Welcome to the group and welcome to the Dark Side (charcoal gas).
I just want to make sure that you realize my picture above with the tar all over the carb was completely my own fault. I was “experimenting” and used raw wood in a self designed gasifier instead of charcoal.
I’ve only been here a few months so can’t really comment on your “kitchen sink” filtering ideas. As long as it didn’t create too much resistance to the flow or didn’t end up sucking the filtering materials into the engine it should be ok but I’d wait for other replies.
Welcome to the site Michael. I wouldn’t worry so much. Especially if you are using charcoal. It would be good to know what you intend to gasify and what sort of gasifier you are planning to use. I have had many more issues with Ethanol gas in small engines than woodgas.
Welcome Michael, yes make a personal thread of your build so comments, and thing will be found on it.
Mixing the Rocket fuel at 50:50 % ratio I think is pretty high and can make tar much easier then if you used 90% Charcoal and 10% wood pellets. If you use a 100% Charcoal made from wood pieces you will not have any tar being produced. This is the easiest way to run a Charcoal gasifier using 10 % moisture in the Charcoal and not dry Charcoal. No dust problems when handling it. Getting the right size of Charcoal mix is important too. This is part of the fine tuning of you charcoal gasifier.
I agree with Tom and Don. Make a new thread and show us what you built. I would like to see how you made it and the fuel you tried so far.
I’m interested in how you inflated a tube with the gas. I’d expect some “that’s dangerous” comments but I’m curious how it was done. The only thing I have found here similar was Matt’s VersiFire which stored the gas in a gasometer.
No man make a thread and show your build. It dont matter what others have done, we want to see what you have done and if you are willing to share your work. Most here are going to enjoy it. LIke Don said pretty much all our builds are unique in sort of way.
Im developing a gas storage system. This has been thought about for years and years as gas storage has come up over and over and over again. But how? Compressing the gas is not viable too labor intensive and requires more power than its worth, plus it is dangerouse. Storeing in a one time fill up storage system isnt going to cut it and supply enough gas to be practical. The supply just is not going to last very long to do anything with. So an automated system is really going to be the only way for 24/7 supply and with the use of a gasometer its very lower power consumption. The only thing I have to figure out is now to make this safe as far as CO goes. Ive been experimenting with onion scraps, I have yet to try and use this with the gas. But yeah my contaner I have with my experiment so far will gag a magot. But still need to try and get it to stink up the gas.
If you are making tar with your wood/ charcoal mix the tar will migrate through all your piping to your filter. It will not stop at the filter. Eventually it will make it to your engine.
This is why we try not to let the tar get pass the Charcoal bed below the nozzle or nozzles. The super high hot Charcoal changes the tar into good gases. We call this cracking the tar.
Many members have tried but you can only filter so much tar out, before it will pass through the filter.
You can keep changing the filter medium with every run and this will help keep the tar away from your engine.
It is just best not to let it pass your gasifier charbed in the first place.
Looking forward to seeing what you are building. Pictures help a lot and videos are great too.
What Don said, no gasifier build is alike. It is 25% the building it. And 75 % the person knowing how to run their gasifier that was built. Any wood gasifier can make tar if not operated properly. This is what makes it so fun and challenging in the world of gasification of a wood gasifier. The 100% charcoal gasifier much easier to build and are just as fun as you already know.
I am working on the 2nd Power Pallet for the past 2 Sundays , after mounting the heat exchanger and hopper onto the machine i tried to fire it up last Sunday with no joy what so ever , all i was getting was a lot of smoke out the flare stack , so tripping the pipe from the heat ex to the filter i blew into the nozzle and managed to get smoke out the outlet pipe but no way would that light , so i removed the cyclone and cleaned that out and got a messy black sort of flakes out of it but not enough to be causing a problem , then i noticed a half inch blanking plug just before the cyclone so i undid that and gave the nozzle a blow and plenty of deep dark smoke came out , so i got my torch out and flashed a spark and like a good un a nice healthy flame came out , showing that i must indeed have a real bad blockage , no way could i get the 2 pipes off the manifold to look inside them so i had to take off the manifold off the bottom of the heat ex and when i did it because clear why i was getting nothing through , it is totally blocked with the hardest 4 inches by 2 plug of what i can only imagine is tar , i shall go back later in the week and try softening it or set fire to it to try clear it out as i don’t want to damage the ali pipes excuse the blurry pics just so u get the idea
The crazy thing is there is no sign that this unit had ever been run , the engine is like new even the oil cap looks like it came out of a bag no mess or even the distinctive Tar smell any where on the machine .
The only thing i can think of is when they loaded this machine up with charcoal to commission it they did not screen the charcoal because when i emptied the reactor it was full of very small bits of charcoal and dust all the way down to the grate , the filter was also filled with varying sized charcoal and wood chips .
So i think the machine has been totally constipated from the start , fingers crossed i can get it all back together air tight on Sunday and try for a flare and maybe even a engine run if all looks well .
Dave
Sound like someone at Power Pallet needs to know (the other 75% of gasification, in the proper fuel size for their gasifiers). Clean it out and it should be good to go.
Yes Bob , this was a customer that bought the units that tried to run them i think , i guess everyone has to start somewhere .
I tried chisel and hammer and no joy , so i think its going to need a flame gun to help soften the plug up.
