Excellent report RayM. by a real DOer.
S.U.
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Thanks for the info, I will have to do some research on inverter generators.
What brand of cheap inverter generators have you had good luck with? A quick search for the stuff available from Home Depot shows a champion 6500 watt inverter generator for about $1200, and $600-$1000 for a 5-7k standard generator. How much would the engine displacement be a factor, as it seems like really the limiting factor is how much HP i can get out the engine running on charcoal.
I cleaned out the hopper today, I will try and make a post over the nozzle thread about that - and then had another good easy start-up and a hassle-free 30 minute run. Took maybe 2-3 minutes to get a good flare going, and another minute to dial in the air mix and get it running at maximum rpm.
I loaded it down with an oil heater, which pulled about 550 watts. It seemed to be running a little stronger today, and the voltage stayed between 110 and 113v. Not great, but probably acceptable. The nozzle temperature did not exceed 700F, even after half an hour of running under load, so that seems promising.
Dry charcoal is also clearly a must. I am not seeing any condensation happening anywhere in the system anymore, so the upper limit of moisture seems to be somewhere between 1.3 and 5%.
Oh yeah, one other question that I had: I noticed that the breather hose is emitting a bit of smoke once the engine warms up - would it make sense to plumb this back into the intake where the woodgas goes into the carb? That is basically what is happening on the stock configuration, right? Its getting sucked in with the incoming filtered air, and burnt up?
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Hi Carl , on the breather from the crank case i plumb that back into the air/gas manifold just before the carb , i see no real change in running with or without it , but in my head i feel that oil vapor / smoke that comes from the cranckcase will help to lubricate the butterfly’s in the carb and help stop them seizing up .
Nearly all the cheap no name makes of generators here in Australia are made in china/ asia , and are just copies to some degree of the better known makes like Honda and Yamaha some even use castings from the same factories as the branded ones , and all of the inverter generators i have were all pre owned and i bought them off ebay as not working or the local paper as running but needs attention , and when looking for spares rather than look for the same name i looked at the style of the case the display and if they looked the same the chances are the internals like the engine and inverter are the same .
This is proof i am sure that these are not genuine Honda generators as they are so cheap .
https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/EPA-for-USA-2kw-3kw-5kw_60402264324.html?spm=a2700.7724838.2017115.21.2a9624c1FqO6Od
Dave
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Carl,
Inverter generators are really neat combinations of electronics and a motor. To run them on charcoal you need to see how easy it might be to get the woodgas into it. For example, the Scooter Wholesale Store https://www.scooterwholesales.com/product/dg-3000-digital-generator-inverter/ had a nice looking unit for a really good price ($499 free shipping), and Gary Gilmore bought one, but found it almost impossible to get access to the carburetor. Not sure what he ever did with it? Gary has a video on YT showing his Harbor Freight 8750 watt unit, and I think that might be one of his favorites, although it is not an inverter generator. Maybe Gary will pipe in.
The inverter generator works great for charging batteries. I just paid a Morton Building crew to erect a Park Shelter, and they had a very old Honda Inverter Gen charging about ten Lithium Impact tools, a portable battery operated saw, and some nibblers, etc. They told me it was as old as the hills and very reliable. They ran it for an hour or so just to charge up their portable power tools. When it started to rain, I ran over with a big plastic tub to cover the unit, and they said not to worry about that because it sits out in the rain all the time.
My Champion works well with a 115 vac pole saw.
Do not expect a 2000i to handle a 115 volt chop saw, or anything that has a high inrush starting current. It just shuts down!
Perhaps visit a tool rental store and ask them what you might be able to run off the generators they rent, and also ask them which ones are most reliable.
I bought my Champion 3000 watt unit as “refurbished” from an eBay seller. One of the ground fault interrupter outlets failed, and they sent me a replacement, and then telephoned to tell me how to replace it. (I did not want to return the item because of the weight.)
Thanks Steve U. You made my day.
