Bill, thanks for the compliment, I procrastinated last year and it was Oct, before I fired up. It’ll be spring this year I promised myself! The guy at the lumber yard keeps asking how my space ship is coming along,lol. I took some time today to move my double pulley ceiling setup to a more convenient spot. I strung up the hopper and moved the burner underneath it just for fun. Then I moved it back and lowered the hopper on to the saw horses to work on the lid. Once the lid is done, I will gasket the burner mounting surface and move the burner back under the hopper. I will gently lower it and my wife will guide it onto the mounting studs.The mounting studs will be well coated with anti seize. Then comes installing the nuts in that tight space. Dan S. we’re still in 16" of snow and ice so it’ll be weeks before I move the unit outside unless we have a heat wave. Darn! I collect water heaters, they’re generally good tanks.
called the local well driller friday,i’ve known him for years. he told me i could get what ever i needed. i did not have my camera with me but he has all the tanks i could ever need for any project . so i grabed a 22" bladder tank for a new hopper. should cut it up this week . keep up the good work hope it warms up soon
Ah, more gold! 22" should be good, my happened to be 24"x42". Did you luck out with the same top and bottom radii for a lid like mine? There’s probably a drip line consideration where the lid moisture hits the cutout hole for the hopper. The gutter in the design I posted(not mine, btw) seems to account for this. I’m also not sure where on the underside of the lid the condensation starts. Ambient temp plays a role here for sure, just a thought.
I posted a pic of the monorator from a previous post to show more clearly how they formed their gutter. I was stuck with my mounting studs facing up from a previous version. I could have welded a flange on but I opted out of that since I had already built my single port air inlet manifold. Love the Beta whacks in the head. You may be able to use flanges and weld the bolts inside the hopper base plate facing down so they match up with installation holes in the flange. Much easier to install the nuts for sure.
On the picture I posted the orange/brown outline is their grate configuration. I couldn’t do it this way, my mounting studs would be covered. It also seems a bit shallow to me for good fuel flow( might need a vibrator to move fuel, a real good idea anyway). These were vehicle mounted so vibrators weren’t needed. My grate is 45 degrees but I sacrificed a good deal of fuel storage volume under it. I also have a vibrator installed for my stationary setup. I haven’t built my hopper lid yet, we got another foot of wet snow last night, so I was Bucky Beaver of the snow patrol today.
more snow? what the #%** we finily hit 55 today snow is melting away and it’s muddy . the tank is the same top and bottom and thats a good idea welding the studs in the hopper. i need to get some pictures on my thread
Yup #%**. We were right in the middle with the some of the most snow around. 10 miles east- 3".
I’m going to put my lid on a swivel on the arm, that way it will always come down flat on the mating surface. See my concept drawing. If the lid doesn’t swivel it rides with the radius, ie the edge furthest from the hinge pin moves up first, then the closest edge stars to move. Close, yes, but still on a slant. You’d probably have to build this seal up in place. No big deal, I did it on my other hopper. I like the swivel idea. Arvid has a neat lid assembly which is the whole hopper top which sits in a channel built at the top of the hopper rim posted by him on 01-24-2014 @ 19:33. It looks like it would seal well.
The red line is from a previous math problem. Can’t waste graph paper.
I finally got my swivel lid together. Here are some construction pics. pic 8 (shown first) is an overview. pics 1, 2, 3 show the attachment points. The copper pipe in pic 3 is just a spacer to take some of the slop out. It should fit snug when assembling. pic 4 shows the swivel keeping the lid flat. pic 5 shows the lid in the open position. The back of the hinge assembly acts as a stop to hold the lid open, Note the CG of the lid assembly is well back of the pivot point holding it open. pic 6 shows the spring latch in the open position. The spring and cup holding it came from a screen door closure. Be careful taking them apart they are under tension. pic 7 shows the lid in the latched position. Adjust tension for best seal by screwing bottom nut up compressing the spring and pulling down harder on the lid arm. Also be sure not to totally compress the spring or you’ll lose the pressure relief factor and you’ll have a bomb! Now on to making the lid gaskets. It was 45 degrees here today and the snow was melting like mad. Yippee! Robins all over. This was easy to do but took a while to beta it together. Hopefully yours will go quicker now, if you try this. The philosophy of the 3 F’s; fit, form and function.
