Joni Hmmm, I guess it has been awhile.
I am not sure why I stopped using the producer.
Sugar Maple was the best fuel for that producer.
I think I quit because I needed batteries for it.
I can’t show a picture of the natural draft producer working. It didn’t need batteries.
Wow! I better get back to work! I don’t have any thing to show…
This is the old Onan that I do not want to give up on. It is hard for me to start now ( bad shoulder), but is a good generator for the wire feed welder.
The wire feed welder makes the gas producers.
I do not have grid electricity, so experiments are expensive.
Jan,
the trouble is that my weather is very cold (now it is “-15” Celsius outside the window) … To prevent the sawdust from freezing, I have two solutions: sprinkle the sawdust with table salt; or temporarily disable intercooling.
Hi Joni, a lot of us use hay that is put it in a mesh bags. Place them in the hay filter with a plactic bucket turn up side down with 1" holes drilled in the bucket , this keep the hay out of the water. Wet it down and you are good to go. The sooty gas comes in from the bottom of the container about 6" up from the bottom on the side of the container, it has a drain valve going out the bottom. The gases rise and go out the top. It drains when shut down. To clean it just add water from the top with the drain open and let it flush the hay clean. Close the drain when done. If it collects water when driving you just drain it out. Winter does not affect it because it drains down when you shut the gasifer down. The hay will not mold because it has been smoked cured.
Bob
Bobmac
Bob, thanks for the advice, but I tried your hay method a long time ago and it didn’t work for me. The gas was dirty enough and did not want to burn with a blue flame. I also observed fluffy black deposits on the choke valves. When using sawdust - blue gas and no soot
Thanks Joni, you are right. So if I use the sawdust on top like a second filter that will clean up the gas even more with out any added restriction with the vacuum draw from the engine. We try to get the most flow through the filter with out drawing high vaccum. My truck on heavy acceleration can pull 30 inches of water. I am going to try this with my hay
in the filter. How long will the sawdust last before you change it out?
Bob
I have a foam rubber mattress on top of the hay now, according to Dom and Tom C, it is about 10cm thick, it works quite well, but do not know how it goes when it gets cold.
But I have a lot of sawdust, so I can try this.
Hi Jan, I have see foam mattress that has gotten wet in freezing weather, it gets hard and holds moisture. If it is the sporse kind with bigger holes in it, that is a little better. When it is in the warm hay filter it does have some time the drain off some of the water before freezing.
I am liking this sawdust filter when dirty throw in the fire. Cleaning the foam out is a lot of work and messy. I like the idea of a cleaner gas with less soot in it. If it will work in the hay filter with out causing a higher vacuum draw to the engine. This robs the engine of power.
Bob
Hey Jan, have you just tried putting a screen over your hay, and leave the foam filter out? With the hay in a laundry bag it does not let the hay pass the filter.
Bob
Good Morning BobMac,
Jodi and Vitaliy’s systems are both in the vehicle trunks full stealth.
Like Kristijan and Ben Peterson did.
Everything must be made to support this.
Hay/straw filtering is big and bulky.
WK’s like your Dakota, although WayneK has now compacted by 50% from his original wind-catcher Ford pickup, are still large footprint NOT stealth systems.
Scroll up and look carefully at Jodi’s never completed prototype system pictures. See the zig-zag forward foot cooler to go under the vehicle.
Even WayneK’s personal builds are now 30-40% built permanently within and under the vehicle integrated.
Now recall those taking that; and then making it all one unit slide in/out removable . . . it gets big and tall then.
So out of necessity even filtering materials and styles for one, may not work for another.
And I’ve come to preferer sheep wool loose woven clothing fabric as a filtering media. Thrift store suit trousers and jackets! A Gary Gilmore innovation. Reasonable temperature resistance. Easy washable. Will in place gravity drain out. Organic disposable. And the sheep grow more every year.
Regards
Steve Unruh
Hi Steve, yes I keep forgetting about the genus small compact stealthy gasifers that they are building and putting into the trunks of their vehicles. The car trunks vs truck beds space is a big difference. I still have a lot of learning to do on how to size things down for smaller cars and engines. Also making it all stealth is a hard thing to do. I still have thought about making signs for my truck saying “B’s Smoked Meats” .
Bob
Bob, my bunker can hold ~ 40-45L of wood (~ 16kg). I drive up to 45 miles max on one load, depending on the density of the wood. But I can and will refuel on the way with the engine running. The whole construction is made neatly and does not provoke any negativity from the police. And in general, in 3 years of driving on gas, there were no problems with the police, they even respect me, I have a very interesting car.
Hi Vitaliy, Here on this site we encourage the members to do a building thread of there vehicles. Yours is complete and proven to work. You still can show how you built it, specially if you have building pictures. Also we do a lot of walkarounds with video. Just create your own vehicle title thread then go from there. You can trace my thread “92 Dodge Dakota from the book” back to @Chris Saenz when he owned it and made modifications to the truck, and then back to @Wayne Keith when he first built the truck in 2012 that produce the book on how a WK Gasifier is built.
You can do the same thing here on this site, your own special design building thread. Like many others have done.
Bob
Yes, I’d like to see more details of your build. You are getting a lot of miles out of fuel stock that would scare most people here. You must be doing a lot of things right.
Hi Vitaliy, I have watched your video more than once. Great video walkaround. I noticed on your dash board the temperature gage meter reading up to 2250 and down to 1750 ? This is in degrees Fahrenheit? Where is the prob located, at the grate? How long is the after cooling tubing under the car. Is the wood piped up from the filter to the engine compartment metal tubing? What year and make is your car?
Bob
