You’r system is reading boost and Intake pressure, but missing the correct temperature.
Also, throttle @73,7% ?
1:Look for misfire indication in the OBD readout
2: Knock sensor ?
3: Disconnect the wiring from your Throttle body and provoke another OBD event, readout
4: Re-connect the throttle body, reset the OBD and try to provoke another OBD event, readout
Your ignition timing is adjusted by the combination TPS, Intake pressure/temperature, and depending any knock sensor.
Basically, ignition is set by the quantity and quality of your combustion mixture. ( within the parameters of the ECU programming/mapping ofcourse )
Now you have the tool to read out your OBD, time to start learning how to “spoof” your ECU
endless fun…
Koen,
It shows 73,7% all the time becouse l have dissasembled the original throtlebody and replaced it with the new, twinthroat automixer throtlebody. This shows up as a code. Not much l can do about it, and l dont know if l realy want to. Other thain the code, the car runs just fine.
There is a tuning part of my diagnostics program, l think l culd change the timeing from here, but lm not nearly there yet
I got misfire codes when l first connected to OBD. This was from about a week ago when my valve cover vacuum hose got disdconnected from the intake manifold, leting oil fill the spark plug compartmemt. This was in the cold morning after a night shift and it the engine wuldnt start. When l put out the sparkplugs to clean them, the oil flew in the cilinders and made eaven biger mess. I ended up heating 2 sparkplugs with a torch (tips and tricks from my moped tuning days) and quickly screwing them in. That worked (well l drove for a while on 2 cylinders).
Other thain that, no missfire codes.
The air intake temp is still s mistery, l cant find the sensor.
Thats why it might be a good idea to hook up the original throttle body, to compare value’s/readout’s
The temperature could even be measured in that throttle body…
or you have a combined MAP/Temp sensor ( airflow/airmass)
The discusion in the other topic reminded me the time is about right for a system cleanup. I thod l might as well make a video of it. Hope you like it.
Kristijan, on your system does the wood gas go through the slyclone filtering and then the hot gas mantle fiber filtering, then to the cooling tubs? Does any of the carbon dust make it to your cooling tubes and into the condensation tank? I am still impressed by the size of your unit and how you made it look like a cargo carrier.
Thank you for showing the clean out of your gasifier video. You have thought out the design very well.
Bob
Correct.
I havent yet opened the cooling tubes, but judged by the collor of water in my condense catcher in the engine compartment only a realy small amount of superfine dust gets past the glass fiber fabrick. Its realy thick and tight.
This was actualy my first real cleaning of the hot gas filter and l must say l am pleased with the resaults. Allso the now larger ashpit ads to ash settling/dropbox effect.
Judgeing by the amount of ash/dust l saw today (and summed up all the regular cyclone dumps) I wuld estimate about 60% of ash/dust gets collected in the ashpit, about 90% of the left ash/dust gets separated in the cyclone, and 99% of he leftover ash/dust gets filtred out in the hot filter.
I allso find it interasting that in the ashpit there is just light grey ash and biger charcoal. In the cyclone there is a mix of grey and black, and in the filter it looks like pure carbon dust. Black as the night.
This points to some oxidation, excess air. Most of us are seeing pure black below the grate, unless there’s an air leak or the gasifier is overpulled. Of course yours is a different design, but the only way to get white ash is complete oxidation, which shouldn’t be happening in a gasifier.
Very interesting Kristijan!
We have similar gasifiers, but I see quite different results.
I get very little ash in the dump. Mostly 1/4" - 1/2" char. Emptying the cyclone is like pouring a cup of sugar. A gray mix of ash and soot and a few layers of tiny 1/8" char from occational hard pulls.
Gasifiers are strange beasts.
Edit:
Chris, this has been troubeling me for some time. The oxidation that does happen in the nozzle area has to create some ash, doesn’t it?
No, not usually, it doesn’t have time. The ash is bound tightly to the carbon, and with sufficient reduction space, there will always be some carbon left clinging to the ash, making it black. It takes excess air, perhaps localized, to burn off every bit of carbon and leave white ash. This is seen in ash door leaks, or around welding pinholes or threaded connections, but in tiny amounts.
If everything’s running properly, then it may just be that the Imbert reduction zones are shallow enough to allow frequent penetration by the oxygen, which is burning up all the carbon.
“If everything’s running properly, then it may just be that the Imbert reduction zones are shallow enough to allow frequent penetration by the oxygen, which is burning up all the carbon.”
I find this likely. Doesent nessesery mean a overpull, a small wormhole might be enough. Im just not sure uf thats a problem or not…
Anyway, the charcoal chunk in the ashpit shuld tell a story.
