Joep, with this video I tried to show how this construction of the hot zone works, how the lower part glows around the lower nozzle and how the ash blows out. I have to say that this cordless vacuum cleaner has a rather gentle suction. You can also see that there is no fear of running out of coal, because the upper nozzles do this conversion efficiently, but then there is still a long way down through the glowing coals,…
I tried working only with charcoal and then with wood, the difference is more than obvious, I’m not saying that there is no flame with charcoal, but when the wood starts to gasify, it’s a different picture.
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Impressed Tone, first I thought what? Never! Cool design! Sorry HOT!
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Tone this last video is very telling thank you. I didn’t realize that the reduction cone was going down so low (maybe 4 to 5 cm from the bottom of the grid?) I’m surprised that this place doesn’t clog. your bottom nozzle does a great job.
your vertical grid seems to support the heat very well without oxidizing. I think that my next construction will be strongly influenced by your innovations
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Rindert, I’m building a downdraft gasifier with a height-adjustable vertical nozzle (“Swedlund” type)
I can approach or move away from the grid by moving the nozzle
Thierry
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Hey Tone,
I can see your design evolving quickly. Are the internal diameters still 20 cm inside wall and 30 cm outside wall and nozzles 17-20 cm above the restriction? How tall are your basket columns?It is not clear to me how you pressurize the basket ring and the bottom nozzle. I think that this is a great project and will be very interesting to see how it works out.
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Tom talked about scattered information,… here is the composition,…
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I have read the properties of a good gasifier earlier but it was a while ago and I did not make the connection. Thank you. I am rereading it now…
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Hi DarrellC.
I want to thank you for questioning Tone and for him releasing his hearth core demonstration video.
Now I see the method to his madness. (I joke.)
He seems to actually be using a variation of MaxG’s vertical members grate “basket”. Only Tone has made this an active heat recovery system.
The then moved up upper level of oxidization air jet rings, for tars circulation heating . . . and then the lower to CO conversion nozzle . . . well, that is all Tone!
Darrell on our low, low ash soft fragil making charcoal wood you want to be very gentle on the grate movements. Or you will turn your system into a soot’s-monster. (Not true soot. Char-dusts.)
Or as Tones does . . . have no grate movement at all.
Ha! I do at the new house location have a lot of cotton wood too. Clay soil with thin, thin topsoil’s and the firs, spruces and even alders do not like it. They starve for making deep roots. They grow to 15-20 years and die. Cedars seem to do better there.
This cotton wood is the exact opposite of the good conifer firs and spruces. Over 10% by volume/weight of ash! That freed up mineral ash chokes off the surfaces gases exchanging. Need a very active grate or a for-sure constant gas velocity clearing nearly, continuously or ash chokes off and the system thermal crashs.
Hmmm. Would Tone system handle this?
Maybe. Maybe not.
Regards
Steve Unruh
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Very good point Steve, I have been wondering the same thing about Tone’s new design. My type of poplar is a soft wood, unlike the poplar back on the East Coast of the USA. My poplar it likes to choak up my WK Gasifier at the grate. Even Jakob North had trouble using it with out mixing in hard cherry wood. I have made charcoal out of it and it just crumbles in your hands easy. I can not run it in my trommel to classify the dust out of it, not much left coming out the exit end.
I think bring the air in from the bottom on this gasifier is a K.I.S.S. of a idea.
Good Job on this Gasifier Design @Tone . By the way how big is your restricton open below the nozzles now that you changed it?
Bob
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Hello Mr. Steve, the branches that make up my fuel are at least 30% poplar wood, it seems to me that it gives good gas and as you say, quite a bit of ash. Otherwise, a lot of ash is produced from fuel cut from branches with a lot of bark, regardless of the type of wood. If the wood is dry, I have no doubts that it would not produce good gas. The construction of the hot zone, which I use, allows the use of different wood, removing the ash is not a problem, this is easily done by the gases coming out of the hot zone.
