I would estimate that out of a five gallon bucket of raw charcoal I get at least about 3 and 1/2 gallons of fuel grade char and about half gallon of fines. I use a lot of fines for gardening and water treatment so that’s good for me.
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Here is video I just posted, this should help you see how mine work and operate better than what has been posted so far.
The efficiency gets better if you keep running. The first hopper load is really just getting spent getting things up to temp and then creating the process layers. Once you have that established then the rest of the hopper loads process more efficiently. I plan to do this again but with 60 gallons. I bet I can get closer to a 60% yield
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Hi Matt
Matt your stove is absolutely fantastic. Thanks for the very informative video for me. I believe that of all the systems for producing charcoal these yours which have the most advantage. It is very efficient, easy to build, it allows easy recovery of BTUs from the manufacturing process. Congratulations on your genius and the sharing of your knowledge.
Thierry
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Alright I had to design a new custom system for a multiple clients that want something that offers a little more.
This here may just be charcoal made easy. This thing you will feed it just like any other gasifier. Just once thats it. This will have water to heat exchange unit for continuous heat and hot water for the kiln process. It will then automatically auger feed the produced charcoal directly into the M-1 Alpha. When the controls detect a full hopper it will self light and self start the engine power unit and then self shut down once a low hopper is detected. The it will go into a standby mode until the high level hopper switch is tripped.
I have multiple clients looking at this and hopefully they will bite as I really want to build this thing.
The triangle thing is a vertical shaft Honda V twin powered direct DC 24 volt charger. It should be capable of 5 kW direct DC output.
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Fingers and toe’s are all crossed that your people come up with the goods to allow you to build this concept into a fully working system Matt .
Dave
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Hi Tom, maybe I need to reconsider my new grinder. I was going to use cut nuts for sharp teeth. The bar looks simpler. I might not have the right combination of pipes. Thinking; if the rods were welded on the pipe at an angle, it might be easier to turn the crank?
Hi Jeff.
The middle cylinder is closed at the ends so even with the rods angled everything still has to come out of the J pipe. Wouldn’t hurt anything to try. As I mentioned I just threw this together one afternoon intending to later make something better but it worked well enough that I decided there were more interesting things to work on. I’m rebuilding it out of all steel and I’ll add a bigger handle for more leverage but even like it is, it’s not really that hard to turn. Putting a motor on it would not be good because you have to be able to dig the occasional brand out of it but reversing the handle direction. I don’t think the size of the pipes is real important as long as the inner one is an inch OD smaller than the ID of the outer half pipe. I think the half pipe could even be made out of well braced PVC.
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Turned out that I do not have the right combination of pipes. So I need to switch back to the original plan. The best parts are the one that you have.
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Yesterday there was a spare hour. I made a insulation jacket for the hookway. Fermaculite 15mm half inch. Post picture later, would it be enough? How thick should it be, anyone?
Pfoe, barrel is 580 mm, pipe is 600 mm. That means 10 mm insulation. Once again waste of material and time I am afraid. Maybe there is some time to test next weekend.
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10mm insulation and the second barrel will provide significant improvement. One inch would be better, but 10mm may be enough if your feedstock is < 1-1/2" Diameter and < 6" long (remember most moisture and gases escape through the end grain).
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Well, insulation is to small. Pipe was a left over. There is more to come, some bigger diameters. At least I got some extra experience. I am just as stupid as I look, it is quite simple. There are three things real important, heat , heat and heat.
In one hour gas phase started, but the other hour there was not enough heat.
This is the material in the Hookway.
The hookway is placed on top of this. If insulation is right, I think this amount of fuel is enough for the proces.
A little smoke at start
Like Dave said, gasification after an hour.
To much heat loss. A little help from the leaf blower
And the endresult sucks. I am just as stupid as I look.
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You’ll get it working eventually, those retorts can be hard to build from Obtainium.
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A little more insulation and it will work just fine.
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Use uniform size feedstock when possible. Those tiny sticks maybe OK for your startup fire but keep them out of your main chamber. Holes should be through the bottom of the center tube, not the top of the center tube.
It will work even better with larger holes through the bottom of the barrel, but you will need to seal the bottom when the yellow flames die down. Don’t put the lid on until the steam is gone and the gases are ignitable.
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Thanks Mr Bruce. The barrel is placed upside down so the holes are on the downside. Dont know about the holes but last time it did ok. Next time thicker fermiculite or maybe superwool. It was another experience. I was thinking of putting the barrel in a bigger one and light a fire under it. Or a tlud. Tlud, if smokeless, would integrate easy in heating system of the house. Heat isnt lost then. Someone here said, put hookway on top to start the next burn. I wanted to try that route, but now try tlud maybe. Dont know. Did a lot of tinkering while watching the flames.
Thanks for the advice.
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You could maybe put the hookway on top of a TLUD, but ideally you would want a safe way to cap off the hookway when the TLUD is done since it’ll be pretty high up. The hookway would be the chimney to reduce smoke for the TLUD so maybe it could be double acting.
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Hi Joep,
OK, upside down makes sense. There are many ways to make good charcoal. I have used about a dozen different retorts and kilns. to my wife’s chagrin, I still have my four favorites in the back yard. Your work looks good so I’m sure you will figure out what works best for your situation.
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Yes, that was the intention, two or three hookways on top, lifting mechanism etc. Not really KISS at the end.
No experience with a TLUD, next try. Good because it can run without attention. To be continued.
Thanks
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