I would be curious as to how you make char with bamboo. I am growing bamboo and will increase that if it is easy method.
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As l recall Koen uses steam injection wich gives a lot more powerfull flame. lf you use just air(exhaust) intake the flame is a lot less intense in color and flame speed.
l use regular charcoal and when l was working with steam injection had the more or less same resaults as Koen. lts not so much in what you use its more in how you use it 
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To: KristijanLâ
I donât think Iâd equate âjust airâ and â(exhaust)â. Think of the amount of water vapor in the exhaust; Itâs already steam. Then thereâs the hot CO2. Both of these compounds can be decomposed endothermically to make a richer fuel, canât they?
Am I missing something here?
Pete Stanaitis
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Got a good speed control for fan, I am unable to light flame. Pipe getting up to 180 degrees.
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Hi Mart, it looks kind of smoky. Maybe your charcoal is too large. A soup can at the end of the pipe could help with weak gas or too high of velocity gas.
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Hi Mart , I know this is going to sound crazy but ⌠air leaks are not your friend on these systems . Every single joint of the pipes out from the lid of the gasifier need to be sealed onto the fittings with hose clamps or silicone or even sticky tape , air being sucked into the gas pipe will make lighting the outgoing gas real hard , I would also punch a hole in the bottom centre of a tin can surrounded by smaller holes around the edge to aid in mixing the air and gas at the end of the pipe .
Dave
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Mart , I just had another thought are you using the single nozzle you posted a picture of on 22 April or something different now ? might be an idea to have a quick look at it once its cooled down , also do you have a full load of charcoal on top of it before starting ?
Dave.
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Hi Mart,
I have more videoâs on youtube, most of them to documenting my exercising 
I can turn the barrels as a chicken grill, so the content is equal heated up, be aware, hot surface and blisters
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Hi Mart,
for testing purposes, replace the filter between the fan and the gasifier, only minor filtering needed so donât put to much material inside.
take a little more air speed for startingâŚ
Put some duct tape on the back of the blower to block the airvent openings, it does sucks air inside thru those slits.
Donât give up, youâr getting there
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Hi Kristijan,
In some of my units i use water/steam yes, but in this one i donât, only for showing the effects if steam added.
The blue color is from the pure carbon monoxide, steam/hydrogen will turn it into pale blue.
On a dry day, with fresh cooked charcoal, it will be blue, but once the charcoal gets saturated and the moist level in the air gets above 70%RH @ 30 degree Celcius, the flame is more paleâŚ
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Hi Dave,
Its not always Bamboo, i do test many other available feedstock.
Mango, tamarind, eucalyptus⌠next on the list is Rubber wood from the old rubber threeâsâŚ
But, bamboo is the easyest and it yields 5 times more per acre then eucalyptusâŚ
The fan i use , the gas runâs thru, only for the cooking mode and flare modeâŚ
If the charcoal is âwell doneâ then no tar in the gas stream hence, no problemsâŚ
I learned that taking the advice from others here and making quality charcoal, sizing it up correctly, is the utmost important partâŚ
If you take care , at the highest quality level, of your charcoal, the flame will be blueâŚ
But, i didât test pine or other pallet wood, yetâŚ
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My experience has been similar to Koenâs. With âwell cookedâ charcoal, I get a blue flame (almost invisible in daytime, but easy to see at dusk or at night). With charcoal that is not so âwell cooked,â I see mostly orange and yellow as well as some blue.
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it depends on what kind of exhaust do you have in mind. Engine runing on gasoline has a lot of water in the exhaust but engine runing on chargas had allmost none. lf you want to have water in the exhaust you have to have hydrogen in the gas and chargas being composed out of mainly CO and N2 cant provide much water. Except from that ~ 2% from charcoal moisture. As for CO2 in my calculations exhaust from chargas engine cant boost the CO content of the gas becouse of so much nitrogen, it in fact lowers it a bit. Thats why l stoped useing exhaust reintake on my sistems.
Koen did you put extra CO2 from gas tank like you once did (if l remember right)in the gasifier to get so much CO or is it just playn air?
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Hi Kristijan,
Now this is the most correct statement i have ever read in combination with WoodgasâŚ
Yes indeed, since gasoline has folowing data
2 C8H18 + 25 O2 â 16 CO2 + 18 H2O
or:
1 kg of fuel reacts with 3.51 kg of oxygen to produce 3.09 kg of carbon dioxide and 1.42 kg of water.
Pure charcoal gas will not have or only limited watervapor in the exhaustâŚ
i do a lot of experimenting, to get real life gasifiers⌠many involved with Co2 and water.
For now, i work on 2 levels: farmerstyle and industrialâŚ
Where as i try to keep farmerstyle easy to copy ⌠and more important, to build DIYâŚ
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I really like the simplicity of your retorts that I see in your videos. Do you use a chop saw to cut up the bamboo?
Mart
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I also love the simplicity of Koenâs retorts the only problem with them though , unless you live miles away from anyone else you will not be able to use them , the amount of smoke and flames shooting out would have the epa / authorityâs down on you faster than a ton of bricks , the fines for burning off like that would not be worth it .
While I am waiting for materials to arrive for my new horizontal retort at the scrap yard , I am using one of the 2 cones we have for making large batches of charcoal from scrap timber pallets , ect , but on a daily basis I am using the wood burning fire in my living room to make between 1 and 2 , 20 litre drums a day both of these systems produce no smoke that would worry anyone around us .
Dave
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Hi Mart, I have stepped away for a while but just watched your video on trying to light the flare. Iâm 90% sure I know what the problem is. The start up fan. You think it is pulling gas from the gasifier which is correct, BUT it is also pulling outside air which you do not know about because it is an internal design feature. I used a soleaire fan the looked very similar to yours. It would be running for several minutes and the gas just would not flare. No way no how, Tried different burners, slowing the fan down, NOTHING. Put a bilge blower fan on the gasifier and it flared. Finally something went hay wire inside the soleaire and I opened it up,. Here there was air being pulled around the motor which diluted the chargas to the point it would not flare.
Try a different blower, or, go ahead and use the blower but realize it will not allow you to flare the gas. When you think the gas is engine ready, disconnect the blower and hook the gas line to your engine and crank it. Should fire right up it your air/gas mixture is correct.
Hopefully your generator has compression and spark and correct timing, and etc. Ran into that problem in Argos trying to run a generator on chargas when it had no compression. Geeeze, no wonder it was impossible to start and the problem wasnât the fuel.
Iâll be looking how you made out.
Gary in PA
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Thats exactly what hapend to me too. My 12v fan had small slots on the base to cool the motor and it was cucking air in there. A bit of electric tape fixed it.
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Thanks, that is most helpful. The engine runs fine on gasoline, however any restriction on the 1 inch opening and it dies on gasoline. I am looking at replacing the T connector for the air valve with a larger T. But first things first, I will test the fan with duct tape on the back.
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Hi Gary,
I partially agree with the effects from that type of fan.
The bigger pull thatâs needed , the bigger this effect will be
If his setup is an âeasy breatherâ, then its almost neglectble,
hence, its the sole type i use so far, after many trial and error with other equipments.
using a piece of duct tape might help to find out
A clogged nozzle could produce more suction / air passing in the fan toâŚ
Many little " to doâs and donâts" making it a nice learning projectâŚ
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