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Tone,
Where do stones and nails collect in your system? Are they a big problem?
Rindert
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I’d like to bring this back up because of this incredible feat.
I’d say roughly 100 working hours would be equivalent to 10,000 km of highway driving, or 6,000 miles. That’s just my perspective but that’s a lot.
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Is this from May 18th 1980 ? Or from many many thousands years ago with a past eruption.
Bob
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Hi Steve,
I can get lots of hemlock and alder and I cut a lot of yellow cedar with the sawmill. Would these be good candidates for a Tone type system? Fir is snapped up here by the firewood guys.
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Friend Rindert, nails and stones in a gasifier are like sand in gasoline, …
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DarrellC. I’d let Tone speak for his fuel wood possibilities of his system. I believe he answered this on comment that I linked to.
My opinion is I am only interested in woodgasifier systems that have the widest range of woods usages. Just like my bulk use wood stoves. Accept no range use limiters.
BobMac as I read it clay is highly weathered to near submicron sized mineral rock. Take lots of time and annual weathering:
https://www.ivydengardens.co.uk/Case%20Studies/howisclayCreated.html
Volcanic spew, and glacial melt back drop, beach sands are always larger particles.
The May 18th 1980 Mt Saint Helens event did contribute some air larger particles fall now all incorporated into the top soils. As I understand it; time weathered down to clay particles are usually water wash carried into low settling out pooled layers.
One of the previous 20, Mt Saint Helenes events side slide pushed out clear here 40 miles away forming this end of runout 600 foot high hump we will be living on. Well o.k.
More impressive is to go from the central Orgon coast volcanic rocky headlands over 100 miles east back to cental Oregon volcanic calderas. Once quite the molten rock flow, run-out, eh.
A better Italian conifer tree growth study showed the growth differences due to washed down topsoil depths in a mountainous area. Down in the valley with over one meter soil depth doing 30% growth better.
27 years I here have fought glacial deposited rocks from fist sized to small car sized. a full 30% by volume of the ground. Remove, remove, remove and you make a hollow. Impossible to field crops plow. Grows excellent Douglas Fir trees. The best in the world. To vegetable garden best to just hauled in soil building up above the rocks.
Clay? Best to haul in build up your own soil above the clay. Clay is weird. It expands and contracts greatly. Articles saying it holds an attractive grabbing base electric charge.
Ah! Ha! That is why it sticks so terribly to tools and boots. This last Sunday shovel digging out 12 old short steel Tee-post for one last reuse. My puller was 60 miles away.
S.U.
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Joep, I have to admit that I dedicated the last video mainly to you, because you use the same engine. These days, it operated for more than 6 hours and at rather high revolutions (2500-3000), it consumed approx. 1 liter of diesel fuel and approx. 20 kg of wood was gasified in the gasifier, and it split more than 6 cubic meters of wood. Consumption is therefore 0.2 liters of diesel fuel and slightly more than 3 kg of wood per hour. As you noticed, it runs very smelly and quite loud on diesel fuel, but when it runs on wood, it runs without smoke and much smoother, well, because I don’t have the gas amount regulated according to the need, but only the set mixing ratio, the diesel pump limits it turns so that it shuts off the fuel and then the smell of gas can be detected. Let me also say that the motor works very well on wood.
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Thanks Tone. I hope some day to contribute some real woodgas experience. Everything I tried ended up in a mistake. I feel I am on the right track but things have to fall together.
And Douglas is a pain. I realy hate it now. Got a trailer load for free. But bridging is all it does.
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What size and shape are you cutting it to. It makes a difference, all to small it can bridge all to big same thing.
Bob
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I built an downdraft gasifier for charcoal. it seems to work well for a while then gradually the torch decreases in intensity. I assume the grate is gradually clogging with ashes and small charcoal (as happened with your tractor I believe)
Tone, do you think a small nozzle on the grid of this generator could solve the problem? I remind you that it works with coal and not with wood.
Thierry
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