Also, congratulations on your 20 gross (though 0 net) meters of non-dino powered travel!
A high spot, a low spot, and a couple of spots in between. I live in a shared house, and while processing charcoal on Saturday, one housemate, who had said absolutely nothing previously, erupted and complained to the landlord about the tiny amount of dust. The usefulness of the back yard is now seriously curtailed for char production, and I’m now scouting out new territory. To be continued… On a brighter note, I’ve made a biochar convert- she’s had a bumper crop of courgettes, runner beans and strawberries, with carrots on the way, and the other allotment holders are paying attention- hopefully the chain is one link bigger.
I got in a couple of hours running on the Landy- Gilmore-inspired gasifier with a 3" diameter tuyere, followed by a cyclone and the existing oil bath air cleaner. No startup fan- I start on propane and wean it onto woodgas. What’s good about the setup is everything’s right there in place- electric start, lambda probe, stepper valve and propane, the niggling doubt is whether I’m on the road to nowhere with a large engine under light load, and a small gasifier. I want to get a backup engine going, but the lack of success with pull starts is a bit off-putting. I want something like this:
but with some sort of safety disengagement mechanism.
Like many others, I have used this process from time to time, but only during diagnosis of engine problems since, at least on the 2 videos above, the flywheel shroud is off of the engine once it’s running. Do we think user is good at positioning the shroud while the engine is running? Do they then bolt in back in place?
There are engines where one can remove the recoil mechanism while leaving the shroud in place so it can provide proper engine cooling and proper air governor function. And for those engines, I see this as a real solution. If I had to do it to an engine where the shroud has to come off, and if I thought I might fix the recoil starter some day, I’d go to a small engine shop and get an extra shroud. Then I’d cut off the recoil supports for access to the shaft nut.
Pete Stanaitis
So… looking up a bit- I’ve found a couple of friendly landowners who are interested in the charcoal process, and to my eternal gratitude, are happy to allow a pop-up/ disappear without trace burning and processing operation in a secluded area, where the dust- which still needs to be reduced- won’t cause such massive problems. I’ve got five cans of engine char and a couple of cans of biochar- the processing, rather than the burning is the labour intensive bit, and as the photo shows, the messiest bit- I was buying shower gel, and asked the clerk to take the photo. I’ve got a few ideas for improvement.
To do…Load up some firewood for the trip to the Green Gathering on Wednesday, build and program an Arduino mixture controller, and build a second Gasifier for the Off Grid. The Gilmore-inspired setup is very much a batch process- I get a can of engine char, push the 3" tuyere in, use a poking stick to loosen the compacted char, connect and light- a top loading port will make an awful lot of sense. It’s an evolutionary design, but it does incorporate elements of the Simple Fire and the Drizzler. It’s basically a charcoal fuelled/ charcoal reduction updraft gasifier on startup, wood fuelled/charcoal reduction when it’s running, and eventually runs out when the charcoal level drops and the exit gas gets too hot to be stable. I’ve got a few ideas, including reconfiguring as a downdraft- the only real bottleneck is the shortcomings in my welding. Practice makes perfect.
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Good morning Brian. Thanks for posting and especially the pic.
I have trouble remembering names sometime but if you will use the picture for your profile I will never forget .
I love it!
BBB
holly cow brian I thought I crawl out from the shop looking rough .I just say this is what work looks like and you look like a lot of workin
Wow Brian, Next time try standing with the wind to your back. I tell people one of the drawbacks of charcoal gasification is the black dust issue. If I show them your picture, they may never give it a try. In all seriousness, I admire your desire to keep making and using charcoal. There are ways to stay cleaner and you will figure them out. I’ve never gotten as black as your picture shows, but then too I have a larger area to work in. Looks like moving your operation to a bigger area will help you too. Glad to hear you are experimenting with different designs. Let us know how they work out and keep advancing the ability to run on wood. Love that picture!
Gary in PA
So, a while since I posted- I’ve been along to a couple of UK festivals, one where I got Health and Safetied to a standstill, and the other, I had to cut short due to illness in the family. All I really learned at the first was that the organisers were paranoid about H&S, demanding wider and wider roped off areas, but I had more of a success at the Off-Grid. I splashed out on some stomp-in electric fence posts to rope off an area, and got some hardwood char made for the blacksmith next door. I managed to get in a couple of extended runs on the Landy- 45 minutes fast tickover using about 16 litres of char, but what really looked promising was for want of a better term, fuel rods- lengths of 2"x2" sawn pallet scrap dropped into the 3" diameter tuyere, and feeding themselves by gravity. The oil bath cleaner seems to be working well- I’m practically dredging out solid black gunge, but one alarming episode was plug fouling with black carbon deposits- cleaned up eventually, but something to monitor.
