Good work, Tom, that’s me! Like a circus clown, going round and round the culdesac, trying to get out of 3rd. My youngest son shot this all on the spur of the moment, one take. Barking Bloodhound, included.
Kindof made up the name Motofier. No water drip, only EGR, but only because it was convenient to add the EGR, inconvenient to water drip this Simple Fire. Also a ceramic nozzle. EGR definitely makes a difference, on this build. Home grown butterfly valve with elliptical plate, for same.
I wish I’d had a Urals with a sidecar - that would have been more practical. But I already had this bike, and an aftermarket rear rack was available.
Thank ya, Steve, good to converse with you! Yeah, I got off topic and into the weeds a bit, but I just wanted to make sure we all had a grasp of what was going on, not many absolutes, things are different in different places …
And as to my statement of purpose, I spent a lot of time tinkering, learning, staying up all night a Jim Mason party in Berkeley (was really fun), going fast with a girl named Bo (wait, that’s from the ill-fated but great series The FalI Guy - I really mean go fast with a guy named Mr. Wayne). Been a great ride, and I’m not ready to quit, have a lot to do yet.
Finally, I should append my “statement of purpose” and affirm that I believe the WK Gasifier is the best wood gasifier designed and built to date, for vehicular propulsion! I don’t believe a charcoal gasifier can generate that much power in an engine. Many thanks to Mr. Wayne and Chris, for that, and for this!
My only interest in finishing the LaRosafier is that I was impressed with Mike and what he could do with obtanium. I enjoyed his company. Yeah, he could be inappropriate at times (most of the time?), but we’re all human. RIP Mike La Rosa.
Now, back to my Pederick Plate build. BTW, I contacted the Australian Intellectual Property department, they looked hard for the 1930’s to early 40’s patent, said they couldn’t find it. Said it was probably destroyed. Really!?
Oh wow thats you! I knew that bike looked familiar! Your video inspired me when l built my charcoal powered moped. And that project sent me on the trip of developing better charcoal gasifiers so all l can say is thank you!
hello martin, your motorcycle is marvellous, we found it in a old thread of the forum…very nice build, -artistic and light weight construction…we took it in our collection of Motorcycles with gasifiers - #86 by giorgio
…one thought to the pederick gasifier…in the handbook is written that the gasifier always needs water drops -steam - for cooling, otherwise the fire plate gets destroyed…
this can be a problem when the charcoal has just much umidity by itself…
so a solution could be to make the fireplate hollow, , in way that water cooling can circulate in the plate and water drops can given only when needed …water cooling can be connected with the cooler system of the motor…
Thanks for the kind words, @KristijanL and @giorgio ! Cool to think the Motofier was some kind of inspiration for more good work! And of course, many inspired me, before I built it.
Good thoughts as to “over watering” considerations on the Pederick - will have to watch that. Having a hard time conjuring up how large to make the hole in the plate, but will figure something out. Maybe it’s like the @don_mannes and @Jeff “bottom suckers”, just cut a plenty large hole and let it suck what it wants? Or, is velocity still important to create the gas quality, as per the Kaupp et al work?
I read in Charcoal Nozzles, 2 where @Jeff said he made a Pederick knock-off with a thin plate but with cooling fins. Wonder what his hole size determination was? (however, he normally gasifies smaller engines)
Have some 1" plate to use. Going to weld that to some HD square tubing I have, to contain some amount of water level. I wonder if they started off with some water in the plate area, prior to running? Need to look at the manual, again.
I’m sure they turned the water drip on right when they were going to light. That heavy plate will take a few minutes to get to scalding hot temps so I think it would build a reserve of water. I’d start with a benchmark 1 drip per second.
Also it might be a good idea to start with a smaller hole, you can always make the hole bigger. Maybe use a step drill, so it will give the hole a Venturi effect and push the reaction closer to the center of the gasifier.
Found the error in my above calculations! Was using an online calculator for IN2 to M2 (duh, divide by 39.37 twice) and must have hit a wrong button or something - the area for the 1.25" nozzle should be 0.000794 M2, yielding 36.5 M/second, close! Tried 1.5" ID, yielded 0.00114 M2 area, yielding … 25 M/second, which I believe is what several have suggested as an optimum velocity. Will have to take a look at the Kaupp reference, one more time.
Thanks @ForbiddenTuna for the suggestion for initial water rate. I don’t have a good step drill and that’s a lot of drilling on 1" plate. So, going to use the “step torch”, aka gas hatchet. My kerf will be irregular, but who will care?
I can do a little bit better than “hog”, with a torch. First learned to use a torch in college, summer job … 45 years ago, at Hughes Tool Company. We were cutting off the 4 in plus thick legs of 26 inch, experimental drill bits. It was anachronistic at that time, even, but the local welding shop had a “special” for UT students, so I bought a Victor SuperRange set.
Great on the Ramos pdf, been looking for things like this.
Meanwhile, I think my calculations above are “gas” (to engine) calcs, as per Max’s formula, versus air to nozzle. Air looks like it is about 3/4 of the final gas flow. And gas composition results are in terms of air blast velocity. Diminishing returns above a certain point. I’m going to graph these and post them for all. Not trying to over-engineer it, but with datapoints like these, may as well learn from them.
OK, @ForbiddenTuna here you go, here is a comparison of charcoal gasifier nozzle sizing methods. Sorry it took a little while. But you know what they say, ask an engineer what time it is, and he will tell you how to mine the iron ore for the watch hands, and go from there. No, actually this analysis “needed doing”, and hopefully will be helpful to many. Really needs to be a PDF in the Library, or something, once it gets some review and comments. @k_vanlooken 's spreadsheet basically came up with the same answer as my laborious calcs based on Kaupp/Goss and work by @gasman - but then I don’t know that I used the spreadsheet correctly.
yeah, calculations is 1 side, understanding the relevance to your build/situation is the other side…
2 rules i try to follow:
1: The higher the nozzle airspeed = higher pull needed to generate that speed = better gas-quality but less gas filling the engine cylinders = less power from the gasifier…
( counter that with bigger engine as needed or with a designated blower )
2: understand the limiting factor from slag forming… what fuel causes what amount of slag.
If you are running hot, add some water or exhaust return,
As i am the spoiled one, having tools to measure some effects, i just can point out to the many good advices given by other dow members, based on their experiences.
My few tools actually proved their points…
Another point: turn down ratio, how you calculate that into your build design ?
Low level gas flow and high flow need.
I toggled that problem with multi nozzle systems, changing the flow ratio based on vacuum from/on the engine/gasifier.
Few of the many persons i learned from; WK’ts design’s/concepts of thinking, Gary Gilmore simple fire, Steve U’s understandings of internal functioning of engines.
Some people wants to use other birds feathers as their own, i am kinda allergic for such, hence less active in commenting.
Many of the builds i have seen on this forum i consider them as pieces of art… my 2 thumbs up to those.
That list is actual long…
Artist Copyright ?
I just went to have a look at that spreadsheet…
Yeah, if people keep editing the original instead of downloading a copy…
The whole calculations are gone, i will replace with an original copy and repost a link
Here is the latest Charcoal Gasifier Nozzle Design Comparison file, with the results from Koen’s repaired spreadsheet. Results from the Kaupp/Goss “Method 1” are basically pretty close to those from Koen’s spreadsheet.
Will think a bit more about turndown, but it looks like a 1.25" to 1.4" single nozzle is appropriate, for this application.
