Garry W: I believe Gary Gilmore did attach his GGG to an old VW Bug successfully but it was SO under-powered considering they didn’t have much in the way of power-to-weight ratio before the charcoal gas power losses.
Hi Garry, The GGG can “eat” other solid fuels like wood chips, corn, oats, sunflower seeds, etc. It can also eat liquids, but so can the Simple-Fire design. As Koen noted, the size of the engine dictates the size of the gasifier. Got a RR locomotive to run? You can do it on charcoal or wood but it will be a BIG gasifier. Here is a picture of my Farmall Cub cross draft showing the oil drip. Adding solid fuels is more difficult but doable. On my poor old VW bug, there was a roof rack and hopper full of wood pellets. This was augered into the GGG. The rust out issue took this car off the road before I could make any meaningful test. Then I moved on to other projects such as the Simple-Fire.
Gary in PA
Hi Gary, Garry and…
Reading trough the old stuff again and noticing…
They ad the “extra” stuff into the outcomming gas stream, meaning they don’t burn or reduct it.
That might be heplfull if we drip “clean” liquids in the “hot” zone to gasify it, but what it does with the moister later on ?
Thinking of used cooking oil for example, it all depends the proporty’s of the material i guess.
The soul problem is as usual the amounts of oxidiser needed to maintain a needed combustion.
I am starting an experiment with the unused power from the engine, using as an efficiency booster, an pre-heating coil.
In theory it decreases the overall consumption with 40% compared with the used power. But that is for low efficient systems calculated.
The whole idea behind this is to keep the engine-generator, running under optimal load all the time.
Power not consumed, using as a preheating power for either ultra hot steam or browngas maybe ?
Many things to try… many things to learn…
Thank you guys for all the information and especially the picture, I have an old WD allis that needs a setup just like that one. I shouldn’t need a shaker to feed the fire while I plow. :>)
Garry
Hi Gary G,
Ihave been studying a bit about the water to air mixture.
I live here in a humid area i guess… 
Anyhow, rereading my above statements about the 6%…
I checked the relative humidity in my first videos and had about 22grs water per cubic meter air ( 27ºC at 81% humidity)
Thats about 2% from the total “allowed”
Bone dry charcoal…
At 100% relative humidity with 0ºC you’ll have only about 2 grs water per cubic meter.
So i am here much more on the “wet” side…
Its all about the relative humidity and the feedstock as you said earliar, yes but…
The dew point is playing some role i guess, but i recon for the ingoing air to neglect …
Did you tried a test already with 1 kg bonedry charcoal and checked the weight regulary ?
Here i don’t have to much fluctuation if i keep it out of the rain and just in open air, but that might be much different at your place.
For the raw wood gasification it gets more delicate… if not condenst out then i guess to much will be to much…
I think i stay at the “dry-dark” side for a while… untill i learned to swim…
Regards
Koen
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Hi Steve U,
Its indeed the real world values what counts, i agree with that 100%
The secret of good wood gasifying lies where ya can avoid the water excess passing trough the glowing bed, but still recuperate the heat from the condensation.
Otherwise it would be a huge loss of energy.
To compare Charcoal with Raw wood:
1 Kg raw wood with 20% humidity ads 200Gr of water on the scale to evaporate + 1 Kg air with its humidity… way passed the 6% limits if not building a good gasifier…
Update on the nozzle idea…
I did find ceramic fuses from the sizing i would like to use as nozzle tips
and using floating balls would ad some pulsating effect on the nozzles i hope ?
also easy to change them i think.
Based on what i learned so far…
This would be a mix between the dark and the light side 
Purposed for stationary…
Making charcoal in the outer section, same time using charcoal as primary fuel.
Outer condensation shell can be balanced with the lower air intake…
Still based on GGG but i call it RET Thai gasifier from now…
Outer casing i want to use 2 55 Gallon drums stacked on top.
Inner hot core 5", depending the power demanded
All the gas from stage 1 ( indirect gasification ) passes trough the reduction zone from stage 2
All the heat is retained by the layer charcoal on top, no cooling needed after the gasifier.
Soon you might have a wood gasifier
So will the heat from the burning charcoal radiate through the central steel pipe to gasify the raw material laying next to it? If so, that could work and work well. Couple of thoughts. If the central pipe gets above a bright red heat, there will be problems of oxidation with the iron slowly eroding. No problem with stainless steel. I think only one air inlet at the bottom is all that is needed. I’d also try it without the condensate trap. If your raw material is less than 20% moisture, I’ll bet the charcoal will crack most of it. If there is excess moisture in the fuel, I see it condensing on the outer walls and just collecting in the bottom of the generator with the ash. It looks like a sound design, very similar to the Brant (spelling?) others were looking into building.
Gary in PA
Gary, yes you have seen it right, its nearly a brand, but only nearly.
Core based on yours
The rest is merely a gathering from many.
The idea is to waste as less possible heat.
