My first small engine run

Thanks Wayne, I also have been inspired by many. I have closed my pepesgasification site and want to thank all of you here for your posts. I will have the time to post my stuff here to a really responsive inspiring group.
The active members of my group, for the most part are already here anyway, now we’re all in one place, much more efficient and interesting.
Pepe

happy 4th… hope everyone has a wonderful day

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Hi Pepe, I tried to find your phone number today but nothing is for free anymore. Glad I checked in here to see you had shut your group down and it wasn’t yahoo that did it. Thanks for dragging “Ben’s” crowd out of the woodwork … That had to be done !! … If you get a chance and it doesn’t cost you, give me a call at 608-623-3000 and leave your number if you don’t get me or send me a note at PO Box 383 Linden, WI 53553. Of course that number is busy right now as I’m typing on it. What the heck is Max going to do now ??? Stay well and have a nice 4th … All fireworks are canceled here due to drought and burn bans but I will be throwing packs of crackers out on the highway today and plan two trips with the wood car … Have to be careful though… Thanks again, Mike LaRosa

Hello All,

I to would like to wish everyone a good independence day.

Freedom and independence might have a little more meaning to this group compared to the average individuals.

I have been hauling cattle this morning and had to depend on no one for fuel.

Happy 4th to all

“HAVE WOOD, WILL TRAVEL”

Hi Wayne, 10-4 … Cavalier is running good … Had the sheriff behind me on the way to town and I didn’t get caught for speeding (or for driving too slow) … I caught up with him before the parade … He was showing off his propane system and we got a chuckle out of the whole multifuel scene … I was with his sister through the whole parade … Didn’t know it till the end … That was funny … Sue survived trombone on the band truck but I haven’t seen her yet … I need to jump in the pool and cool off … Near 100 here … Not very common … Plan to fire the car up around 6 or so to go to the band concert … Neighbor is riding with me … Fireworks are canceled due to drought and dry grass … BBB / SWEM … Mike

Hi Everyone, My single port air inlet manifold retrofit beat the Titanic to the bottom. Leaked all over, so I scrapped it for a little redesign and a few other improvements.
First I will install a single port air inlet of a different design (and easier to weld). This will involve cutting off the existing air inlet elbows to make room for wrapping the flange with light steel leaving a single large air inlet. This inlet will be fed preheated air in the following way. I will insulate the burner shell. Next I will recapture the cooler and cyclone heat with a finned shroud on cyclone and a 4" stove pipe shroud around my S shape cooler.Therefore the air is pulled in at one end of the S cooler, exits and is fed to the inlet of the finned cyclone shroud, exits and is fed to the single port air inlet at a high temperature. The SPAI can also be insulated. This will all be in line and require some imaginative adapters between components. Can’t wait to get started. Welding on the fins will be good practice for an eventual go at the WK

UPDATE 1/29/13 I did not use this cyclone plan and posted pics later on of new design. I also will build a vertical tube cooler with condensate trap and drain.
Also I noticed the gas outlet port is missing.








Guys, Lest you think I designed it this way, the stove pipe fitting like this was pure good fortune. I built the cooler almost 2 yrs ago when I didn’t have a clue about gasifier preheat importance… I might add that heavy galv like this is a bear to snap together over the copper. I’m going to use 4" aluminum. The adjustable elbows need to be turned and tweeked but they will fit! Mind your matching ends. Pepe

UPDATE: 12-11-2014 I never followed through on this for preheat. I did build a more effective cooler. See later here.

My latest icon picture was taken on top of Whiteface Mountain (4897" msl). That is the famous Lake Placid at the base and KLKP is to the left not visible.

I got to looking at the snow blower and realized I had a snow fan. This has a bearing on the right in the housing(which also has a cut out for a tangential snow chute) and a drilled shaft adapter with 4 set screws connecting it to the auger drive. It’s a 12" d. I’m planning on removing the blower and use the pulley system adapted to run several alternators. Then I’m going to make a blower fan out of the snow fan. Well, not right away, of course.


Shovel it, why? lol.

Hi Pepe
Good to see you thinkin’ and doing. BEST way to improve hearth performance is to conserve it’s own heats.
Your old snow blower is now your lemon tree of resources. Exhaust heat off of this is your 2nd most important heat to put back into the overall process on a small stationary system IMO. EG: GEK Hotottie and Mr Waynes and others engine exhaust to primary air heat exchangers. This heat is so intense it is difficult to use for fuel drying unless diluted down with blended in cooler air. Why waste it? Lower temp engine cooler air/coolant heats and fuel gas cooler heats are already just right for wood fuel drying.

