Tom Collins' Gasifier

I need some electrical help. I can not get my speedometer to work. Now and then it will bounce around and maybe for a short time give me what appears to be a good reading. But mostly, nothing. I switched instrument panels and neither speedo worked. I have been checking the sending unit and have found a questionable wiring. So my question is ---- if I tap into the wiring going from the sending unit to either the intermediate gizmo that corrects for differentials or to the instrument panel, “what do I use; a volt meter or amp meter. or even possibly a tach?” TomC

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Hey Tom, it could be a hall effect speed sensor, what year is your truck? Al

Al; It is a '94 Chev. I believe it is a Hall effect. It has a magnetic pick up on the tail shaft of the trany. That I think (?) produces an electric charge with each passing of the magnet. If I put the rear end on jack stands and run the truck in gear, to check my wiring along the way, do I use a “test light”, a “volt meter” and “amp meter” or what. As I am writing, I am thinking a test light would maybe flicker at low speed but with more speed would glow. Just trying to see if the wires are in tack from A to B Maybe a test light right at the pick up would test that also TomC

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found this may help you, http://www.speedwaymotors.com/Tech/Testing-2-and-3-wire-speed-sensors.html

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Thank you Al. That says I use a volt meter.TomC

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if you can find someone with a scanner to plug in to your check engine port for obd1 that will also help to find the problem most scanners can show speed so if you get a reading with the scanner driving the problem isn’t at the trany but if no reading your on the right track.

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16 posts were split to a new topic: Power to Weight Ratios

 Torque and rpm's are directly related.  I have made the case for not believing the advertised horse power.  And as the torque and hp are directly related, I don't believe the torque figures.

You will never get me to say anything bad about Don’s Tracker ( even though I have never gotten to ride in it ) My take on his engine is— it has a very flat torque curve. They increase the hp by making the engine rev high. Add the constant torque to a very high rpm gives you a bigger hp figure to brag about. But with a flat torque curve you have a fairly constant “power” over a wide band of rpm.
Engines produce a bell shaped torque curve and pretty much a straight line rpm. The max horse power will come at about the peak of the bell or shortly after where the rpm and bell curve cross. After that the torque diminishes faster than the rpm increases so the hp goes down.
Power/ in.3 Again you are dealing with figures that I absolutely doubt. If they doubled the horse power in that time, the newer trucks would just scream off the line. It would be so obvious, but I don’t think we saw that. You double the horse power but you only increase the torque by 50%. Then you had to increase the rpms to get the increased hp and that is counter to your argument about low end torque for wood gas.
Designing tires we could make a tire that would do 200,000 miles but in the rain or cold you would never keep it on the road. We have to dumb it down to make the tire drivable ---- wet weather, cold weather, hot weather, ride, noise and yes a fair amount out mileage. The same thing with engines. Herb’s hot rod puts out a ton of power per cubic inch, but for the general public, they need a drivable engine. In order to get a drivable engine the auto makers dumb them down. When they get them dumbed down all manufactures are shooting for the same perimeters so their actual power per cubic inch is in the same ball park. Thus my comparison of weight to cubic inches becomes more relevant.
Yes Mr. Wayne, air resistance is something we need to consider. Every since I got home from Argos, I have been modifying my truck to cut down on the wind resistance. I had a bad west head wind going home and my poor little V6 was working it’s bender off. Really got to thinking about a S10 from that trip. TomC

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Engines that need torque , like tractors, have a longer stroke than width of bore, car an pickup motors don’t anymore, old motors did.

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A motor with a long stroke will make usable power.

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Has any one got the stroke length on one of them lean burn oil well ICE drivers.Yes the s10 4.3 should have a bit faster easyer take off for sure,and easyer too maintain freeway speeds, I see them all the time for 600 too 700 bucks needing a few repairs with decent body.Or ready too roll for few more hundred dollars.

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JO, Max and all; I’m kind of moving the subject about the “cooling and gas conditioning” of WWII gasifier here so we aren’t “hi-jacking” some one else thread.

I am interested in building a smaller vehicle to run on woodgas. The big thing I see is with the WK system we have a truck bed full of generator, cooling and conditioning equipment. The WWII units had the generator in the back and all the rest on the front-- much smaller. JO Olson sent the following to me which I’m sure you all have seen included in some article you have read. I list it again so that we can all be talking about the same picture.

http://www.kfzderwehrmacht.de/Homepage_english/Miscellaneous/Wood-gas_drive/wood-gas_drive.html

JO first question; There are 3 pipes attached to the bottom of the radiator ( cooler or what ever you folks call it) The first one takes the gas off from the baffles in the “scrubber” area. The second one is taking gas off from the scrubber but past the baffles (as I see it ). It doesn’t show how the gas gets into that chamber only that it goes down and right back up.