Still here, just not gasifying that much at the moment- too many other things to keep my hands full, mainly finding helpful neighbours prepared to let me do a bit of pop-up guerilla welding on my Fiesta. Sadly, my father passed away aged 85 amazing years last month- have a look at the sort of thing he got up to…
Does that inspire you?
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Very cool Brian…did he build the steam engine. Glad you have the memories of what must of been a great man.
Gary
That was impressive. I had to go watch the other two U-Tubes that showed the car. That is what everyone thinks I am doing when I say I’m running my truck on wood. Looks like you have to good genes from him.TomC
Dads teach us so much.
@Gary L - My father built the engine for a replica of an 1899 Stanley Locomobile- putting it into the Reliant was a bit of fun. It’s a twin cylinder with Hackworth valve gear- if I remember, about 5-6 Hp.The boiler is a Derr/Winslow water tube type and the burner is an off the shelf oil fired central heating unit.
How cool, I’ve definitely seen that video before! So that’s your dad.
I hope he was very careful with steam in the passenger cabin… just like woodgas, steam in the cab is usually a no-no.
What became of the Robin?
The Rialto- not, in fact, a Robin, is safely in the shed back home, hopefully to roll again one day. The steam exhausted out the back, with no attempt to condense it.
Brian,
Just got to this, loved it. How fortunate to have this video. I’d do anything to hear my dad’s laugh again.
Pepe
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So, where was I? Posting here, and engine running fell by the wayside- I had my hands full with just too many other things- but fortunately not the charcoal production, and things got a massive shot in the arm at a gathering a couple of weeks ago- I thought it would be a low key end to the season, but I managed to get in about 8 20-30 minute runs on the Landy at a fast idle, and sold a stack burner setup. The insights that I’m taking away are:
The scaff pipe that I’m using to pipe the gas is just too small an inside diameter- it’s throttling the gas flow.
Filtration, filtration, filtration- still too many fines ending up in the oil bath filter. I wonder, now, could I repurpose a Hoover…
The non-issue is the tuyere. Again, no disrespect to anyone’s creative efforts, but I just let a length of timber feed down, which seemed to moderate the temperature enough for a plain mild steel tuyere to survive the weekend.
So, gasification is alive and well. At the moment I’m working 9 hours a day and commuting 3 for my day job, and there’s stuff I’m neglecting… but the passion’s still there.
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Hi Brian , good to hear your still having fun with the black stuff .
The scaff pipe your using for your nozzle what’s the ID ? also I know you love using the scaffold pipe and letting it melt away in your mobile forge , but think of all those roofers/ builders up on the roof waiting for you to bring back that bit of pipe you borrowed , your a swine leaving them up there knowing full well it wont last the weekend out .
Or you could just try moulding a little refractory around the last couple of inches and see if you can make it last you a few weeks .
On my first engine running set up I made a cyclone from a fire extinguisher , no fancy tapers on the bottom just turned the thing upside down connected a glass jar where the trigger used to go and normal in and out pipes and I was amazed at how nothing went passed it when connected to a powerful vacuum cleaner and started sucking up charcoal dust , the bin on the vac was clean as when I started , guess that would work well with your fines .
Dave
Quick word, I just use scaff pipe for the plumbing- it’s about 40mm ID, which is just too small for the distance that I’m piping it- shame, because it’s everywhere. For the tuyere itself, I use a bit of 75mm thick wall gaspipe, big enough to feed a piece of 2" x 2" down- I’ll try the refractory in the fullness of time, but it’s just not the priority at the moment… but have a look at this:
…can anyone see wooden tuyeres?
I like the sound of your fire extinguisher cyclone- do you have any pipe diameters to hand? I’m assuming the tangential inlet pipe was at the bottom, and the axial outlet pipe at the top.
To be continued…
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Hi Brian , Yes they certainly would make very good 5 minute lasting Tuyeres or if you could have them self feeding down your pipe as a sort of self replenishing nozzle , might work , give it a play on the weekend and see .
I will try and get some pics of cyclone or even a small video uploaded of it collecting very fine carbon dust and show you how much will pass through on strong suck , the inlet/outlet pipe dia is only 25mm id but should scale up .
All the best Dave
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