Picture of my “Lemonaid” made up woodgas small engine starter made up from an old push mower and a common ~1000 watt PM DC motor like in the cheapest Superwinch. That gen set’s gone now and time to retrieve the motor to put back together my DC electric chain saw for behind the PU seat winter storm road clearing. Hmm. On second thought, This motor if repulleyed could really spin up a large blower impeller on 12VDC. And the hand made counter bored internally threaded shaft nut made up from the lawnmower axle nut was tricky to make. Hate just now to throw it away. Lemons = lemonaid = $ health.

Regards
Steve Unruh

Hi Steve,
Thanks for the “second notice” on the exhaust heat reclaim. I’ve pretty much stashed all your advice in my do it this way file. I’m coming around to it. You had at some point mentioned preheat to me, along with other gems of wisdom and experience. I didn’t mention it in my post, but in my latest vid I’m shown feeling the exhaust and commenting, “there’s a lot of heat to reclaim here”. Then I went blank!
I have a small wood splitter (engine dead) trailer with a 40" wide by 6’ long bed for the footprint I have to work with so unfortunately it will be the last preheat mod I do after I figure out my component layout.
I’m going to start with the single port air inlet then weld the fins on the cyclone, installing it and figuring out an easy way to connect them. Then move on to the S cooler reclaimer. Really hooked now. Can’t wait to try the improvements. Guess I’ll have to invest in some temp measuring devices and build the monometer I’ve been putting off.
Thanks for your help, Pepe

Ha! Ha! Your picture proves a couple of my “anal” points.
Engine exhaust heated ram cylinder!
Never seen that here, or the need. . . . 'cept for maybe 3-7 days a year here with constant below freezing.
Our need is to be able to condition 40-60% moisture by weight picked up wood. Third year in a row now without Summer wood drying weather. 11 million people here. Now toss in ~100-300 million more in parts of NZ, North Europe, North Asia, chunks of South America and Africa. Same this “summer” in western Europe for a min 100 million people. PalC had to take his wood and have it bakery oven dried for a recent Demo for use with his Imbert variant. So this is not just an anal Steve Unruh problem.
Now there IS enough combined engine and gasifier system heats to handily take 40-60% moisture raw wood fuel down to a easily usable >15% moisture. Been calculated for me by both Daniel Chisholm, Victory/Radam and now evidenced by the latest APL and VictoryShop systems. But this only works if you build in using up ALL of the “waste” BTU’s/Calories so the system will condition prep it’s own incoming fuels. Doesn’t matter if the BTU/Calorie is doing this open air, closed in the hopper or even super heating to go through the hearth.
Ha! Ha! Sorry co-gen guys in low/no solar climates and seasons be no extra BTU’s left for you. This is as good as it gets if the woodgas/engine system can self energy cut, process and condition it’s own woodfuel.
Best picture I’ve ever seen Chris Seymour put up of a 40’s era red Faar woodgas tractor with a woodgas fueled single cylinder engine powered tilt bed saw, chunk punching then de-fines conveyor into baskets/sacks wood processing system. It still wasted off the engine heats NOT drying the wood chunks
Ha! Ha! S-t-i-l-l working on a personal scale wood fueled fully heat integrated energy system.

Regards
Steve Unruh

Hello Fellow Gasifiers,
When Steve Unruh offers to save you a year or so off your life, please take his advice. He offered me the same a year or longer ago and I went merrily along with my FEMA build. I was reluctant to accept advice on a subject since I didn’t(relatively speaking) know squat about building a gasifier. The FEMA was comfortable, a drawing I could build from, envisioning my own 50 yr old IH Cub chugging along plowing, Farmer Pepe grinning ear to ear! lol. Now I offer you the same advice, Steve’s through years of experience and knowledge and mine from that year or so of finding out for myself that the FEMA is a good tar maker. There are 2 types of tars, water soluble and sticky non water soluble roofing like tar. It produces a burnable gas capable of running an ICE, but as the name implies FEMA is for emergency use. The tars eventually (soon) gum up valves, etc and require tear down to clean out the ICE. Even though the Fema is easy to build from scrounged materials and I learned a lot(except how to take advice lol), was all that effort to get a flare worth the effort in the end? IMO, not. Why? I concentrated (and you will. too) on building without doing much to learn the processing. Hey, build it, light it up and watch the flare. Then I lost the flare and had to stop and study to get a clue why this just happened! Advice to read and plan (on paper!- forces you to think about what’s happening here), present for critique, an invaluable tool of member knowledge and experience, but better yet is the willingness to share. It certainly inspires trust. I feel like a neighbor just a little further down the road.
I went on to the fluidyne 25th anniv design and then to my GEK type imbert by the numbers which produced a very clean ICE running gas. Guess what, I’m still retrofitting! Now for the preheat mods that should have been built in in the first place. I know some will try to retrofit the Fema to get imbert results ( I thought about it, but saw Andy’s vid on the fluidyne and went for another straight forward design) Build an imbert the first time for long term results and most definitely include preheat- thank you Chris for driving this home for me. I now understand that preheating is one of the mechanisms that provides the reduced oxygen atmosphere for the reduction zone You don’t need an hourglass shaped hearth, a straight tube will work well also and save the hassle of a cone roller build. I’m in the Dutch John third gasifier category, but I’m there and more psyched than ever about refining my gas.
I offer some pics and a vid to show you what you can expect from a running FEMA gasifier. I did not run an engine with my FEMA, but the self sustaining flare indicates a gas capable of doing so. I enjoyed the build, but it’s not where I would start now. The good news is pine needles are a good filter medium. Pine cones are not. THE LAST PIC is my GEK type gasifier filter after 2+ hours, clean as a whistle, except for a bit of new start up crud… Remarkable difference in hearth temperature
Please don’t think I’m putting down FEMA builders, I’m just trying to point out some facts. From where I sit now, I would skip the fluidyne, too. You’ll have to way improve the preheat there, it doesn’t exist, the 5 nozzles open to outside air through the shell. I’ll report, you decide, as they say.

