Tom Collins' Gasifier

They are normally part of my “winter” attire. I understand you don’t have a very big problem down there like here.TomC

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Even if it works as it supposed to the valve is only open for a minute or so. It’s a high idle device for cold engine only.

I have an old fasion adjustment screw on the butterfly lever for normal ideling. WK- string if I want it higher.

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I’ll have to look again at the video. I missed the part about being for cold engine start.TomC ----------------Yep! I missed that part. I should have know you have already studied this much better than I.

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Little more BS from Tom. I told you a friend came over and cut that big limb off yesterday. He trimmed all the small limbs off ( a job I hate doing) and he left me with three piles of wood ----- one will have to be split for the fireplace, a second was small limbs that will fit in my chunkier, and the third I will saw into pucks and chop into woodgas size.
I have had the gout in my feet for years and it has moved into my knees. We have been treating the flare ups until this week. The doctor said we are going to knock this stuff out once and for all. He is loading me up with steroids, which kill the pain,BUT also give me a lot of ambition.
I am sitting hear now thinking how I have all that wood ready to just run through the chunkier and we are having BEAUTIFUL weather for both work and drying. So in a moment I will be running out to chunk up some of that wood. But with me, there is an old saying that kind of fits---- a goose that sh–s fast, doesn’t sh-- for long… That is me, the medicines spurs me on but then my heart fights back and says go sit down. BUT, anyway slow but sure I am getting wood drying. Thanks for putting up with my complain, so here I go. TomC

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Hey Tom, I would have given you 5 likes if I could. About that gout it really hurts in the joints, I know. I have found that if I eat less Red Meats, I do not have the problems. Eating fish seems to help with my old age joints too. I think it time to eat some Walleye now that I have mentioned it. My two cents worth any ways
Bob.

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Hey Bob,
You said the magic word for me, “Walleye”! What a great fish for a fight and the grill. When I was a kid in Tupper Lake, at night in early spring my dad would take me down to where the Raquette river flowed under the bridge on its way to the St. Lawrence river. Then he’d shine a light into the water so we could see the Walleyes grouped up for the mating ritual. Their eyes lite up like little headlights. What a great sight! What a great dad! I was truly blessed!
Pepe

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Hi Pepe, Good eating too … I catch one every once in a while here… Regards, Mike
PS, Gout is a pain along with the associated stones … I take alopurinol a couple of times a year … only a half tablet once a week when I need it

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KIRBY VACUUM BLOWER USERS!!! Some one out there had a picture of a Kirby hooked up so that it could “suck” and “blow” with the switch of some knobs. Please post some pictures on my thread so I can see it again. I made a mental note when I saw it but since then I guess I lost my mind. TomC

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JO and Max; Working on my truck today, I had the thought that if I am going to stick with this truck, maybe I should put it on a diet. The first thing to come to mind in my cooling tubes. They work fine but it took 3 of us to lift them upon to the truck box. Probably 250 lb.

How does yours work on the VW? Gas goes through the cyclone, then on and feeds into the condensate tank which you have to keep half full of water. Hitting the water the gas cools some, but if it comes out of the cyclone a 500+ degrees F won’t the hot gas boil the water?? Then, I guess because the gas is hot it will pick up moisture from the water. As the gas/water go up the cooling pipes it cools down and drops out some of the water which washes backward down the pipe into the horizontal pipe at the bottom and continues to flow counter to the gas back to the condensate tank. In the mean time the cooled gas is collected in a horizontal pipe that runs along the top of the cooling tubes. Then the gas goes to the hay filter (?).
Is the idea to pick up water from the condensate tank so you get a good flow down the cooling pipes. Doesn’t that leave a lot of moisture to be dropped at the hay filter and possible let some go on to the engine?TomC PS Next I probably will be asking how Max comes up with how much area of pipes is needed to get the gas cooled down. But for now have I got this about right???

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Tom, you have got it right.
My cooling surface area is to small. I don’t collect much water in the condensate tank. I’ve just started to collect a very small amount right now when we’re getting cooler weather though.
Yes, I have to drain my hay filter. That’s where most of my water ends up. I do collect some water in the pipe up front also, but not much. How much moist enters the engine I have no idea. It doesn’t seem to affect performance.
However I collect at least 10 times as much from the hopper. Usually about a gallon for every 30-40 pounds of wood.
I think you are on the right track losing some weight.

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Hi, Tom!
17. of August 2016

The absolute amount of water per volume unit of gas at ~atmospheric pressure sets the dew point. (temperature)

We cannot condense out any water without going to or below that dewpoint (temperature).