Max; Going back through old postings I ran across a conversation where you said you were building a different smaller car — ( excuse me if this is not correct) I believe it was call a Mica. How does that project stand. It interest me. Some pictures would be nice. ( back then you told Don you didn’t have a camera, but by now they are like a butt-- everyone has one)TomC

From what I’m seeing in that diagram: 2 pipes enter into a primary baffle (which is “BEHIND” the tertiary baffle); the gas goes up through the heat-x/radiator pipes (center of the picture); the gas enters a secondary baffle at the top, which is “deeper” than the primary baffle and radiator pipes; the gas then flows down the tertiary baffle which is “in front of” the rest of the system; and then finally out through the third pipe.

Does that make sense?

Brian!

No, Nothing is behind anything else. Up in the center, down at left and right edges. The left bottom part is connected to the right bottom part with a horizontal regular cylindric tube, and the upstream passes around it on all sides. Then, down to a filter from the right bottom part.
The horizontal connecting tube gets a minimal reheating from the hotter upstream flow!
Theoretical playing…

Max

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High, Tom!

To my “designated” question: Still no camera, but putting it on the list of must have, with audio (WINDPROOF microphone)boom over the head; I dislike the miserable videos with walking around presenters and the camera on a stand or swinging wildly around, showing or focusing on everything else than the object of interest!

Yes, the Nissan Micra now with its 1,2 liter motor has almost equally many HP/ton as my Audi. ~93HP/1000Kg. (63 HP/640Kg). The Audi 103 HP/1010 Kg.

The drawing of the two “barrels” needs the measures of the Alibaba lids with hinges and attatching band around the barrels.
Diam. ~500 mm. Height 1300 mm for the barrels.

Max

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Tom,
Really simple. That old drawing just makes it look more complicated than it is.

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OK While trying to figure out how to build this and drawing it up; I realized that there are 3 tubes on the bottom of the “radiator”. #1 takes the hot gas up to the center section of the radiator ( its position allows for the condensate in the center section to return to the “scrubber”). The #2 pipe is only to take the condensation from the two outside tubes back to the “scrubber”. In the end of the scrubber just after the gas deflector plates, is a perpendicular vertical plate that goes from the top of the scrubber to “almost” the bottom. The water prevents that gases from going past this patrician and yet allows the condensate to return to the “scrubber” water. The 3rd pipe only takes the “cooled” gas down to below the cork filter. I hope that is how it works.

Max Is the cooling size really all about horsepower ( which I find to be a very un- precise measure ) or is it about displacement and rpms? My V6 is just a little larger that a "42 Mercury in displacement. So “ruffly” shouldn’t I get away with about the same size “gas conditioner”?

I haven’t paid much attention to the scrubber.

Looking at the right hand cross-section drawing it seem to mee gas is diving under surface two times. Then only up through two parallell pipes. I think filter bottom had to be emptied for any additional condensate separately.

I’m hesitant to how effective this kind of scrubber/bubbler is. All I know is you will lose a couple of inches of vacum.

I am thinking of making a horisontal condensation tank also beeing the lower connector of the cooler pipes at the same time. Gas entering at an angle for some svirling action before travelling up the pipes.

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Hi,Tom!

You should follow the tiny small arrows, which CLEARLY show the flow direction at every spot!

The end picture of the condense tank is taken from the right side of the vehicle.

You again see the small arrows showing gas input and output.
The two output tubes up to the cooler are “in line”, so you can see only one!
That is clear when you look at the “broadside” picture.

The gas comes into the condense tank in front of the “saddle” plates, and the two (2) tubes go up to the cooler behind (after passing the saddle).

The gas flow is “measured” by the motor displacement X RPM, as a pump.

To be more exact:

L X n X 3 = Net woodgas consumption/s with WOT.

L = displacement in liters

n = count of 1000 RPM

3 = factor sum of all input factors

Horsepower allows estimating when not knowing exact displacement and RPM.

Max

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Whoo Raa!!! Santa brought me a “lump of coal” to try in my gasifier. How did he know it was just what I deser— wanted.Tomc

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