JO´s 8" gasifier

I think only putting out fires by accident doesn’t quallify as a firefighter :smile:

I don’t really know but I guess around 50-60 kg for the gasifier itself and maybe 30 kg for the rest.

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Are you asking dry weight or full of water weight? ;D

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Brian you made me lough :grin:

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Ha ha, very funny :angry:

I went for a 100km/62mile roundtrip today. It ran better than ever. A bit cooler I think. I might have tared up some small airleaks while building a new charbed last night.

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Did you empty the firetube competely and build the char bed from new wood?

I started to write this post and forgot l have to write in english :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

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Swedish is ok too :grin:
I didn’t empty at all. If so I would have filled with dry char.
When I lit up I didn’t know water had risen that high, only that my poker got a bit wet when I hit the grate. When I realised it was too late.
After punching several holes to create burning voids down to the grate more and more wood fell down deep. I think a lot of the char in the reduction was already gone with the water I let out through the dump. The rest was wet, got cruched and lost volume. So I let everything burn in -up and down - up and down driving out the moisture. What ever was down there new char was created.
My little air mattress blower swallowed a lot of tary condence during the process and I probably messed up the coolers some. But I’ve run 20 km last night and 100 km today and no problem. Even the blower works.

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JO, if you messed up the coolers you can just clean them out with water. But not too much water. Great to hear everything is alright with your gasifier. When I was cleaning out my cooling rails on the truck, the lower two rails behind the cab of the truck were plugged and I could not get them to break free of the plugs. I had water running out of the top rails, I stop the very moment water came out. Had to take the cooling rails apart to get it unplugged. Learning is FUN.
Bob

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Yeah yeah yeah! You all have fun. I deserve it.
I just didn’t want valuable knowledge going down the drain.

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Hi JO,

l see you started useing bigger fuel. How does it perform on the road?

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I use slightly bigger fuel not get a too tight charbed. Also more convinient to prep this new size.

At slow speeds below 70-80 km/h it performs very good no matter what. I sometimes forget I drive on wood.
At speeds above 80km/h i need the vacuum ratio to be 5:1 or lower. This new fuel size seems to give me about 3:1, which is perfect. If I ever see 2:1 it also runs good but starts getting a bit sensitive on the air setting.
I can cruse forever on the big road at 90-100 km/h without overheating if it’s not too hilly. I can go even faster but then temps climb.
What surprices me the most is how well it performs in city driving. It idles well at redlights and no stumbling what so ever. I never thought small heart Imberts would perform this smooth. I’m beginning to think maybe my relativly big hayfilter volume helps even out small changes in gas quality. Over all better than I could ever dream of.

Yesterday the speedometer passed 1000 km/625 miles on wood.

Next upgrade will be a bigger hopper juice tank. I now use only a small 2.5 L plastic can. I have to empty it for every hopper of wood.

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Wow that looks great! I wish l culd copy-paste your resaults :grin:

What is the drying time for your wood?

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With this nice weather we’ve had this week and only a thin layer on the trailer, each batch got dry enough in only 2 days. I bag as much up as I can in paperbags and store it inside. The rest goes into my outside wall storages.

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Me again :grin:

maybee l missed it but how do you set the air/gas ratio? l cant realy see a lever or anithing in the video of driveing.

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I have two old lawnmower levers. One woodgas, one air. Both forward is gasoline setting (gas closed, air open). Red switch to the left is fuel pump. To the right is the idle knob. The blue handle is an extra air valve, which is not in use. I thought I needed that for hybriding since this is constant spray Bosch K-jet. But lambda seems to by able to compensate somewhat for rich mixture, lowering fuel pressure.

Got to go. I’ll be back late tonight.


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Wife and me just got home from a 260 km (160 miles) roundtrip on wood visiting her sister and her family.

We used 36 kg (79 lb) of wood. 1,4 kg/10 km. (2 mpp or 0.5 ppm)
I’m very satisfied with those numbers…

…but…

…performance was good all the way until the very last miles from home. Started to lose a bit of power and rail temp climbed over 300 C (572 F) when pulling only a little more than I do on even ground. Normally it takes long hard pulls to reach those temps and is where I usually give it some slack.

I think have a burning airleak and I suspect my silicone based dump seal (I hope it is). A bit too hot down there for silicone and once the burning starts it gets even hotter.

Tomorrow will be cleanout day and I’ll get some answers.

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Take lots of pics… we all like pics

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Those resaults look great! you seem to burn less wood on every roundtrip :slight_smile: perhaps your wood got a portion of the Černobil radiation and you drive on nuclear wood :grin:
Keep us posted on your findings!

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I guess I should tell you what happened.

I augered my dump clean and saw nothing but small char. As usual when working outside on my gasifier I got a herd of people coming into my driveway standig in a circle asking questions. Sorry Arvid, I forgot all about the camera. Next time.

Since augering out the char maybe some white could be hidden in all that black but I was too beat after work to pull the whole gasifier bottom. It means I have to pull the gasifier off the bed and then make a new bottom seal.

I think I will order an inspection camera for my phone. They are only about 20-30$.
I have an extra plugged gas outlet where I can lower it and take a look at the inside without disturbing the char/ash.

I know there has been talk about flex exhaust leaking. I use it from top of the cyclone down to the condensation tank. Is it possible I burn some gas there? I read somewhere auto ignition temp for woodgas is 600 C. I never reach those temps there. Shouldn’t be a problem. Thoughts?

I’ve driven several shorter trips since and no problem. Maybe my high temps was due to low vacuum ratio at the end of that longer trip. 2:1 and some of that drop is across the cyclone.

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Hi, Jan-Ola!
4. of July 2016

Flying sparks in the mix, does not need 600*Celsius gas temp!

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Of course! Thanks Max. I’ll look into it.