Hot woodgas, as leaving the grate has about 25% relative humidity (water, steam) in it.
When cooled down, it shrinks (by volume) and the relative humidity rises.

When cooled enough, the relative humidity rises, approaching 100% .

Reaching 100% relative humidity is reaching the dewpoint.

From there on, with further cooling, the dew point is “pushed” further down, and producing condense = water.

The relative humidity cannot go over 100% ; satisfied is satified!

After dropping out the “over satisfaction at 100%”, the relative gas humidity stays at 100% if no change in pressure or temperature happens.

From here on, we can dry the gas by rising its temperature.

As a foggy morning clears up by the heat of the sun.
At the same time the gas starts expanding…

This makes it possible to final-filter the gas in a dry paper filter… the paper needs lower relative humidity.

The heat transport from the gasifier to the cooler is (under normal conditions) a straight function of the motor’s gas consumption.

Therefore, the gasflow determines the cooling surface needed.

The cooling starts immediately after the grate!

So: Liter X thousans of RPM X 3

l X n X 3 = gas consumption

As before, is the gas consumtion.

Cooler area = l X n X 0,5–0,8 = m2

Enough?

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My air preheat is my 1st stage cooler… typical after cyclone Temps for me are under 200 F, measured in the surface of the piping.

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Hm…I usually run hotter. Medium load in country roads 150-200 C (300-400 F) after cyclone. I wonder what’s actually making the difference? Depth and state of reduction of course but what else? Chip vs chunks? Secondary nozzles?
I preheat starting with the surrounding of the cyclone and then into a container that surrounds the whole gasifier. The air svirls around it before entering the nozzles.

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Hi, again!
17. of August 2016

It has been mensioned earlier, that the air preheater cannot absorb more than ruffly 1/3 of the the outgoing heat, so the constitusion of the reduction is not opening any
“goldmines”…

It is the cooling surfaces after the cyclone where
“the shoes are narrow”…

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Thank you JO and Max. This is in the thinking stage and depends if I can find a dairy farm that has gone out of business and I can buy some of his piping that was used to move the milk from the parlor to cooling house. TomC

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About that air preheat… l think it shuldnt be counted in the coolyng area. Afterall you get the heat taken out of the hot gas and put it in the firetube, and get it back trugh the grate. The gasifier works better, but no heat is realy lost in the process. Am l correct?

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You try not to loose heat… but the wood gas does get cooled

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Well Got my truck back on the road today. Making a gasket from Arvid"s direct became a little more involved than I had anticipated. He said he used 3/4 in. furnace rope. In a town of 1000 people your choices of stores is not very good. All they had was 1/2; 5/8; and 1". When shopping here is is not uncommon to not be able to get what you want when you want it. So, you have to take what they’ve got when they’ve got it. I went with the 1" and that meant major changes in the channel that the rope fit into. I had to buy a new 10 oz tube of RTV and the project took almost all off the tube to imbed the rope and coat the outside. Was having trouble smoothing the RTV, but then I remembered I had some mild soapy water I spray on inner tubes to find leaks. I sprayed my finger tips with that and it smooth the RTV out beautiful. When I put the lid on the hopper, the bracket would not fit to hold it down, because of the extra hight of the rope under the lid. So had to make a new bracket. End result is, Arvid, this is the best lid I have had on any of my gasifiers. Thank you.

While working with the lid off, I got a spark in the char bed and had to just let it burn out. Every bit of char was gone from the hopper. So I put in about 4 gallons of engine grade charcoal, then some charcoal chunks that had not been ground. Fired it off and added wood. Yesterday I told JO that my vacuum ALWAYS runs 2;1. Today I get to eat those words.( Oh yummy ) It ran at 1:1 today. I’m guessing it is because my char bed is not established.
So anyway, as usual I have a hundred ideas of things to change. The other night when my wife and I went out for a drive I started talking about things that I would like to change and she let me know that it is running fine so just drive it and let it be. Hmmmm Guess that might have been the final word on the subject for a while. TomC

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Hmmm…This I don’t understand. To me that would indicate an empty gasifier, from nozzles to grate. Mine gives the most powerful gas at 3:1 to 4:1. If I ocationally see 2:1 I most likely pull oxygene thru as I reach 10:5 inH2O or so, delute my gas and get high gas temps. Funny cratures.

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Time will tell. Only went about 20+ miles. The engine grade charcoal, when I scoop it out of the storage barrel is almost “light and fluffy” So when I dump it into the gasifier, I expect that you can pull air through it very easily. I thought by the end of the ride, I would be getting out of the fluffy stuff and into some pyrolosis wood, but maybe not.TomC

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