Charcoal gasifier for ATV

I think I’m going to see what can dig up for cast iron for my next one . One can never have to many laying around ready to go. I have not been playing with them for a while due to the fact I never took the time to build the processing equipment needed to make it an efficient process. The green house and sap will ultimately fit into the equation. A hot water storage tank will also be a vital part of the system as well. My brain has been working on all this for a long time but my body and the details have not caught up yet.

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For me I do property management at a centre that just logged 20 acres so the slash piles are everywhere… just waiting for me and some type of charcoal in device…

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Wood is not the issue for me. It is just that I am to cheap to waist the heat. I have been burying it in the garden . last year I was still grazing in there right up till the end of November due to it composting and heating my new raised beds. I buried about 1/2 cord of rotting poplar from the forest floor today in just 1 bed. Will be doing another tomorrow. A wise man gets paid to cut his wood. I still feel I am wasting it if I don’t use all he energy in it.

Well, for all our sakes, I hope you don’t figure out how to do nuclear fusion with all that wood.

[quote=“dbaillie, post:37, topic:1757”]I like the idea of the massive steel nozzle
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That might not be such a great idea… This is on an ATV, right? Wouldn’t there be a fair amount of bouncing around involved? Wouldn’t the extra weight on the end of a pipe be putting a lot of stress on something in a comprising environment?

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A 3" OD solid rod or block of iron or steel extending through the wall of the reactor vessel would probably work well to conduct the heat away from the business end. It could be fastened down to avoid jumping around.

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I have a nozzle made out of about 1cm thick walled steel pipe and it has enough mass to support a 1l engine without exhaust return. A nother inportant thing is how the nozzle is designed. I will take photos when l open the gasifier for ash cleaning in about a month from now.

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Hi David, Hope you have better luck with your titanium nozzle than I did. The second picture shows the new titanium nozzle ready for testing next to some other nozzles I tested. First picture shows the results :frowning:
Curious to see what you come up with.
Gary in PA


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This does not look nice… how does it perform compared to stainless?
The bottom right nozzle looks like cherramic am l correct?

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That’s cool!!! You inspire the rest of us to try and acheive more

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I was commenting on the atv not the nozzle problem

Hi Gary
Just a thought, have you tried a water cooled nozzle ?
You could either use a 12 volt pump to pump water through the nozzle or Thermosyphen .
Patrick

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I had that system on my Seat for a while and it worked well but my personal opinion is that its just not worth complicating things that are as simple as charcoal gasification.

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Well there are two people I respect a lot that gave me some ideas. Gary Gilmore suggested titanium would melt and Don Mannes posted a picture of a tig nozzle on a stainless nipple having 20 hours on it. So I ordered a bunch on #15 tig nozzles and threaded a titanium nozzle. It seems to screw on easy to the cup. They are both supposed to have very similar expansion characteristics. This weekend the family is away so I will play a bit…

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Was the titanium pipe threaded? If so, I would like a link as to where you got them from.

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It looks like David has a die set there so I think he cut his own thread .
David if have a chance , try running a thread down some copper pipe or mild steel pipe as well , I am willing to bet that as long as the nozzle stays intact and the thread is a little loose to allow for expansion , then any pipe you use will work well and at least that way it will keep the cost down to anyone else thinking of trying exotic materials to mount there TIG nozzles .
All the best
Dave

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Sorry bill Dave is right I threaded it. Pain in the neck too ;it was not happy. Dave I think Don has proven stainless works for that. 12 inches of titanium cost me $20 canadian delivered so at 3 or 4 inches a pop that’s 5-7 dollars plus cup. The test is threading it as tight as possible since the expansion differential is supposed to match. Hopefully lifespan justifies cost. I bought the tap set for a plumbing job so I won’t count that one.

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David - That looks similar to the HF pipe threading set I recently bought.

I am surprised that it would thread the titanium. Did it ruin the die?

Would the nozzle screw on to the pipe thread pretty good (I think the nozzle is machine thread).

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The threading seemed to work pretty good on the nozzle side I threaded it all the way to the tapered end so that may be why. It turns at least 3 full turns on. The die seems fine I tried a piece of iron after for that very reason. Amazon for me no harbour freight in canada and princess auto is too far away.
David Baillie

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2 posts were merged into an existing topic: Discovering my freedom in Minnesota