Pepe
nice lookin lid
Thanks Arvid. Was my description of your hopper lid accurate?
Pepe
Howdy Pepe,
Really nice look to it, almost wind tunnel tested 
Ya might want hinge it further… make it so the lid looks like a bowl, then the condensate that would run down the side of hopper with the lid open would mostly go right back in the hopper. You can also put a gutter on the lower part of the lid that fits inside the hopper opening. Make sense?
Lookin good can’t wait to see how it works.
TerryL
wish i would have seen this before i built my last hopper lid. that swivel system should work nicely .
Very nice Pepe.
I’m thinking of something similar but the spring at the top of the lid. Will it be necessary to apply a sealant between the lid and the hopper? My lid is only 14ga, I’m worried that is too thin? Yours looks thicker than that.
Hey Pepe, sorry for not answering sooner… Here’s a pic of the underside of our current gasser lid…
Thanks everyone for your comments. Right now I’m satisfied with the changes I’ve made, so I’ll run with it and see what happens. Bill, I would say you want to insure air tightness every where. You don’t want to be pulling in oxygen anywhere and making an explosive mixture. My lid is just shy of 1/16" thick. I’ve seen the spring mounted on the lid also. I don’t see why it wouldn’t work ok. It still has to be airtight. Thanks for the pic, Arvid, I thought the channel was on the hopper not the lid. Makes sense as the condensate could drip off, run down into a gutter on the hopper wall,etc. for collection. What does the mating surface on the hopper look like?
on this unit it is a ring that was made up from 1/4 x 2 flat stock…
I have wood stove door rope glued in the channel with RTV. I put grease on the ring and then close it and old it down under pressure until it’s hardens up. Makes for a good air tight seal
The idea here is the outside lip on the lid is longer than the inside one. in the event of a puff, hot gasses are directed down instead of out… less chance of people standing around the unit getting burned. The channel also protects the rope seal from a serious puff.It seems to work that way in operation so i’m happy with it.
Hi Arvid, Thanks for the explanation. I’m always looking for different solutions to the same problem.
Bill, I thought of something else about pressure relief. I’m presuming your relief port will be much smaller than your (my) lid. This will increase the pressure that is exerted in the event of a blow off. This may be a bit dangerous. Also, with my hinged design I have directed the blow off away from the operator’s station which I call the front of my unit ( 11/25/2013 @ 16:53). If you look back through my earlier posts (07/28/2012 @ 19:20) you’ll see my old lid and pressure relief and the sealing and leak problem I had. Just some food for thought
Pepe
we had built I referred to as a nipple lid at one poine. the top part was made from 5"HSS and it covered a vent tube made from 4" sch 40. The lid was locked down when running. The vent worked fine, but made a crazy high pitched sound when venting… don’t think i ever would have gotten use to it.
I scrapped it for what is shown above… the other was heavy and awkward to manipulate (read that it took two hands to secure)
many ways to get the job done… consider all safety aspects in your design… even the way it sounds when it puffs… don’t want to give anyone a heart attack…
Pepe,
Actually I am thinking of using my lid as the relief. Something like the drawing here.
I am going to weld a rod on the inside diameter of the collar for more rigidity. It should also help with sealing the lid.
Pepe,
Excellent lid!
Your point of force is at the center of the lid therefore you will have an even distributed load around the gasket perimeter. The joint is loose so it will self center and the spring loaded arm will also function as a pressure relief. In the food industry we call those access manways. When I built mine I used an air cleaner from a 76 dodge. It had the perimeter gasket on the lid and I used the housing with the rolled bead. I welded a dome top on it and put a cross arm on it with a spring load similar to yours.
Bill has the right idea as well.
Arvid, That looks so neatly done. I can’t wait to get my unit on my trailer. Bill, you’ve got me thinking about our designs now. In both cases what really insures that the lid will come down straight after a burp? Mine’s on a swivel, so after I get my gaskets set in place I will close the lid and lock nut the swivel in that position. I may also use your idea with the following addition. Add a rod guide for the lid as shown in the pic below. Tack weld this on over an extended period so as not to warp the lid from excessive welding. In order to adjust the spring tension you could use a bolt coming up through the bottom of your lid and out the top of the rod guide with enough threads showing to adjust the tension. This length will take some experimenting. Try using a long threaded rod at first to get this tension (and rod length) down pat. And just when I thought I was done, lol.
