Thats a smooth running diesel wood gas mix, bet thats heavy duty old motor, might be low enough compresion too set up with spark plugs. THough like you say by adding about 1/3 diesel fuel, she runs in diesel mode.COOL SETUP.
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Thanks Everyone some really good information. I think I’ve decided on a generator for our initial trial, any thoughts, link below.
It seems fairly well priced and it looks like parts are available, I’ll be looking at running two of these in tandem. Eventually I’d like to have two Honda’s but I’d like to test the system out with something a little less expensive first.
On the topic of fuels, I honestly would really like to and use raw wood, however I have had problems with the moister so far and this is with kiln dried. I’ve just added a third cooler/condenser with 4 more catchment jars hopefully this will extract the rest.
Also, other than filter material, is there anything fuel related that sawdust can be used for (without buying and expensive pelleting machine). We produce sawdust in three different grades from dust to larger planed shaving (pet bedding size) and a lot of it! Thanks.
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Almost without exception every gasoline generator you can name that doesn’t say Honda or Yamaha is a clone.
Briggs and Stratton… Its likely a clone too.
This is not a bad thing.
Actually its probably the best thing that happened to the industry in the past 50 years.
Its made generators so cheap everyone can have one.
Standard parts mean just about anyone can find cheap parts and fix them.
Standard design means you can interchange a component from one and it is a direct fit on another.
SO is that particular brand any good?
Sure its good enough.
Ive said this before but I am going to bring it up again.
in 1985 a connecting rod for a 5 Hp Honda G200 cost me around 90 Can dollars ( extortion )
Today thanks to clones that exact rod is about 10 dollars ( and good enough for the task )
A GX200 the modern engine in most generators in the 3500 watt class cost 159.99 American pessos at harbour freight.
You just buy one off the shelf, you strip it down swap the correct parts into the engine bolt on the generator and your just fixed it…
Hard to beat that…
Inverters are a little more complicated than that.
I would be inclined to avoid them for woodgas until you are sure you have all the kinks in your plant worked out.
Chinese electronics are not as easy to play musical chairs with.
The AV2 is a pretty smooth engine widely cloned with a lot of parts available.
Somebody in the UK has a pretty good chance of finding one and the most desirable units for home power co-gen are the water cooled.
Yes you could swap in spark plugs but I would order a set of Indian heads rather than screw up a good set Petter heads.
Id have to take some measurements but i am pretty sure its a simple case of drilling and tapping the heads for plugs then building an ignition.
I would not do it however.
Its better to have a diesel and run it on diesel in case your co-gen has problem then it is to run a spark ignition engine with 17:1 compression on something else.
There are plenty of other great engines.
But the marine AV and PH engines were a common thing on small canal boats in the UK.
Widely used in other applications too.
In Canada I used to see a lot of AV and PH engines on diamond drills for pumps where the heat was used from the engine to warm water in winter and prevent lines freezing.
Andoria still makes a good clone of the Duetz hopper cooled diesels of the 50s.
Thats a pretty good option if you live in the EU and can get your hands on one ( just real heavy )
The Andoria engines use a cooler running Pintle style injector so you can probably use them to simple inject pilot fuel and run the rest on wood gas.
( I don;t own one I just like them and tried to import them at one time for just such an application )
Lots and lots of other options out there.
You have to dig and research to find them.
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Hi Ashley , that looks to be a good enough deal for that size generator , before you buy it though check out ebay and gumtree and what ever local papers you have that may be selling a second hand used one , as you say you want to test it out first on a cheaper model that’s what i would do .
As for saw dust there are a number of possibility’s but without talking you into anything there is this …
The Missouri Wood Gasifier
But a really simple quick way to use up your sawdust on the fast approaching English winter would be this way
All the best Dave
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Thanks Dave, sawdust stove works like a charm. Burned a shed with it 
The Missouri is on my bucket list. Working on infrastructure, inverters almost ready, got them tied up to 3 ph 400 V. Not bad for a mechanic, batt is next step and then there is room on my list.
Ashly, we build dust extractors for the wood industry, so I am up to my knees in sawdust everyday. If there are no problems, no one needs me. A few years ago I build a bunker for sawdust and solved the flowing/transporting problem. That was the moment I thought it must not be wasted, better turn it into energy. So please, try a sawdust gasifier. I had a nice run with the Drizzler on pellets, as soon as sawdust was put in it started clogging.
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Thanks Dave, very interesting, may be worth me looking at in-order produce more hot water for our heating system.
Another question, off topic. Just in regards to air flow, on numerous articles and videos I’ve read/watched airflow seems to change massively, I’ve seen people running 12v camping bed pumps on a reduced load to bouncy castle and industrial blowers.
Is the best way to calculate airflow based on what your aiming to run or as a start up is it to be calculated on temperature/general best run?
