Hi All,
I beat the sun to the shop this AM and was able to weld the flange to the cyclone inlet, mark and cut the slot in the shroud for the cyclone gas inlet and check it for alignment. It looks good. I’ll take the shroud off and weld in the air inlet and outlet before I close it all up into a single unit. I also cut the inlet and outlet curves on the 2" X 3" tube and test fitted them. They look good, now I can cut them ot length and install them. I have to remove the cyclone once more so I can make an inside weld on one side of the inlet and outlet. It may not look like it but in the third pic there is an even 1" space around the cyclone. The next to the last pic shows the plate on the cyclone sealing the shroud bottom and the air inlet tube for the cyclone shroud air preheater. Char collection will screw into the bottom of cyclone.
The last pic shows a straight shot from the gas outlet into the cyclone.
pepe
Lookin’ good Pepe.
You can pull heat out of the cylone as long as it stays above condensate dew point.
You could always use system surplus heat to open air dry fuel wood. being able to use all seasonal wet picked up wood is the real goal to a home stationary system.
More eveidence of my mantra of “Run With AN Engine Always”.
My new engine system keeps blowing my hat off from the exhaust pipe. One of my previous engines a diesel Listeriod would do the same. I’ve been ring seating in this newest Kohler V-Twin loading the genrator down with my two shop blowers. These things proven they can suck “Pick up a bowling ball”, pressurized a gasifier to flare and the impeller size and speeds are exactky the same size as we built the Victory Shop “HummingBird” suction blowers around.
The exhuast from this Kohler engine at it’s 2600 RPM loaded engine idle is out blowing my shop vacs.
Over on the YahooWoodgas groups Stephen Abadess has put up a plumbing fitting ejctor flare nozzle he sucks his gasifiers with that he is BLOWING with a shop vac. I am sure now the exhaust off of many IC engines at power and speed could power ine of these ejectors too.
Eliminate the blower assembly and motor comletly and simplify.
( There you go MikeL - a plug for the other groups)
Regards
Steve Unruh
Hi Steve, Your new unit looks like it could power a race car, but the Lister is a thing of Beauty for sure.
Thanks for the condensate dew point info. Perhaps I should put in a tee in the line so I could temper/close off the preheat air at some point.
Stephen Abadess- Now I remember where I saw that name.
Later, Pepe
Hello fellow gassers,
I made a little progress on my cyclone heat recovery/preheated air modification. Thought I’d share a few pics, the last of which is a candidate for fan housing find of the week. The ID is 8 3/4" and it is 4 1/4" deep. The feet can be cut off and moved around the corner to allow for a flange to mount the fan motor to. Yeah, it weighs 8 to 10 lbs. The cyclone is now (gulp) buried in the shroud. The shroud will get 2 drop down lockable leveling legs with half moon feet to help stabilize the unit. The 2" threaded gas outlet tube will get a union for cooler location options. Ideally the top of the cyclone shroud and the top of the SPAI housing should be even( didn’t have a long enough piece of tube left)… Next time. I’m onto forming puffer top and other RTV gaskets so I can put it back together. Getting closer to a refire, with real charcoal, of course.
The road to here ain’t been straight, but when this thing doesn’t react as it should, I’ve now got a pretty good idea of what to look for and where. The tear downs, along with knowledge of the steps of the process are a great learning tool and part of that 75% builder/operator learning curve.
Regards, Pepe
looks cool… keep up the good work
Hi All,
I finally got set up outside and successfully ran my roto tiller on wood gas. I have a long version and a 30 sec version for dial up folks.
roto tiller on wood gas 1 2m 20s
roto tiller on wood gas 1 30 sec
Hi All,
I’m dismantling my outside setup for some tweaks. I’ve also made a mold for making high temp silicone gaskets. You can adjust width and thickness easily, but I think a square cross section will work best for circular gaskets. I’ll wait a couple days and test for curing. I’ll post the results.
For testing I plowed 2 3/8" x 3/8" grooves in a 5’ 1" x 4". I figured 5’ would do a 19" diam. Sand the grooves well and varnish 2 coats. Sand and clean between coats. Very lightly paint veg oil on all sides of groove Fill groove using caulking gun. Fill entire length with silicone just barely proud of the face of the board. Strike it off in one motion the entire length. Let the excess come all the way with your sweep. Use a teflon pan scraper, it’s no stick and leaves a smooth finish. Don’t dally, the surface skins over quickly and if you go back to smooth it over, you’ll drag chunks along and make a mess. One 14 oz tube made 11’ with about 2 ’ of waste from strike off. Don’t use it, it has veg oil contaminate and may just pull apart after curing. Don’t overfill the grooves or you’ll lose a lot of silicone. Cut to length and glue ends together with more silicone and set aside to cure.
