Thanks for showing us a video of your progress.
Alright! Geting there.
The video is probably a montage of both runs yes? Because indeed, the charcoal you loaded in the first time is waaay to corse.
The gas you made will run an engine but if you want it to run real good you got a few more bugs to chase out but you are on an exelent way!
The colour of the gas and flame tells me you still have a bit of problems with conversion. Properly reduced charcoal gas is perfectly clear. The haze in yours and the orange flame are signs of exess water in the gas, that sneaked trugh the glowzone without geting converted to Hydrogen.
You do want some orange, but its different to this. Hard to explain. You will recognize it when you get it thats the hydrogen. You want to moisten your fuel just enaugh to achive that colour but just before the gas gets hazy.
Try to avoid the grate shaker. Every gasifier must establish what we call a charbed. It must be breathable yet packed enaugh to achive good surface area. It takes time to do so and each time you shake the grate you “reset” the delicate bed. Shaker is a great feature make no mistake, but its only used when over long periods of time, ash starts to form lumps of brittle slag. This takes up volume in the bed and reduces performance. Grate shaker gets rid of these.
100% what Kristijan said , leave the grate to establish its self and once you have the charcoal down to the correct sizes you should not only be flaring off but running a small engine as well .
All the best
Dave
sunday evening catch up. - My big inline fan arrived yesterday so I can fit that and redesign the hopper lid attachment to stop a small leak. Im itching for my third burn. but in the mean time I think Im learning Swedish! Im watching some awesome build videos and I think Im starting to figure what they are talking about- But they are nowhere as funny as Göran kindervall
Hey Stuie,
Looking good man. Do you think the refractory is dried out?
Other people, in particular Garry Gilmore, will run all sorts of wastes through their gasifier. Some of these wastes include old crankcase oil, old antifreeze, glycerin, cooking oil… In most cases they drip right through the nozzle. Wayne says he gets about 3 miles out of a dead cat. Gasifiers are great garbage disposals.
Anyhow, here’s a link to old Paxman writ describing a "vaporizer’ which boiled water to steam before it went into the reaction zone.
Rindert
Yes Don, I started breeding Coturnix Quail to go with my mushroom venture - but for the $$$ return on time invested - I simply can’t be arsed any more. I have about 20 females left and 4 males- yours if you want em lol@!
What an awesome picture!- that was just what I was looking for to show what we had here 130 years back running our gold processing factories. In a recent video I touched on the history of gasifiers and wanted a pic that showed the plant and the engine together but couldnt. this is awesome. Ill go have a read of the story now- thanks for that
Yay!- my pipe fittings have arrived, tomorrow Ill add in a second blower fan and get this thing fired up for its next run.
Third time’s a charm they reckon…
Well itll certainly suck! lets see how it goes with lid leaks fixed and 10 amps of blower, then Ill make @Matt’s suggested mod of reducing the truyere area from 5 nozzles to 3 and see how that changes things. Ive had a whole week off this while I attend to gearing up my mushroom production to cater for two new restaurant customers. But now I can have a couple of days playtime. Ill probably make that trommel too and go looking for two drums to make @Matt’s self powered retort design and cook me some char!
I was looking through your video’s, Stu. I am wondering what your personal experience with electro-culture has been. I’m probably the most woo guy here and I did a bit of experimenting with electro-culture last year. Mostly one foot long coils. I put them in bucket grown tomatoes right next to buckets with no coils. I put them in some small beds and even grew a cucumber up through the middle of a coil. I found no difference at all. Not a quiter. I will take another shot at it this year with longer coils and even a couple of the six foot wrapped pole types. Never seen a bushel basket size cabbage or three foot long zukini except in old pictures. Wouldn’t have any use for one either.
hi Tom, I fully agree with what you say about size of veges But, I must say productivity in the whole garden has been the best in 25 years here, this last summer. lots of bees, bugger all slugs and snails. We ate well. Yes ive got magnets wires coils dotted around the place and a big 8 m antenna in the centre. but we have also had a gorgeous warm summer - after two utter crap summers and winters in a row. we have amazing soil now and I have a scantilly clad vegetarian vegan russian nymph who flits around my garden now so I tend to spend more time there- It all contributes to the wellness of the place
A guy your age needs to be careful around nymph’s or they will be electro-culturing you in the cabbage path with defibrillator paddles. I say it’s worth the risk.
It is less risky, if the nymph knows the right frequency for proper stimulation.
I have a looped recording of blackbirds morning chorus. sometimes I open the windows and play it loud. after about 1/2 an hour the blackbirds in my garden go into a worm digging frenzy. its funny to watch. I have so many worms here.