey Steve. By coincidence, a year ago when myself, Don M., and Andy Heath went to visit Matt R’s operation, I recall him telling of a destructive employee or two, which was amazing to me when the opposite appearances of all the creative objects that were not store bought but uniquely built were laying about his Spartan building. He had to put out 150 percent to withstand the negative forces inside his own walls.
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I don’t heat with wood yet… my boss does. I figure he has over 30 long cord under roof for this year…
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Hmmm.
Well, one last dirty trick I will post up to watch out for:
the big domestic Van or Suburban SUV - usually dark blue, or Bad Black. With two big fellows in it. With a big telephoto lens camera.
These are all easy, cheap, to rent out. This is to follow you around and scare the shit out of you, and yours. Works too.
Get real. An actual evidence gathering agency surveillance you are not supposed to see; and you will not see.
The best counter? I use a shirt pocket digital fast-snap camera set on burst and step out and visible photo them back. This works well against paparazzi, nosy news folks too. They hate it. Contract Google mapping car came down my road sure hated me, center of street standing, stopping him and photo’ing him! Told him I’d be seeing him at his home street now too. Scare-back.
E.G. a hawk scares up prey activity just by glare/staring, and soar shadowing. “Prey” flashes a shotgun and an experienced hawk hauls-ass away, by-by. The Stupid hawk, attacks. Your photo’s, and your blood is what you show to the police when they arrive. IMPORTANT! You must be the one to FIRST cell phone the police!
My electrical consumption use numbers to calculate woodgas power replacement:
between 10/31/2014 to 11/1/2015 at out primary house meter we used 10,497 KWHs.
/365, be an average of 28.76 kWh’s per day
/24, be an average of 1.2 kW per hour useage.
Our actual Public Utility District grid here is $.0816 per kWh + plus a monthly per meter head/service base charge of $12.00 USD.
So $856.56 + $ 144 = $1000,56 USD for our 12 months of grid electricity.
I AM NOT TRYING TO COMPARE OUR USE AGAINST ANYONE ELSE’s IDEALIZED STANDARDS.
But give numbers for woodgas the wood fuel volume that would be needed for complete substitution.
SO . . … using VesaM’s, APL/GEK’s, VictoryGasworks numbers it would take me 23,618 pounds of additional sourced, sized prepped and dried down fuel wood. Actually be MORE. Actual electrical usage varies from 200 watts an hour to a high intermittent, near 15,000 watts an hour. So system has to be oversized. Have to account for batch cycling heating up - losing heat on end of batch cooling off, NOT then making a single watt of electricity.
Out Doug Fir air dry’s down to ~2200-2400 pounds a cord.
So IF I was to make all of my own woodgas-electricity I would indeed Double my current amount of annual wood-sweating. At a proven now 10,000 pounds per acre harvest-able annnual growth here on our Doug Fir rain-forest properties we have the on-site sustainable supply-source easy. Just ain’t enough of me to do all this wood-sweating.
Add in a one pound per mile of wood fuel to offset our vehicle driving (as lined out in the previous post) would Triple that to 30 cords of fuel wood needed each, and every year. Used up. Get to do it all again in the next year, and every year after.
That is THREE big log truck loads equivalent.
That would be FOUR big truck and chip-van trailer loads if chipped.
That would be 3000, 40 pound bags of wood pellets. (someone please fact check this one - I’m a pellet hater).
Only long term hard core woodstovers, and millmen experienced in dealing with these kinds of wood-use quantities.
This all double checks reversed in to BTU’s/calories and Dino gallons energy equivalents.
I DO round down at each step as practical.
Most others very using Net-sourced and very precise energy calculations are in Not real world use practical.
The huge multi-national Japanese chemical/electronic corp I work for in the 90’s taught to take offered up solution sets and multiply by a “confidence factor”. Take want is offered up and multiply by .7, .8, or .9
NO ONE was ever given better than a 90% confidence rating.
ANYONE not able to establish a confidence rating assignable of 70% was end of year churned out, let-go.
On general Internet woodgas, and especially bio-mass information’s the “confidence” rating is maybe at best 10% and 5% respectfully.
Again . . . . I figure at best by the end of this decade we would be doing well to achieve 7000 real, honest folk actually annual, repetitively using woodgas for usable shaft power worldwide.
And these folks actually using DOing will be Rural living with their own wood-fuel-lots, or wood product mills.
The fuel low energy density and high labor/sweating will be the real handicap.
Dino-Energy powers are, and will for the immediate future remain too damn easy.
Prove me wrong. Please prove me wrong. You all will be measured up by your peers every 5 years or so. Some who’ve been jabbering along since for the last five years are failing this grading out. In the next five year block this will have to be you real DOer fellows. Steve’s brain is getting real, real tired now even with the best of meds.
We Are All On The Road TO Better
Steve Unruh
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Thanks Steve for the real words, from a real been there person. You are so right about the coming event of 2020. God help this Nation.
Why 2020? Funny enough it is my chosen “everything ready” date. Cannot argue your math Steve. I have said before that a wood fueled world involves a ground up rethink of everything; house size, mIles travelled, multi generational homes, micro cars, insulated every thing, the whole works… aND will apply mostly to us rural folk. Your electrical consumption numbers match the ontario average. We do about 7 kw per day split between solar and grid but use propane hot water clothes dryer and cooking. You would love my bill Steve my rural delivery charge is $60 consumption charge $20. About 3 of those kw I could eliminate but it would cause domestic annoyance for no reason other then my own ego at this point. I get good domestic buy in on most of my crazy experiments so really should count myself lucky.
