Haven’t done anything with exhaust gas yet. Today I pulled the carb off the generac Generator to clean it. The gen has run about 20 hours on char gas now. There was no trace of soot in the mouth of the intake manifold. Still needs some work. Last time I ran it I still wasn’t getting enough power to run my inverter welder. Still able to run a 15 amp saw and 11 amp grinder. Now I’m wondering if running a little propane with the char gas would help or screw up the A/F ratio.
4 Likes
I haven’t done anything with charcoal, but using a welder with charcoal purked my interest. How many amps does your welder pull? What kind and size welder are you using? I will throw in a little bit. Adding exhaust into the reaction only cools the reaction so the nozzle will not melt so quickly. If you need more power, then you add water. Either ‘‘piped’’ into the nozzle area or by drenching the charcoal directly. TomC
2 Likes
Tom, I thought I read once that CO2 in exhaust would make some CO in a charcoal gasifier reduction zone.
Maybe not much but some?
2 Likes
Don, you may be right. Like. I admit I haven’t worked with charcoal. Would that produce more heat or take it away? Hmmm. could be it cools the reaction and improves gas? TomC
2 Likes
I think you are right again Tom!
2 Likes
Tom and Tom,
I think drenching the charcoal directly only works with a down draft charcoal gasifier like Kristijan’s most recent one.
3 Likes
Yes, I believe you are correct, I was thinking in turms of an Imbert , TomC
2 Likes
I don’t think I ever plugged it into the Kilowatt thing to see what it draws Tom. It’s a 160 amp machine. I run mostly 1/8 7018 at about 140 amps on 110v. The generator runs it fine on either 110 or 220 on gasoline but it gets a little squirrelly when you exceed it’s duty cycle. I bought it hoping to run it on my 2000 W inverter/generator so I could carry one in each hand, but that will not run it at all so it’s got to be pulling over 15 amps. I am using a water drip into a reservoir that surrounds the grate similar to Don M’s system.
2 Likes
Do you know or can you measure what the arc voltage is?? If you can you can make a close approximation as to how many watts you need for the process. 140 amps at 20 volts is 2800 watts
1 Like
Hi Tom , if you start up your gasifier and generator on pure charcoal , with no water at all let it settle in for say 10 mins running , and start to add water drip then , do you then hear the engine speed up at all ?
I have had a few systems where water added did not seem to change anything at all , if yours is like that then could you swap the water drip now for some waste oil and re test , see if power output to the gen head improves , failing that your best option then will be advancing the engine timing .
Dave
1 Like
I can hook wires together TomW. Not real good with what happens after that.
Have not thought about testing the difference with or without water Dave. I just start the drip when I fire the charcoal. I will test it .
Weather has been crappy here and I’m depressed about the State of the Nation so haven’t done much the last couple weeks. Right now I want to get the Homestead gasifier fired. I’ve been pulling char out of my wood stove for it because I know it’s bone dry but now it’s been sitting in a open tote for a while and since I don’t want to introduce any variables into the testing of this thing I’m going to run the char through my dryer first. Our humidity has been off the charts.
If waste oil increases power why aren’t I using it all the time? What do you do, thin it with alcohol?
The Generac generator I have is a pain in the ass to work with anyway. I only need it for the 220V to run my well pump if the grid power was out. I’m really thinking that I need to get a small four cylinder car engine set up to test these things. Especially since I’m going to put my WK with the 8 inch fire tube back together and learn how that works. Big Brother is supposed to be sending us 600 bucks so I’d look for an engine with that but I’m still holding my breath for that and getting a little blue around the edges.
1 Like
Yes. State of the Nation has many of us on edge. Neighbor against neighbor. Family against family.
Street riots again in the nearest big city to me again last night TomH. By the want-more Left-Wing folks STILL unhappy.
So instead lets talk four cylinder engines.
Depends, depends, depends.
On what is available to you, locally
How much you are willing to search out invest into it.
Whether you want it to be heavy stationary. Want it to be portable. Even self moving.
Why WayneK and BillS followed wood millman RonL’s example and just sought out the last production IHC wheeled tractors with spark ignition four cylinder engines.
To adapt over four cylinder car engines for generating true large kW’s in 220-240 single phase VAC becomes a big damn deal project to set up for the shaft droving and then the absolute stable RPM.
Ha! A wheeled factory tractor get you 2/3rd the way there!
Then you can factory PTO drive a large generator head.
What BruceJ is going to do with his old A.C. tractors.
Then there was DannyCox and a few other searched out four cylinder Ford and GM engined factory generator sets. And woodgas fed them.
So what’s your pleasure (or Pain) to be TomH?