Tyvm Dave, Ill watch this asap and hope to see all the great threads of this site better in time. I have researched a bit on biodigestors and just thought that is something where filtering may have been the same. Of course not applicable in motor vehicle use but still for a small fridge could be viable maybe. Ty
I have seen for sale a fireplace catalytic converter, and being ppl have mentoned less to no tar from fully cracked char beds or plates, could a catalytic converter be put downstream of cracked gas to finsh the job and cook tar making gasses? Just a thought. Maybe it could cook/burn the gas off but id think in a maintained oxygen starved environment, it may not be able to?
Bingo, thats is. Thats the one i tried. Ty I tried 3 other wood gasifiers and a simple fire but when creating nozzels, i know id have to replace them at some point and so thats the first charcoal mix one i tried. Ty. welded up a rad and tried a bunch of differnet filter mediums. I did plan to adapt it to a tilt 45 down/cross, make it stainless steel and connect some in parralell or series with a rotating plate so each had some cool down time.
Ive tried to show my dad that vid for a while and couldnt find it again, but ive been finding new vids ive never seen before on my youtube, Tyvm. That guy is super smart and has gen stuff but yeah, that help out tytorial one is a nice starter fun way to get started enough to try blowers or somrthing. I know itll never be big enough to drive on which is my dream but its a nice way to start just creating something and get a light going. I rhink i tried enailing the guy with questions when i first heard about all of this stuff. I have theorized with steam injection and 2 burn chambers, so i am for sure square one trying stuff out but for now as long as I don’t know filtering, im not really in the game because im too scared to try any designs or builds on actual use. I should probably learn engines but im pretty sure its just all beyond me. Timing, misfires, cylindee heada and boring holes, or carburators. So i would only ever try any build once I know filtering perfectly. Then I can start on designs. I thiught actually that it wouldnt matter what fuel was used as l9ng as filtering git figured out but im seeing from this thread that itll never sadly be that simple. I wonder if a water bubbler and or electric cleaner would work?
Hello Mihael, all fear is unnecessary, the matter of gasification of wood or charcoal is very “simple” once you know and follow the basic principles of converting wood into gas. Here on this forum you can find everything you need, the basic principle is that you try to preserve as much energy as possible in the conversion process and concentrate it in the hot zone, because every lost calorie means worse gas and the risk of incomplete conversion. When you have good gas, cooling and filtration is very simple, the filter just needs to have a large enough surface area to give it the ability to trap ash and dust. Protection with oil works best against corrosion of engine parts, so I moisten the cloth with which I cover the filter material (hay, sawdust, sheep’s wool) with oil, as well as the intake pipe, the old saying goes, “He who lubricates, he drives” .
Well, just wanna say, i have created tubes with calcium chloride humidifiers, electrolysis plates, added air ports, and Zeolite filters and my goal is jist to honour this group and give to it maybe where i can and just try at things, i wont fear the wood gas but also, without knowing engines,…that other 75 percent is gonna just make me hold off because before this thread i thought jist burning a tube of pellets and charcoal was the basic stuff and jist filtering, preheating high grade of char, and filtering more would be the dream of running an engine, but my only place of even remote intellengeince is around basic math and for that I do know pellets cost about same and feul for my car now. So maybe my dream of outrunning hords of zombies or long drives to nowhere jist picking up sticks needs to just come back down to reality (a bit, lol) Ive messed with biodigestors, oil heating (whcih maybe that somehow working to produce a gas jist before the engine could add to sustainible engine operation like i was hoping rather than spraying oil after set ups. Maybe im over thiniking it all but the last thing id ever want truly is to derail from any thread and especially not this vitally improtant one. Ty for finding that video and although i have adapted the unit a lot ty evweyone here and although i dont kno the guys name still, the northen self reliance guy’s vid, simplefire guys and Matt and Kristian and bob and imbert and whoever found towngas and electroplating and i jist couldnt name them all because youre just one seriously kick ass community helping eachother build and help. I dont personally care about movie stars and stuff, but this group has the closest thing in my feeling anyways (so i get ppl who watch that Etalk crap lol) you guys help ppl dream and also do, plus helping i think communities help get power, you are all true life heros in a way and i jist wish for this thread to continue and i hope maybe somehow i have given back even a little with zeolite (which maybe SSteel carb enginering does make sense more) or even just giving towards the book or whatever but either way, respect to everyone here so much and for me i dont run a farm or sawmill, nor have big funds for trucks, so ill jist sit back and i still may dream of a filter that could do it all. And hope this thread continues to work on that solution.
I would still love to know if Blue flame = no tar or high Hydrogen or is it not an optimal fuel or not mean much? Tyvm for everyones help in trying to understand things more. Cheers.
Have no fear Michael. Get any old small engine, lawn mower, or whatever. People throw them away all the time. Take off the carb and undo the screws and bolts. There is nothing scary in there… Mostly a bunch of holes that have nothing to do with wood gas. For wood gas all you are really using is the throttle plate and the tunnel it sits in. Pull the valve cover off the engine. Two valves, two rocker arms. If you tar up the valves and you find the engine won’t rotate by pulling on the cord then some heat from a propane torch or usually just some carb or brake cleaner will unstick them. You won’t have to think about timing or any stuff more complicated automotive engines get into. If you want to see how forgiving some of this is, look at the carb on Marcus’s Chevotafire thread
I think JO and Jan have similar experiences. Also watch some Project Farm youtubes on alternate fuels. He removes and replaces heads all the time. No mystery…
