Carl,
Indeed, for your purposes , the simple fire system from Gary Gilmore is the way to go…
Plenty of examples on this forum based on a Simple fire…
Welcome to the dark side 
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Thanks OrCarl,
You are correct we do not want to stray far from the original starters topic.
Good DOing it credits non-the-less.
“in-the valley” you mean the Willamette Valley? The original God’s country Oregon goal. Growing zone 6A I believe. Actually the best in the west overall.
You should do fine charcoal gas fueling your larger 4kW unit.
For actual lowest dino fuel sipping for your power use needs a Honda or Yamaha 2000 inverter-generator unit would save you over half the bought out fuel use. Tiny engines on these MUCH harder to raw woodgas fuel. GaryG and one other have charcoalgas fueled these tiny’s now too.
80 acres of Willamette Valley trees would probably be Fir. Save out all of the denser big limbwood and knotwood sections for charcoaling.
Now if your valley was Rogue River/Appleton, then you will have better charcoaling oak and maybe madrona.
Regards
tree-farmer Steve Unruh
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Hello Carl , I live part time off grid , in other words my wife will not allow me to cut the cord from the outside world , but while she is out at work all day everything runs off my charcoal gasifier , over the years i have run nearly every type of small engine . from single cyclinder B&S running 12 and 24 alternators , and scream o matic type generators , to the now much nicer for everyone inverter generators .
One of the inverter generators with a small charcoal gasifier would be perfect if you are adding a washing machine and a new freezer onto your home setup , one of my worn down 24 volt systems is made up of trojan L16 batteries that manage pretty good while doing the laundry tv and computer after a top up from my inverter generator .
If you do decide on a small charcoal system we are all here to help you along ,so if you have any questions then ask away .
All the best Dave
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Wow, there is so much information on this forum that it makes my head swim. I just plowed through the thread on nozzle designs and the first thought I had when i got to the bottom was “I know kung-fu.” You guys have been busy. Is there another thread somewhere that picks up on that work? I am fascinated by the water-cooled nozzle Gary Gilmore built, as well as the simple heavy-walled pipe with multiple jets design.
Steve: I am indeed in the Willamette Valley, and our property was clearcut about 20 years ago and planted to doug fir and western red cedar. We have a lot of hardwood that resprouted though, and so I have been making charcoal mostly out of cherry. I cut maybe 5 cords of firewood a year, and all the off-cuts or unstackable pieces I throw aside and make into charcoal. I am using a 55 gallon drum with a pipe that goes underneath to try and burn some of the flared gases, but it really needs to be improved upon. I will have to check out what other people are doing.
Dave: Since I am 100% off grid, I am thinking it makes more sense for me to charge my batteries directly from an alternator rather than trying to run a stand-alone inverter generator. That way when I add more electrical loads they can just plug into my existing outlets, and I can top off the batteries when needed. Did you post about your 24 volt alternator project? I am thinking I am going to look for a 3-5hp vertical shaft lawnmower engine and couple it with an approx. 40Amp 24v alternator. My battery bank is pretty small, so I probably should not try and cram more than 30 amps into.
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Carl you want the other Dave not me but check out www.microcogen.info for everything you ever wanted to know about charging battery banks.
Carl , since the last post on nozzle design’s I have been running so many types of nozzles ,and have no reached a time where I can say without worry that the only way to go is with a vertical pointing nozzle , be that a thick walled tube or what I am using for the past 2 months is a refractory cast disk that is just under 8 inches in Dia by half inch thick with a half inch hole in the middle , this is a very small gasifier and fully loaded will only run my inverter generator for 2 hours max before it gets too hot and needs refilling , some times I do if its a real cloudy day other times just one run a day will do .
The reason why I mention inverter generator is this , during the day I use no grid power at all , so if I want to use washing machine and cut wood and charge the batteries all at the same time I can , that way I am not relying totally on batteries that would soon be flat if only charging from my 5 solar panels on the shed roof , and allows me to run tv and computers at night on just battery power , when I was using a small engine to spin a alternator it worked but wouldn’t put out enough to charge up my batteries for everything and as my inverter also has a 100 amp charger built in to it I use the inverter as a ups while charging my banks of batteries .
if memory serves I may have loaded pictures up on the yahoo charcoal site , it would be a good idea to have a look on there at some of the photo’s ect , you may have to join /sign up to view but well worth it .
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/charcoalgasifiers/info
Dave
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Hi Carl,
I did re-read your posts and i hope i see the picture right.
Following the advice of Steve U, using your gas generator set on charcoal, i second that and i ad:
1: use an extra rectifier from the AC outlet generator to connect that voltage DC into,/parallel with your solar panels, your solar charger.
2: the extra power needed for your household can be used to, simultaneous charging your battery banks.
3: No need to greatly modify your generator set, you can use on gasoline if needed to.
Just build a good quality charcoal gasifier Gilmore style, good filtering and off you go…
Don’t forget to make the good quality charcoal…
Any questions for building;? plenty good folks around here to help you out. All loving to see another builder/do’er
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Well from the experiences of alternative fuels (and powers/inputs) electrical generating direct DC; MUST-Have rigid RPM control synchronous AC; and now self-varying RPM inverter generators . . . life woodgassing/charcoalgassing fueling is just so much easier to be able to just let the engine speed float/vary by loads and produced gasses quality/quantity availability.
That means DC generating.
Or letting the inverter/genrators charge-side internal electronics do all of the work.
Then your gas/producer system can be super simple.
Your engine gasses/air mixer system be super simple too.
Just saying . . . .
tree-farmer Steve unruh
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I like it Steve, K.I.S.S. Keep, It, Simple, System.
Bob
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If they are lead acid batteries in parallel you can do 5 to 10 amps per battery safety. I wouldn’t push it beyond that on a regular basis because it will shorten the battery life.
Burning cherry man every time I do that I cry a little it is about the prettiest wood around here to build stuff out of…
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WELL… I did it, Just ordered 10-265w Edison panels @ 50 cents per watt including shipping. Don’t know if that’s a good price, but seemed like it from what I’ve been pricing. Still looking at controllers, and batteries. Found 24v 800ah fork lift batt for $1700.00? Called power co. today got info on grid tie, have to read all fine print:dizzy_face:
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Welcome to the fun sometimes white knuckle ride that is Solar…8 new flooded lead acids l16 size would give you 800 amp hrs. Would be 3200 canadian -20% for conversion. Are the fork lift batteries new? Sealed or flooded?
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batts are recond. 2 yr warranty.flooded replaceable 2v cells
Nice to have the waranty. Usually if something is going to go wrong it happens early on the reconditioned ones. On 48 volt systems the 2 volts are nice because you can loose one, pull it out and still function. Would probably still work with 24 volt systems as well.
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I thought about fork lift batts too heavy for me though. if you go grid tie no need for the battery except for emergency backup, nice price on those panels its amazing how the cost has came down so much.
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on a side note today was the first time in almost 6 months I had to start my genny for a couple of hours still loving those lithium.
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I was wondering about li-ion batteries from cars, they have individual cells that can be reconfigured to other voltages.
and often can be found cheep in comparison but you need a bms to keep them safe.
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