Regards
Steve unruh
1 Like
Well, because then you would maybe be tempted to just go back to buying gasoline to get yet more power, and that is cheating 
4 Likes
Well, being a brother to the dinosaurs SteveU I have expressed that I am only really comfortable with engines with distributor driven ignitions and carbs. For all the admittedly superior modern electronic wonders I just want to have one coil and a carb. Not enough experience with producer gas to know just how much that carb has to do but I’m guessing it needs either a choke or throttle plate that moves, so basically just a throat mounted to an intake manifold. No gasoline function at all. For engines I have some experience with the Pontiac Iron duke, the 2.5L jeep. Had a six cylinder 292 chevy truck. Worst gas mileage ever but great torque. Inline six cylinder Jeep. and a Plymouth slant six. Of those I’d probably take the slant six.
What I want to do is mate some engine to my Miller welder head. It’s four pole, 10,000 watt. I can live with that even if I’m only getting half the output but there is another thing that makes me go huh. That welder came with a single cylinder B&S engine so maybe 15 HP. Why wouldn’t I get full power out of the gen head even if my engine only produced 40 or 50 HP which would be about half of several of those engines. This is a stationary power plant. Don’t care how heavy the gasifier is. One reason I’m interested in the discussion about casting refractory fire tubes.
Actually I have that 2.9L v-6 I am planing on using in my utility vehicle build. That engine has less than 500 miles on the rebuild. Just babbling now but I also have a 2002 Ford Escape I could convert to the Ute. It lost 3rd gear in the trans. I couldn’t find a reasonably priced replacement trans and I don’t take them apart myself. So much to do, so little time.
2 Likes
Should get 10,000 watts out of it with a big engine. Woodgas limits the power compared to gasoline so just fit it to a bigger engine to make up the difference.
4 Likes
Well on the “use you own engine oil” . . . sure go ahead. But just your own. Don’t go out searching for the stuff. Or use yours in a shop waste oil drip heater.
Now that Miller welder head onto it’s original single cylinder engines; great that it’s 1800 rpm four pole.
What’s not so great is that these are almost always only one bearing heads. The drive end of the armature using the engine crank bearing. These engines usually have a tapered shaft crank extension. Then the gen head armature shaft is hollow with a reverse taper socket. Then a long thru bolt clear all the way thru from the opposite end sucking it all tight together.
A few ways to adapt over. ALL taking lathe work.
Any of those engines you double de-rate.
1st for actual power at only 1800 RPM.
Then that further de-rated for woodgas.
Bruce Jackson here is pretty good at calculating this stuff out.
S.U.
4 Likes
Hi Tom is it possible for you to get some containers with lids on ? steel or plastic drums would do and keeps the charcoal nice and fresh ready to burn .
if its possible as i said before just start up just on everyday normal charcoal first see how well it runs maybe even try generator with a increasing load till you reach your max before it cuts out then try the water drip with no power being used listen too the engine revs as the water gets sucked into the reactor you should hear an increase in revs , once that done then once again try the engine and see if you can get past the previous max power out , if its only a little better then try adjusting the air/fuel mix before shutting water off if still no better then once water has gone try some old engine oil ,it should be thin enough to drip anyway if its old transmission or engine oil , once all combination’s have been tried and tested then i guess that’s the max output for that particular engine in its stock mode leaving only compression and or timing advancement left to try .
Looking forward to hear how you get on and dont let the buggars grind ya down Tom
Dave
2 Likes
Containers are cheap here Dave. I can get 5 55 gallon barrels for 25 bucks at a near by coatings supplier but I don’t have a road worthy truck and neither of my local sons seem to have the time to help an old man out despite many promises and apologies. I have a lot of char fuel on hand right now in metal trash cans with lids but they are sitting outside and I don’t know how hygroscopic the char is. I know from my fairly extensive experience with bio-char that it will easily absorb a lot of worm casting tea. The stuff I have in the open totes is out of my wood stove so I figured it would be good to go but now it’s been sitting out for a couple weeks though I add to it every few days. It’s pretty important to me that this cheap, store parts gasifier performs well for what it is. I have the dryer I made and it works really well, especially with processed char in the hopper. I’d rather start out with optimum fuel and then downgrade to see if it made any difference. I have to do a lot of stuff outside since I burned down my shop. Today we have 0 degree F windchills and snow. I’ll probably sissy it out in the house today but weather should be better tomorrow.
1 Like
Tom , its not called sissy it out its called “home made fuel production”
but honestly you are worrying to much about the charcoal getting damp , as long as its covered over as best you can then it should be good enough for a gasifier , as i have mentioned before where i live we are in the clouds a lot of the time and we have rain dripping off the tree’s even when its not raining and i have stored charcoal for ages with just a lid banged on top , the worst my charcoal ever got was on lite up you can hear a snap crackle pop for a few mins , but remember you will be getting better gas anyway once up to temp due to that dampness .
Dave
1 Like
You win. I’m going to flare this thing tomorrow and I don’t feel like messing with the dryer. The fuel in the tote has been kept under cover. If you didn’t live 2 million miles away I’d build you a dryer even though you don’t need it.
1 Like