I’ve just purchased a larger blower which I can alternate the air output volume and thought it may be worth asking how everyone else does it on smaller gasifiers before trialing.
Thanks.
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For a starting blower it’s best for it to exceed the CFM of your engine. The more CFM the faster it will get up to temperature. Guys like Wayne and Norman with their trucks will team up a series of bilge blowers to increase CFM. Stationary you have the luxury to use whatever you feel like.
But JO Olsson has had luck with the 12 volt mattress blower and so have I.
Bear in mind I was just checking the flare, no filter and hardly a cooler with that long pipe.
The best blowers some have found come from vacuum cleaners, the ones with the snail shaped impeller body. Squirrel cage blowers don’t have enough oomph to be worth using unless it’s all you can find. It’ll just take longer to warm up.
It also helps to have a pusher blower and a pulling blower. In my video I’m pushing air in to the nozzle.
Edit: Most guys place a tapping off point for their blowers somewhere before the filter, but after the cooler.
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Cody, that is for increasing underpressure and as a result the flow. Matress blower gives good pressure and less flow. Look at the blower Koen used in his bamboo gasifier. That one has almost the same pressure/ flow character as a ICE. Bilgeblowers are far from that, that is why you need several.
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No really simple but you have access to a large amount of combustible material. Seems a shame to not take advantage of it.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=pressing+sawdust+into+pellets
In normal times I would be a fan of the Harbor Freight generators like Matt uses but if you have ever tried to get replacement parts for HF tools you may as well howl at the moon in my experience. You may not even have Harbor Freights in England but the same applies for all Chinese manufactured. Wallace mentioned the ability to swap out cheap aftermarket parts for Honda engines, but after current parts stocks dwindle, a lot of these engines are not going to work. I buy parts from this place.
https://www.jackssmallengines.com/ Three million parts in stock. There are already some things they can’t get. Just something to keep in mind.
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Tom, dont believe everything you see on YT. I went the pelletrabbit hole. Learned a lot, burned little. It is a no go. Not for diy
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Actual experience always overrides hopes and dreams. Sharing what we learn is why we are here. Thanks.
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Just to put my two cents in on the sawdust question, I think there’s tons of non gasifier related uses for sawdust. Like emergency dry toilets, those batch stoves like Tom linked, using it to soak up any spilled oil. The list goes on. Not sure how well sawdust can compost, might be too dense but maybe someone else knows more about that.
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I get much sawdust from my buzz-saw/chunker, if i blend it in the compost it works fine, but just sawdust seems to dense as you say.
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Hi Ashley , I would go the 12 volt way and find what ever dc fan you can get thats close to fiitting your system , a lot of the mattress fans have built in small agm batteries that wont really last that long before the batterys running down and have a inlet and outlet of around 25mm
I use a hand held vac motor fitted inside a pvc pipe capped off with 25mm barbs in and out and i run that from a pack of 18650 cells at 24 volts to start up my charcoal gasifier works like a dream and because the batterys are just wired externally if they start to run down i plug in another pack , some of the nicer style metal fans can be found inside gas boilers / instantaneous gas heaters , but i am not 100% if they will run on dc without the gubbings in side of the boiler unit its self .
Dave
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Yes saw dust is a very effective filter media, it is the best Ive found.
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Its nitrogen poor so its not so easy to compost.
Mix grass clippings in and it breaks down faster.
If you have animals the manure and urine will speed up the composting.
And like you say Cody its great stuff for composting toilets and cleaning up spills.
If you spill oil its great for that ( just be sure to clean it up and burn it ) you can clean oil spills on water with it too.
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Thanks, I compost as much as I can at the minute. My last project was two huge compost tumblers (700ltr and 550ltr) this was mainly for the sawdust and garden waste. The larger sawdust is very slow to break down but the smaller dust from sanding etc just mixes in.
I think I’ll give the sawdust gasified a go next, it will be great to add additional heat to the house though a back boiler (or top boiler!).
Thanks for the info on the air pumps I’ve stuck with the smaller one for now (based on the info given) as it does push plenty though. I do have one more question! May seems a little noob-ish, in regards to the shaker grate, I just wondered if it’s possible to purchase the valve type bit that fixes to the barrel (for the rod to go though), I made one up with washers some seals and a small bolt but the seals keep melting, I’ve tried some gasket sealer too but the same again after running for a couple of hours. Or if anyone has suggestions of how to make one properly that will last. Thanks again.
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Could you take a picture or send a link to an item like what you’re referencing?
Just from reading this it sounds like it’s really close to the heat.
Yes, they’re quite close. It’s hard to find a picture but I have one of the basic components you may recognise. Also in the video at 3 minutes and 30 seconds in. Thanks
