Ouch! Better see if you can find a power vent you can scavenge. The price for one of these new starts around $150+.
If you know the local plumbers they are usually free for the asking … Sometimes they want you to take the tank which is a double bonus … ML
Yea I shop at the dump store. today I got a wheeled battery charger an air tank and a stainless fire extinguisher. If I had my truck I would still be loading pay checks.
Jim, old computer UPS units work better than many of those cheap inverters. They put out a better wave form. You just have to take the dead battery out of them and put some heavy wires in place of the battery. They usually produce enough power to run the typical furnace or hot water heater draft blower. I have a collection of those blowers around here but they must be buried under all these sacks of wood … ML
I think one would be hard pressed to find a better inverter than the ones I got from the phone co. But when shopping at the dump store I will be looking .I hate to take the ones I have out of there homes- One in the shop and one in the house. They must weigh 40-50 lbs each 2200 watt continues duty pure sign wave.
2200 watts is the little one. the one in the shop is 3100 watts. Sure wish I could come up with some more agm batterys .
Interesting. I can get shop vac for next to nothing : ) Thanks for sharing! Brit
Black and Decker used to have a leaf blower (sucker) that had a magnesium alloy impeller in it … They would suck twice anything the typical engine would pull … They had a “DC” / brush AC motor in them and would pull around 12 amps on 120V AC … Way better than a shop vac … If you suck a burning coal into a shop vac you will have a pile of fun after dealing with it … The leaf blower would just spit it out … Mike L
Hi Jim, Pure sine wave inverters are tough to find and expensive to buy. Leave them at home … I have one in my black truck … On the road I use 12V blowers these days … I made one of my blowers from a 120V blower and put a bus heater fan motor on it. It seems to me I had to take that motor apart and reverse the windings to get it to run in the right direction as the case was grounded and you couldn’t reverse polarity externally … M
We use a Poulan leaf blower fan coupled to a late model Mustang heater fan motor. We build our own housing, nothing fancy but our blower is very powerful with this set up. However, you have to place after gas cooling as the fan is plastic. They can take some heat though Ive ran 160*f temps through em with out to much issue, If you do wreck one you can get a replacement fan quite cheap. I pay like 4 bucks if I order them at our local hardware store. Ebay is a bit high for them.
Two reasons I use this particular blower motor, one is it is the most powerful I have found. The other is if you notice the bottom has no vent holes, if there is any vents that the gas can get into; it will. This will result in a beautiful green flare at some point. Well at least for a little while ha! If you are capable of building a gasifier you are capable of building a housing for this 
If any one is interested you can email me and Ill help you. However, I would hope that whoever this person is, will take over the reins here and show others on here. I am off to Italy for product launch catch you all later
Good luck Matt! I hope all goes well. Keep us posted.
Hi Matt, Plastic impellers usually get waxed after a backfire and then a continued burn in the blower. I had one get damaged at Argos a couple of years ago playing flaring games. I had an air leak ahead of the cooler. Hard to keep things sealed in RR track crossing country with flexing cheap Chinese trailers … Mike L
Hello All, Newbie here,
Having hard time coming up with a blower. Got one out of an old upright vacuum cleaner, very strong. Question; all designs have the blower inline with the gas flow. Is it not possible to have the blower blowing into the burning zone? Blowing or sucking air through the fire, any difference? By blowing, it would seem that all the corrosion and build up issues in the motor would be solved. Once you get the proper flare, and then prime the line to the carburetor, start engine, shut off blower (it obviously will need to become air tight) and open normal air port. Am I missing something here?
Welcome Steve!
Blowing into the burning zone is definitely better for the blower at start up because that is when all the dirty stuff is made until it gets up to heat and clean gas is made but the way gasifiers are made with the nozzles designed for drawing air in under engine vacuum and the whole system under vacuum beyond the nozzles - that whole process would then have to be reversed at some point if you change from positive to negative pressure. That could be hard on engine starters!
Good morning Mr. Pair and welcome to the DOW.
It is not a good idea to have the blowers mounted in the gas supply lines that are feeding the motor . This would mean the gas is flowing through the blowers anytime the motor is being operated. It is best to have the blowers mounted in a parallel line that is vented to the atmosphere and only used when stating the gasifier.
If you are in a location where a little smoke at morning start up will be OK without offending any neighbors you can use your vacuum blowers just a few seconds to make sure your fire is lit. With the hopper lid off the gasifier you can reverse the air flow pushing the smoke out the top. With a little time with this reverse flow the smoke will turn to flame . Kill the blowers add wood and replace the lid. Start the motor on gasoline and as soon as the motor vacuum can pull the wood gas to the motor you are running with wood gas .
I can start my gasifiers with no vacuum blowers at all if needed , This means no gas is going through the blower …
If one has a good char bed and start his fire right in the the char it should be clean gas from the start .
On my daily driver the blowers are getting a little weak but they have been in use for 5 years now.
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Hi Steve,
I’m a newbie too but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to ad to the list.
I don’t think the charbed will notice any difference, but I see two main reasons why not pushing only:
Lightup will be tricky, even if you use a light port.
Your lid, that seals just fine under vacum, will leak and make a tary mess.
I use sheap plastic squirrel cage airmattress pumps. The motor is out of the stream and cage and wheel can be easily cleaned. They pull 6" static and move, compared to the their size, a lot of air (gas).
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I like the 12 volt Coleman quick pump. For a very powerful blower, use an electric automobile smog pump. Expensive new, cheap at a salvage yard. Use with a 60Amp pulse width modulator ($20 on ebay) for speed control. Another good option is the 18V makita leaf blower on 12 volts.
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Any idea where one might find one of those? Were they still used into the late 90s?
Hi JO, Thanks for the Info. A blower with external motor is obviously the best solution. Will look today!!!
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Electric smog pumps:
P/N Application VIO
32-2401M GM/Saab Trks 04-09 913,544
32-2600M GM Family/Jaguar 93-99 563,055
32-2900M Linc Continental 95-02 201,685
32-3001M Ford Taurus, Merc Sable 96-04 3,750,139
32-3002M Ford Fusion/Merc Milan 06-07 148,917
32-3400M Ford Taurus, Merc Sable 96-04 444,817
32-3500M Ford Mustang 96-98 117,180
32-3501M General Motors 00-02 1,872,309
There are also many on european cars of that era. I have one from an Audi
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