Best regards, David Baillie
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What we recommend is to have our customers either get an industrial or PTO chipper or get it processed from someone that has the heavier equipment. My Step Dad has a machine that can take up to 16" diameter logs. That thing is a beast and is extremely fast. Yeah the lawn and garden chippers aint gonna cut it here. Our machines can run chunked fuels in the standard gravity feed hopper configuration. I dont have a lot of time running chunked fuel in them; however, its been done. If any thing a rejetting may be in order from our stock set up. Easy enough all machines going forward have external removable jetting.
Yup we have had our fair share of less desirable employees. Work like molasses, fiddle around with cell phones all day, shady craftsmanship, doing drugs on their lunch break and then coming back building stuff backwards etc. Rework after rework, Ugh!! I have a good crew now and hired my first female employee out on the shop floor. She cries less and out performs some of the guys Ive had here by a mile!! As Doug mentioned we also had some folks working here one was digging her hands into my accounting and the other stole one of my laptops. Both were acquaintances of each other still not sure what their motives were but it sure was not helping me or the company. Another guy faked an injury, I was out getting stuff and on my way back and I see this guy walking down the road fiddling around on that damn cell phone. I go into the shop and asked where he was going and was told he blew his knee out and heading to the Med Center. lol He was walking just fine down the road. Yup sure enough workmans comp calls me up a week later.
And then we have our european customers, I dont want elaborate to much here. But we just ended a big ordeal here, our competitor is working with them as well. Not going to mention any names but if you are my competitor reading this pay attention to your UK clients!! Not saying anymore they will need to figure that one out on their own.
We have a lot of folks here that got our back. Im involved with our local chamber of commerce and they have been a great support. Ive kept things low key here as much as possible; out of site out of mind. Our marketing is direct to our target customer as much as possible. I declined local news and newspapers for these reasons as well. But our township has caught wind of us and oh what a pain they are. So this is part of the reasoning for the new sign, we have to put one out front. But Im changing direction with the company and the gasifier company will just under the umbrella of what will be the parent company.
I have not noticed any black SUV’s yet but you better believe Im looking out for em.
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Hey DavidB
I just edited out the 2020 reference. S-h-o-o-o-t. I was just trying to say best to take a step back now and then look in your own mirrors and see just what the heck you are actually accomplishing.
And five year intervals are as long as a fellow should push these re-set intervals.
Been quite a few known/named “woodgas” fellows come and gone now in these last five years.
Bunch come and gone to quiet in the previous five years to that.
Some because: NO you cannot get to where you want to go on tumbleweeds as your sole fuel!
Or, get where you want on municipal solid wastes!
OR, get anywhere on truck loads of chicken shit, and pig shit! (Ha! Ha! Unicorn poop only.)
NO, you cannot wet water cruise around expecting to just be able to gleam any, and all drift wood you would find blithely expecting it’s “free”.
NO. you cannot live-in motorhome around woodgas powered figuring that just any wind blown down tree you see, or behind store shipping pallet pile will be yours for the taking for '“free”.
And some who come and gone quiet now who will remain un-named now by their requests actually DID achieve what they wanted out of woodgas for supplementary/back-up power. Then gone-on quite rationally to the 100 other things in Life needed to learn/DO to be free, independent and self-sustaining.
They did not come onto “woodgas” free-exchange forums to preach, grandstand, show off their analytical math’s skills. Just learn what woodgas really wants to be. Then adapt their energy needs/uses to what woodgas energy can easily be for them, and theirs
Oh, . . . . and me?? Well BobMac I see you are reading my previous put-ups here. Thank you for understanding.
Ha! Ha! Now, you gonna’ be the one to explain that crazy guy SteveU. ??
Obviously I’m not going to be one of the got what I need; then just go away quiet types, eh?
Good on you MattR.
You are one of the best.
Dig-in. And do not let the bastards, any of them, get you down.
You ever hit an edge; and need more push-back tricks; a voice of encouragement, you still should have my number.
And fellows on yesterdays call-in chat last night . . . no . . . when the policeman showed up and made me disconnect and wi-fi hotspot leave, I really was not arrested. He was polite. I was polite.
My ass was grass though when I walked back home and my sweetie kicked it butt good for not getting dinner in the oven and the chickens night safe locked in before she got there. ArvidO. obviously I need you to give me some lessons man.
We Are All Just On The Road To Better
Steve Unruh
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Just had to say Hi guys … SSDD here. My pipes didn’t freeze last night. Needed to use the crapper up here at the shop today … I had a miserable summer. Lyme disease twice and the flu towards the end … Older daughter got married finally … Keep away from babies with dyptheria vacines … Nice meeting you Matt this time around. Hang in there … I used to go by LaRosa Trouble Shooting Service but it is now M.R LaRosa Technical Services … Pretty non-specific … Stay well all Mike
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I forgot to mention that we have an expression in our family …
No Los Bastardos Carborundum …
which means don’t let the the bastards grind you down … Crap, it’s winter again … Mike
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All can say is it is nice to be Dow again it working even better since my latest up grades
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One-In-Million.
Many questioned my opinion about this.
320 million USA. 30 million in Canada. Mexico at least 80 million.
So have 430 folks woodgassed, fueled and ran a loaded down engine for a purpose in North America??
Overall Europe? One-In-A-Million??
Australia/New Zealand??
Africa? Ha!
South America? Ha!
J-I-C Steve unruh
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I was always taught we were 8 milion people in Sweden. But with a little help from you guys we’ve had a chance to alter our demografy by Middle-East immigration. We just reasently past the 10 million wall. That would mean only 10 woodgassers in Sweden. I get the feeling we’re somewhat over represented. Finland also. I’m about to meet some of my fellow woodgassers this coming weekend.
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