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The department of defense did a project with mini grid using Nissan leaf . I got a bid on charger used , It was $35,000
I asked if they included Nissan leaf . Last I heard from them . I spent $12,000 on lead acid Trojan L-16 and inverter Outback radian . Have 3 phase 20Kw . output 8Kw occasionally in use. generator to 48 volt 130 amp three phase 240 volt charger.
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I did another 30 minute run today with the new water gauge and the cyclone mounted, and it fired up faster than ever (even with a wood-gas skeptic observing!). The top of the reactor was only about 80F at the end of the run, but I didnt pull very hard on it today. I mostly used it to do a quick proof of concept with my grinder, and it had no problem at all starting up the 1/2hp motor. I ground up about 10 gallons of char in maybe 10 minutes?
Here is a video of it in operation.
I am feeling pretty pleased with this setup, and I am realizing I should probably start thinking about building myself a shop to keep all my toys in. The more I think about my eventual goal of WOW (welding on wood) the more I am inclined towards a battery based hybrid system. A small battery bank with a big inverter/charger combo. Maybe some solar to keep them topped off. I could run small loads like lights off the battery, and then hybrid bigger loads with the generator - the batteries thereby handling the inrush current and making it possible to get by on a much smaller generator.
Anyway, a huge shout-out to everyone who has helped get me to this point, the knowledge and spirit of cooperation on this site is inspiring. Also, if anyone has any extra lemons laying around, do let me know! 
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I guess that the culture of the vine is much less demanding (working hours) at this time of the year …
pity that “the vinifera” does not support the cold Gaspesian 
I was considering a professional reconversion
Thierry
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Well, it is actually pruning season, which is a fairly large part of our yearly labor, but since there is so little else happening on the farm it doesnt end up being too bad. I try to avoid pruning in the rain, as it is quite miserable. Vitis vinifera does not much care for the cold, but couldnt you maybe grow some v. Labrusca up there in the north? Not sure if the wine is much to write home about, though…
Anyway, I got little bit more done in the shop this morning, adding a bit of pipe so I can start playing around with EGR. I also bored out the nozzle to 1/2" which i will test and post about over in the nozzle thread.
Hopefully I will get a chance to fire it up tomorrow. Oh yes, I also put a watt meter on my welder while running it at full power to weld the iron pipe onto my thick walled nozzle. It showed a max draw of about 1900W - which makes sense since I am using .025 MIG wire. The max nameplate rating would put it at about 2400W, which is maybe what you would expect with the .035 fluxcore that the machine can also run. Not really sure how much inrush a welder has - or if my little watt meter is really capturing the true peak.
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Valiant is the best bet, a Vitis riparia hybrid. It makes good jelly. I’m sure it falls far short of vintner standards, but it will make acceptable wine.
Thierry may be in zone 2, or just lacking the summer temperatures to ripen grapes.
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I live in an area 3b. I do not know anything about vine growing, but I love wine. Only one vineyard in my region does not produce what I like. I conclude that producing wine here is quite difficult (all the vineyards are in southern Quebec on the Ontario border)
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If you research, you will have a few choices for vines in that climate zone (almost exactly the same as southern Manitoba). The choices aren’t many, or high quality for wine, but can be productive.
Grape vines are easily propagated from dormant cuttings, best planted in the fall. In a few years you can clone any number of a chosen variety.
For recognized wine grape varieties, I think you need at least a zone 5 climate.
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Okay, I added a water drip system today, and the results are promising.
There is a hopper with a needle valve and a clear tube sight window, and then a coil on the inside to grab some heat from the outgoing gas (in theory)
I put a bit of an uphill jog in the first loop of the coil to try and prevent the water from flowing down too fast and being blown out the bottom, but I think that is messing with the drainage. The little clear tube section was filling with water, even with a very slow drip. I am not sure if the water turning to steam in the pipe is also causing back pressure, as there is quite a bit of tube, and there is probably a lot of friction loss as the steam tries to escape.