The inner core dimension will be given by the temperature achieved at hp rate drown.
The 2 airinlets are needed for adjustability (my opinion)
This is only the base study but very close to the real end product.
The feedstock for the outer core can be “secundary fuel pellets” as long their consistence is within given limits.(50% biomass)
I think i will be able to build this in a simple fashion and it can run with a broad range of fuels.
Since water and carbon dioxide are my 2 concerns, i’ll be working on those points primeraly.
I am glad you liked the design, thx
Hey, Gary it has been a long time since I’ve been in touch sorry my bad was wondering if anyone might be interest in the charcoal gasifier that I had at Argos that you helped me get running? It is easy to make out of a 100#propane tank and I bought the cyclone and cooler from Matt at VulcanGasifier.
You will need to buy a blower motor from auto zone. I think my total cost for needed materials was around $600 bucks. I already had a 5000 watt generator and the propane tank May be I can get some help to send some pictures. I can get about 3 to 4 hours per load of wood charcoal.I think this may be helpful in charging solar cell batterys or power outages.Let me know what you think. Dan Moore
Gary,
The balance between lower and outer air inlet supposed to function same principle as a fractioning colomb.
That way i hope to obtain a tar free charcoal.
Since the average moister here, green wood, is at a higher level, then my estimated average dry wood would be around 30%.
For the real building good dimensioning from distance between outer shell and inner tube is crucial.
I will work towards the 2 extreme cases to obtain real useable data.
Inner core i have a 10" available. First building the gasifier on the bike from the mayor now :-p
Today they gave their approval.
Tomorow also big meeting at the governors office…
KVL, I will be anxiously watching for results of your new RET Thai gasifier. Several years ago I built a charcoal retort (based on the Anila stove) from a 20# propane bottle. I placed wood chunks in the outer portion, and filled the inner cylinder with junk biomass and small charcoal brands, and then lit it on the top. A variable speed fan forced air in at the bottom. The gas jetted from the outer cylinder into the inner cylinder and ignited like a rocket motor. I found the reaction to be very non-linear! At start-up there would be some water driven off the wood chunks, and then things would get really hot and the inner cylinder would glow red hot as I added more chunky fuel down the open top (I usually ran this for a couple of hours, in two sessions, as I mostly use it for boiling water or cooking or a combination of the two. I am interested in seeing how you deal with this non-linear power. For what it is worth, here is a link to a slide show of the device I made. (I am still using it.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmjfXDdEU48
It could be that the narrower diameter of your outer chamber will help control this non-linearity. I imagine you might be able to chop raw bamboo pieces to be converted into charcoal. I found that the pieces need to be uniform in size, or else the larger ones are only torrefied and not totally converted. As you will see in the slide presentation, I only have four 1/4" holes jetting the gas from the outer cylinder into the grate area of the inner cylinder. I placed some Lava Rock (for BBQ) on the grate where the gas enters, so the glowing rocks are the first thing the gas hits. The four holes do not have to be sealed off as the charcoal cools. I’ve never had any problem with the charcoal burning itself up. Ray
Ray, you are right about the nonlinear effect, i know that same effect occurs in my retort charcoal system.
But in our case , gasification, in batch systems is always a nonlinear challenge to deal with.
Thats for starters i have foreseen the 2 air inlets, to be able to compensate some of the side effects.
The use of some additional water and egr would help also.
But unless there is an continious flow of homogeneous feedstock there will be a non linear effect.
two stage Notar gasifier, bottom stage is downdraft charcoal.
Always interesting how others are seeing the solutions.
About the temperature control with exhaust gasses…
EGR is , yes, a temperature decreaser, but also a mixture diluter.
Based on the old school knowledge, i tried to make a energy balance for obtaining the most optimum gas in a given gasifier.
Already 100 years ago they were talking about the same but with some more knowledge which i don’t have yet…
1:Basically all heat should be used in the gasifying process instead of loosing it in a cooling system elsewhere
2:Preheating intake air is a “must do”
3:Avoid the forming of CO2 in the outgoing gas as much as possible, by all means ( most power gain or power loss with CO2 ) keep the temperature in the reduction zone not less then 1800°F
4:Use the heat of exhaust from the IC engine driven by the gas. Any external heat source will benefit the gasquality and reduce the consumption of feedstock.
5:Preheat the water-vapor-steam as much as possible, water will cool more then supersteam… a coil for generating steam near the combustion - reduction zone will give the biggest boost for the gasquality since the steam, if hot enough, will replace a large amount of nitrogen, but a carefull balance must be maintained between the heating -burning charcoal and the air-vapor mixture.
6: a balanced mixture between pure CO2 and pure O2 will eat the carbon dioxide and generate high quality gas.
They knew so much already then…
So much for me to learn now, to make it work in my Farmer style 
Koen,
It’s like trying to re-learn how to built the Ancient pyramids and Roman columns of yesterdays past.
Denny, yes it is, but this is more fun and less work