What happened to David Siedschlag? We haven’t heard from him in over a year. Is he still working with wood gas and his truck?TomC
Seems like a bad case of life getting in the way of wood gas.
I gate when that happens… it has a way of getting in the way of all the fun stuff. Good to hear he’s still around and kicking though
HI Wood Gassers,
I am still around. The rumors of my falling into my gasifier are greatly exaggerated. Teaching at UMaine has simply taken up a lot more time than I expected. Fortunately, over the summers I can work on anything I want as long as it has some remote student training aspect. Engine control systems fill the bill very nicely and have received department approval. Victoria is going to college.
One a separate note, I am doing a wood gas demo at the Seal Cove Auto Museum again on June 6th.
I will have the Gas Station Lite running her generator:
If you would like to see Victoria do her thing or the UMaine compressed natural gas snowmobile, please come out and join us.
Stephen
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Nice, what % of rated load will it carry while maintaining 60 hertz?
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Probably about 25%. For more I would need to advance the timing.
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Hi Wood Gassers,
On 5/3 I am going to be doing a demo at the University of Maine’s Crosby Hall.
https://umaine.edu/mecheng/crosby-laboratory/contact-information/
My boss actually WANTS me to bring the Gas Station Lite in to do demos and show the students. I will also have the lab open on 5/13 during commencement but I will be greeting parents and grads so time to talk wood gas will be limited.
Feel free to stop by to check out the Gas Station Lite and the ag residue pellet mill project I gave the students. They were tasked with making a .5"ODX.75"L pellet from ag residue to try to get the ash to blow through and prevent clinkering.
Stephen
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Hi Guys,
I am getting ready to try leaf pellets. My students built me a .50 X 2.0L pellet mill.
as a graduation project. The pellets came out quite nice. For our open house on 5/3 I am going to bring in the Gas Station Lite and see how they run. Hopefully the larger size will allow the ash to blow through before it clinkers.
Stephen
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Looks like they made a good mill, I bet those got nice and hot in process
Do the leaves need to be ground up before pelleting? If so how fine and with what kind of grinder? Talk about renewable - this is it!
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They are still playing with keeping the dies hot. Preheating to 240F got everything running nicely.
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Don,
No grinding required. The guys oven dried the first batch of leaves and said they turned into “leaf flour”. They actually had to add water to get a nice hard glossy pellet. That was COMPLETELY unexpected. They have a good video showing steam pouring out of the top of the mill in operation.
Stephen
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Hi Stephan,
I think we’d all like to see the mill and video. They did a great job of manufacturing the pellets.
Pepe
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Hi Pepe,
My students promised me a video and a 5 gallon bucket of pellets on Monday. I will share ASAP.
Stephen
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Years ago I worked in a feed mill we added steam to the pelleting process as it was going through the dies to get it to stick together. Maybe useless information
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Nice work steve, it can be an other supply of bio mass fuel, though it seems they would behard too dry out, or can you dry them after they are pellets, let us know the tar level, or are them pellets for heating fuel.
Do you think news paper would work also.
Kevin the drying is part of the pelletizing process. This fuel is ready go right out of the mill if its done right.
Hi Wood Gassers,
My students just finished a nice pellet mill for me:
I am just waiting for next week to get in some testing time.
Stephen
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Hi Wood Gassers,
I finally had a chance to test some of my large diameter leaf pellets. The results are encouraging:
The big surprise was the ash content. It was only 7% by weight. I was expecting much higher. I believe wood is 1-2%. I will check this next week using the same test method. The next stop is a gasifier run.
Stephen
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