I was pleased with the results, I was able to get 720W at 110 volts, running my shop vac, and it would put out 600 at like 117v, with some throttle left on the governor. It didnt seem like it was generating steam very consistently (it was hard to see, and I was paranoid about putting my face right up next to the fitting on the steam pipe). Sometimes I could see water drops come out at the bottom, but the engine ran well, and I didnt have to fuss with the air mix.
The temperature on my thermocouple also stayed lower, it seemed to hover around 1100F (600C) untill near the end, when it climbed up to about 1300. My runtime increased too, I got 45 minutes of solid generating out of it today with at least a 33% increase in load.
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Thats great news! To avoid back pressure you shuld connect the steam pipe with the water reseroar. That way pressure can equalise on either side of the valve + the gravity of water.
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I would add, use rain / distilled water, or soon you will have mineral scale issues in the tube.
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Kristijan,
Please help me. I can’t visualize the connection of the steam pipe to the reservoir to equalize the pressure.
Here you go
This way the drip is always costrant no matter if the steam produced makes back pressure on the valve.
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I tore down the gasifier today, and found that I had a fair bit of moisture in my filter. I was not happy with the performance of the copper loop- so decided I would try a new idea that I had been thinking about. Basically, I wanted to make a small water line that dripped water down into a steam vessel that had a nice big outlet. The outlet and body is made from 1/2" iron pipe, and on the bottom is a roughly 1" stub of 3/4" round stock with some little fins welded on. I read that steam expands 1700:1 compared to the water volume, so this way I figure there will be much less back pressure trying to push the water back up into the hopper.
It mounts in the center, too, and the thought is that the charcoal will be able to slip past it down to the reaction zone.
I stuffed a thermocouple up into the steam vent that goes maybe halfway into the iron pipe.
I got good results, although I am still dialing in how to run it, I think. There needs to be some way for air to get in just below the needle valve, or else the drops can sort of bunch up in the clear tube.
A quick video of it in action.
It ran pretty well, putting out around 600 watts with the heater once it got up to temperature. It took about 20 minutes from start up for the temperature of the steam to exceed 100C. Once up and running, I was getting about 160C steam, and no water was making it down to my nozzle. The upper thermocouple stayed at about 500C. It was cold and windy today, and I realized I really should have some insulation on my steam pipe.
Also, I measured the water drip rate afterwards, and was putting in about 2.75ml/min. Runtime was good today, I shut down at about 48min, when the outlet temp had risen to 77C.
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Okay, I modified the water drip line so it has a breather port on it.
I tested it again today, and tried to see how long the unit would run. I have been measuring the outlet temp on the pipe at the top of the reactor, but I found out that even when that gets up to very high temps, the rest of the system stays relatively cool. I did spray down my cyclone with a squirt bottle, and that seemed to rev the engine ever so slightly. I finally decided to shut it down 1hr and 12m into my run, as the core temp was reading 800C (which is the max of my thermocouple). I did not clean it out today, so I am guessing that ash is building up and pushing the reaction lobe higher.
I did weigh it before and after, so my fuel burn was 1454g (3.2lbs) and I estimated the water consumption at 350g. That means water consumption was 24% of the mass of the fuel. It was under load for 1hr 5mins, and averaged 612W.
I checked the filter at shutdown, and it was dusty and dry. The filter never got above 20C. Oh, I also wrapped my steam pipe in some cloth, and my steam temperature reading was much higher today - it varied between 200 and 300C.
I think I have maybe taken this crappy little generator as far as it will go… I think its time to start looking for a bigger machine that will actually be able to do some real work.
A question that I had today: What do you all think about the risks of excess moisture in the gas stream? I was reluctant to really crank up the water too far, because if nothing else, a wet filter is a hassle. But what about the engine? Its too hot obviously for there to be condensation forming while its running, but could it be an issue after you shut it down?
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Main issue with condensation into the engine is it will help fine dust to stick onto the carburetter surfaces and corrosion inside and you will find that the butterfly’s will seize up , so its a good idea to maybe run the system out on petrol for a while just to help clean and dry it all out ,and /or maybe a shot of wd40 on the butterflies will also help keep them from sticking .
Dave
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