Can’t wait to pull these out of the mold.
On another front, I have a silicone gasket failure due to too high a temp gas. This failed where my gas outlet joins the new cyclone arrangement, No, it’s not a smoked snake, its silicone. My mistake, should have been rope type.
I thought I’d update my gasifier dwg to reflect design changes. Notably, they are the 2" x 3" single port air inlet manifold and the 2 1/2" x 3" gas outlet. Both of these are flanged to accept the new longer cyclone enclosed in a shroud to preheat the inlet air.
Learned from the snow blower run…don’t run syn gas through the carb, it will deposit some tar on everything in the throat. Yeah, it’s soaking now, lol. Remove the carb and make an adapter for syn gas entry.
I found a fantastic small engine repair Channel. Go to youtube and type in donyboy73 Channel
The best detailed how to videos on small engine repair I’ve seen yet.
Enjoy, Pepe
Hey Pepe, check out this tape. We have been using for some time now and it is working great. We use this on just about every thing except for the lids we use rope on them.
It is very cheap too. For ten bucks it will go ten times as far as sylicone for the same price and you can take stuff apart and put it back together with out the need of re applying it.
hey matt, i see there is alot of seals listed which ones do you use.
Jim
Hi Matt, Thanks for the tip and I ditto Jim’s query, can you be a little more specific?
Thanks, Pepe
Sorry about that, the link was supposed to bring you to ones I use. Strange how that works. But any ways the “slotted fiberglass seals” are the ones we use. We get the adhesive backed loosely woven. If needed you can get the spay on copper silicone and apply this to the the opposing flange. This will ensure a good seal or you can apply the tape to both flanges.
8813K31
Thanks for the info and tips, Matt, I’m headed back to the site now. Fabricating gaskets has been a challenge for me, time consuming and frustrating when they fail. A kind of lick em and stick em approach is real appealing.
Hi All,
A little update on my gasket mold. My gaskets have set for 5 days and are ready to remove from the mold. I ran down each side of the gasket mold groove with a very sharp utility knife and used a small screw driver to loosen the bottom as I gently pulled the gasket up. Tedious? Yes, but I like the results, except I will make any new gaskets only 1/4" deep instead of 3/8" deep. Note how flat the gasket is in the third pic. At $5 a tube I got 12" of 3/8" x 3/8" gasket. That’s about 42 cents a foot. So if your building once in a while it’s reasonable in time and materials.
Once you cut them to length, you can glue the ends together with more silicone. You’ll have to leave them for a few days or so to set before you use them. Kind of a pita, but it forces you to plan ahead so they’ll be ready when the time comes.
I used veg oil in grooves, but it didn’t work well to keep the silicone from sticking. I’ll use bearing grease next time. The hottest areas still get fiber glass rope type gaskets.
Hey Richard; Looked thru all your pics and enjoyed your work. Looks like your a good welder and fabricator. Do you still use pine needles in your filter and if so, are you happy with them? I’ve got alot of them around here free for the picking. I just finished making a better hopper vibrator, don’t think i will be having bridging anymore.Anyways, Just wanted to send you acolades on your work and say hey. Dan
Richard
I mold alot of stuff in my profession (Taxidermy) a great release is Jhonsons paste wax, you can apply with a brush it has enough body it wont run like oil, and is a great release agent, you might give it a try. Love your gasket idea.
Hi Robert,
Thanks for the tip on the paste wax, I just happen to have some Johnson’s paste wax in the shop, I will definitely give it a try. I use it to finish off after staining furniture, etc projects, Easier than varnishing for sure.
Your WK project is moving along nicely, also.
Hey Dan,
Thanks for the compliment, my fabricating is better that my welding, but I’m finally getting the hang of welding thin stuff. I went through the temp range, rod size and type, speed, etc. I used to say, " there. it’s welded, by gob!". lol.
Yes I’m still using pine needles and they seem to work OK, but I don’t have a lot of burn hours for a more definite assessment. I mixed some (a little) leaves in with the pine needles to help slow the straight line gas flow. The gas hits the leaves and is forced around them exposing the gas to more needles. I will be building a new two compartment filter arrangement and plan to use pine needles in it.
I’m also putting condensate traps on my cooler and filter, although I haven’t found any water under the raised grate (1") in my milk can filter setup so far.
I also need to fabricate a hopper vibrator as I had some bridging when I was experimenting with fuel size and shape. I found that 1" to 2 1/2" branches cut 2" long seemed to work best for my parameters. Cubes seemed to bridge the worst…
Check out donyboy73 Channel on youtube for a great small engine repair and rebuild site.
I can’t wait to see how your mods work. Good luck.
Pepe
Checkout donyboy73’s channel on you tube for the best small engine repair site on the web. Just enter donyboy73 in the search bar.