My FEMA gasifier 7 21 11 remake- fast forward to 7 min 12sec for the sizzling tars in the flare tube. These are the some of the same type tars that ended up in my fluidyne filter pics here.

http://youtu.be/tHmbck_VEC8

UPDATE: 1-31-13 This was the filter on my fluidyne with the unwelded reduction tube and flange.
I ran my FEMA without a filter and quickly moved on.






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and that tar will make it to your engine no matter how much filtering you have done… talking from experience here as well… we live we learn. and we try to pass it on, to those that will listen

Hi Guys,
I had trouble getting a sustained flare on my third firing of my GEK type, so I decided to do another tear down. I’ll post all my findings but I’ll start with the fuel loading makeup and the shut down make up in layers starting approx 8" above the nozzles to the grate grill. Yes, it’s tedious, but a great learning tool. I’ve done several and found some of what I suspected and some that were real surprises. I enjoy the tear downs, they’re real progress.
Hope this helps you see an answer or two in your own quests.
Pepe

Pic 1 6"-8" above nozzles
Pic 2 3"-4" " "
Pic 3 1" below nozzles
Pic 4 At 4" restriction (line C imbert spec)
The bottom of the hourglass hearth has a flange that is bolted to a matching flange on the
bottom of the firetube thus the space will fill in with char. I filled mine with sand before firing.
Pic 5 Same as Pic 4 with small char carefully vacuumed out, we are on a “dig”. Note the starting briquets are now visible. I started by dumping briquets onto the grate and filling it up 2" above the nozzles. Good if you have bonafide wood charcoal, not good at all if you use made for hamburgers briquetts. See why in the following pics.
Pic 6 Briquets from Pic 5 removed to reveal another layer of them.
Pic 7 Briquets from Pic 6 removed to reveal another layer of them.
Pic 8 MOS
Pic 9 The grate support rod is exposed, so are more briquets. Note the fines starting to fill all the voids between the inert pieces called briquets. This causes the gas to go for the path of least resistance which is around the sides of the grate missing the glowing char. Tar and water go with it. I found some water in my normally dry cyclone. It’s no wonder a flare wouldn’t sustain. This load had about only 2 hrs burn time, then I shut down.
Pic 10 Unchanged briquets packed in like sardines. The briquets don’t seem to get consumed, just get in the way! This is not a design error. Poor choice of “charcoal” and subsequent clogging of the gas stream reducing hearth temp below cracking temps of some tars. These tars showed up well in my filter.
Pic 11 This is an important picture, probably the most from recent posts. I have 1/2"X1/2" stone screen for a grate. Note how and also important, “what” is in those squares for the most part. Look close, mostly crumbled briquet pieces put there on initial loading. I will replace this with a slotted rotating grate staying only 1/2" from the side walls. Write on the board, “I will never use briquets again” 500 times, Pepe!
Pic 12 This is all the small stuff I vacuumed out as I dug down through the layers. Really uniform stuff.
Pic 13 The same small stuff in a different container with all the unchanged "after two hours’ briquets. I can’t believe it! Let me save you some time off your life, don’t use briquets. A bag of the good stuff is not cheap, it’s just sure! And it won’t be there in the morning! lol.
Pic 14 More of the briquet blockers.
Pic 15 Grind off the tack welds, remove and rebuild grate using slotted grill. It was worth the effort to build this height adjustable, rotating, locking nut airtight, removable grate.

