Yes. Do realize my woodgas operations observations are mostly always from a stationary-users standpoints.
My “cheat” (an Americanism meaning: seek out every advantage and use them) I learned is to woodgasifier lighting off with the oxygen/acedelyene torch set.
I bought a small back-pac torch set back about the year 2008 and am still on the same original tanks fill.
You recently answered TomH. that back in the day they did make up gasifiers just fine by torch welding, and electric arc stick welding. Even the end users had to develop theses skills for been-well-used repairs.
The current guys you see upside down held hand torch lighting up are usually using hotter MAPP gas bottles (here they are yellow colored) and a brand of torch head that can be held upsides down.
Back in the time before strike anywhere matches were developed the daily make fire many times folks used a “cheat” of carrying a sealed metal can of cotton charred cloth. And an iron hand formed Harp-striker. Then only one struck flint striked spark did it. Carried wax candles for long hot fire starting drying flame and heat. Rubbing sticks together for friction heating to smoldering is for real primitives, the unthinking, and the unprepared.
The do-it, the hardest, time-consuming fire making agonies shown in the modern go-back survival shows is stupid.
Of course the real modern agony for me is to hand-sit and lips-buttoned, observe silently is the DIY programmer guys using a woodgas pursuits as just another look-at-me; look-at-what-I-did make complicated project.
I am for sure the boy who would say, “But the Emperor has no clothes! He’s naked.”
I benefit from others observations too. Fairly recently a visiting DOW member said to me, “Hey Steve! I think you need to choke it some.”, on a turned difficult grunting rope pulling inverter-generator start-up I was showing off doing. He was right!
I am not just a purely left-brain pragmatist. I enjoy sunrises and sunsets. Waterfalls. And moving trees in the winds.
S.U.
i am looking to the old hopper designs on the historic pictures…for calculating a bit hopper volume for my crawler…
the 250 ccm honda engine on the mower consumes approximately 7 liters of charcoal in one hour…
the fiat crawler has 2270 ccm, also around 9 times bigger as the honda…
is it right to calculate the honda consume of coal x 9 to achieve the rough hour consumption of the fiat?
moreover the fiat on petrol has 1400 rpm max with 18 hp,
on gasoline 1750 rpm max with 23 hp…
the honda has a much higher rpm, so the consume calculation of the fiat could also be less than the honda coal consume x 9 …
is this calculation roughly correct?
what says our experts?
thanks giorgio
Giorgio, I will give you some information about the consumption of my Fergi, the engine has 2400 cc, similar in size to the Fiat engine, so the consumption should be similar. So, with average work, the consumption ranges from 10 to 15 kg of wood per working hour, depending on the load. 1 liter of diesel fuel contains 10 kWh of energy, and 1 kg of dry wood contains approx. 4 kWh, if we take into account the heat losses in the gasifier, we can round off that 1 liter of diesel fuel contains the same amount of energy as 3 kg of dry wood. So if we take the power of 23 hp, which is equal to the power of 17 kW, we see that we need 17 kWh of energy per hour, the efficiency of the motor is unknown, well, we can assume that it is 25% and the result shows 17 kg of wood, I have tested this theory several times and I always get the same result, 1kWh - 1kg of wood.
At full power rough fuel consumption for a car with an engine in this size range can be astimated at 1l/km or 1l/min, in my experiances. Probably about similar with ypur situation.
thanks for reply, prof. tone and kristijan…
my hopper calculation…rettangular shape…will contain about 140 liters of coal with a height from 75 - 85 cm…this should work well for 2 hours and the hopper becomes not “tower” -high…
the position is just high from itself over the chain…
The density of charcoal varies from 0.2 - 0.4 kg per liter (wood chips 0.2 - 0.3 kg per liter), well, 1 kg of charcoal contains approx. 8 kWh of energy. When we compare the energy value of charcoal and wood, we see that charcoal is twice as calorific, but the gasification process of charcoal is, in my opinion, rather wasteful, the formation of CO from C means that we lose half of the energy, this deficiency is improved by adding water vapor, but I think that we do not achieve much more than 5 kWh of energy from 1 kg of coal. Let me conclude my thoughts:
charcoal consumption per working hour would be up to 14 kg at high load
14 kg of charcoal occupies a volume of approx. 50 liters
we need approx. 100 l of charcoal to operate for 2 hours
Kristjan is an expert and has experience in this field, I can see that we have reached a similar result.
seems the dux gasifier, because of his rettangular shape, could have a long flute nozzle?
…maybee pipe in pipe, watercooled, connected with the cooler system of the motor…
if someone else has historic photos from woodgas tractors, here would be a nice place…
yesterday we began with the hopper for the fiat
tone,my son is the fotomaster, he makes some joke from time to time…
we are very busy now with welding with photovoltaik power for welding batteries, so we must use the sunny weather now for making all the long welding seams, in autumn is not so much sun more and work needs more time therefore…not yet was time to try the motorcultivator with the new gasifier with water cooled nozzle…