I was able to make my new slotted grate today. It has 2" more diameter than my old one, but still has an inch space around it. I wanted less but this was the only disk I had to use.
















The second fix is the pressure cap leak. At first I thought the double gasket failed but found the welds holding the threaded studs were spotty and leaked out through the space around the studs.Note tar on base of studs.The double gasket worked.
I rewelded the studs and will replace the gaskets as well

UPDATE: 1/29/13 I scrapped this design as neat but over built. I see so many simple pan like covers that I’m going there.


Continuing on with the tear down, I disassemble the unit for inspection.
Pic 1- Components
Pic 2- Char in base with briquets that fell by grill sidewall space on first load up. New grill will have only a 1/2" space to sidewalls.
Pic 3- Air inlet 90’s removed in prep for single port air inlet. Port location to be determined after cyclone heat reclaimer is tacked in place. The 8" cyclone will fit inside the 10" tube heat reclaimer.The round gas outlet pipe was removed. Square flange bolted connections will be used instead.
Pic 4- T minus one to separation
Pic 5- I used a flat bar to gently pop the flanges apart so I could lift the unit off without disturbing the rope gasket. I was concerned about the integrity of the butt joint that I sort of layered together. It looks OK, no evidence of leaking.
Pic 6- A closer view of the gasket joint.






Hi Pepe,

Amen on the briquettes ! I do not even use briquettes for meat when I cook because they have a bunch of filler ingredients, and make much more ash than real wood charcoal like Royal Oak or even Cowboy Lump that we have in stores here in NY. For startups, You would have a hot fire in no time using natural lump charcoal and throw in a few handfulls of stove chow (wood pellets) ever now and then because these little logs catch on fire easy and they turn into usable charcoal much quicker than natural wood. The little stuff helps dry out and burn the big stuff.

On your post from 18:19 today

I have questions about the [reduction bel | 4" restriction | choke collar, etc…] that is shown on photos 3-10. Is the purpose of this part to make all of the hot gas pass through the hot char and flow only through the 4" hole then to the grate ? There seems to be a pretty large gap directly under the nozzles along the burn chamber walls where this restriction part does not appear to touch the walls at the top. Does this part have a flange on the bottom or something that makes a seal so that the gasses flow properly through the 4" hole ? Looks like that would be a difficult design challenge to overcome if using nozzles that are not removable so they always stick into the burn chamber…

I would guess the grate would probably be OK unless the holes are too big (?)… the real problems seem to be above the grate - briquette fuel and any leaks around the 4" restriction hole.

GG Edit - I paged up a ways to 07/21/2012 - 18:14 and see that the restriction cone bolts in from the bottom and there is a flange, so everything should be going through the 4"hole if you build as good as you draw !

BTW… I have my eye on my JD524 snow blower for my first run - thats how we roll in NY, right ! Save all that pea sized charcoal for me because I would use it in my ammo can filter or even burn it in my lil gasser… I’ll even stop by to pick it up !

Hi Gary,
I’m in the Mooers, NY area a couple of miles from the Canadian border in the real upstate NY.LOL. How far upstate are you? When politicians refer to upstate NY, they usually mean 10 miles north of Albany. Lol.
I made some progress on my improvements list. I’ll end up taking all the sections apart(only have the burner insert to remove tomorrow) to inspect gaskets, etc and make the retrofits easier. I think. I need to hook up some rope and pulleys to pull it out and not to damage the gasket putting it back together.
I welded in the single port air inlet jacket, but will not cut the inlet until I have the cyclone(8" D) and cyclone preheat shroud(10" D) figured out and tacked in place. I then cut off the cyclone cone(13" L) and welded a 13" straight section to it. I’ll increase the cyclone outlet to 2’ D and add a 2" X 4" cyclone inlet that will bolt to the gasifier outlet.I hope.
Pic 1 Hourglass hearth with flange
Pic 2 Hearth bolted to bottom of fire tube, The sand on the floor came from around the hearth, all the junk you saw. Next time I will pack it more fully using damp sand. The fine sand really settled a lot during operation thus the charcoal stuff seen in the old pic.
Pic 3 Serendipity
Pic 4 I trimmed the excess and welded it in. I can’t believe I was so lucky.
Pic 5 The fire tube flange was part of the circle left from cutting the flange below it. Not planned just another good fortune!
Pic 6 My new 26" cyclone unit ready to mount in/with the preheat shroud. This should be a challenge. Can’t wait to tackle it!
Have to take a break now to finish picking blueberries before my honey gets home.
Pepe