JO, gasifiers are strange indeed. Perhaps one of the reasons we have such different resaults is allso we use wery different fuel. Different wood, different charcoal/ash. Allso, l live on a hill made out of quarz so high silica content in wood. My chainsaws know that, exspecialy if the logs are towed on the ground. Sometimes its like l cut logs with a anglegrinder rather thain a chainsaw. Sparks like crazy.
Moveing the conversation from “how much air preheat is realy nessesery” thread.
The talk on my cleaning video got me thinking about my (or shuld l say our @JO_Olsson) design. JO, l was thinking about what you sayd on gas eating the charcoal in the ashpit. More precisely, how culd one prove if the gas gets richer or diluted?
Ill put out the sample charcoal out, but this will only prove if the gas eats charcoal or not.
I was thinking to somehow take samples of gas from different engine loads, lets say 2l of it, and bubble it trugh lime solution. This shuld produce a participate of calcium carbonate from CO2 reacting with lime. Dry, weight and calculate the CO2 content from that. Shuld work.
Ha, not everyone of us can get our hands on those fancy gas analisers
Just make sure your camera is recording when your’re driving 100 km/h WOT and your wife is hanging on to the alu box holding the sample bottle
Seriously, I think this a great idea if you can find a way to collect samples.
This is what I think happens when we’re overpulling:
Any oxygene pulled through the reduction will first of all combust some of the gases produced. Pulling hard enough some oxygen might still be present a few inches further down making the slipped char in the ash pit starting to glow. This will give it high enough temp to do some reduction of the combustion gases back to the gases we want.
I think the old low, wide grate design we discussed earlier was totally dependent on this to happen. Also after sitting for a while the pile of char shrunk some creating an empty space under the restriction and bell. That’s why they were forced to fill up with additional charcoal.
In 500 miles I can collect maybe 1/2 gallon of 1/4 in char from the dump. From what I’ve experienced so far another 500 miles doesn’t add to that volume. I haven’t emptied it for quite a while now and only time will tell if it will ever get full. Ash and fines seem to blow away to be collected in the cyclone when the space under the grate becomes narrow enough.
Watching your cleanout video I suspect your reduction might be a bit shallower, your fuel a bit bigger and your right foot a bit heavier.
Even when still having good power, watching my guages, I often slow down when seeing high gas temp and loose charbed. It seems I don’t gain much power by pulling hard on the gasifier. By going only 1/3 throttle, instead of full, I lose only a little speed, pulling a lot less on the gasifier. I think this shows me my upper limit of my turndown ratio.
I was thinking more in the neighberhood of a small hose from the main gas suply hose and a suringe type canister.
Yes l think you are right about 2 things, except the reduction zone. Both oxidationand reduction zone are longer thain yours l think.
I had a few thods crossing my mind on converting the grate to the real lmbert style, but l realy have to sleep on it.
Hl guys, guess what happend yesterday. l experianced loss of power for a few days and the gasifier wuldnt heat up as usualy. Yesterday the car only ran on hybrid, but then l pressed the gas pedal hard and it ran perfect and strong on wood.
I emptyed the condense catcher, cyclone, looled for a airleak, checked the automixer, nothing. Still bad this morning.
Then l found it. The non return gasifier intake valve was glued shut with tar! The hard pull yesterday must of have ripped it open but then it glued it back over night. Dissasembled it and it now drives strong agen.
But thats not the most interasting thing l wanted to present to you. This morning l found about half the hopper of wood turned to pure charcoal. Now the puzzle came together. With no intake air trugh the nozzles, and a bad seal on the hopper lid (it started to leak-the silicone deteriorated), l made a FEMA out of a lmbert there was enough air for a hybrid drive but not for 100% wood. Thanks god there was no tar produced.
Ha ha! Kristijan, Kristijan!
Seriously, you have to get yourself a couple of guages. You’re running around in the dark. I’m amazed your gear is holding up for such abuse. One day a rocket stove in the ash pit, and the other you’re almost imploding the whole gasifier
Not only do you get a better picture of what’s happening in the gasifier if you use guages. It’s a lot more fun driving too.
Edit: Haha, I just happend to think of that circus-talk
Have all the fun you want JO, l deserve it. And afterall, now we are eaven on our epic fail table (you know, your firefighting exam ).
Yes, its true. I am looking for guages for some time now, cant find what l want. The standard vacuum guages are big and ugly. I wuld like to find some nice, small guages to incorporate on the dashbord. But its a hard one…
0-100 mbar (0-40" H2O) This was Wayne’s recomendation. Works good unless you’re constipated big time - pegging the guage means I risk imploding my plastic filter barrel.
My temp guages have cheap 300 C meat probes on a wire. The gas temp one works using 300C if not too close to the cyclone. I put mine were gas enters the condensation tank (first step of the cooler).
Some gasifers that I’ve operated have used a brass plumbing check valve as the air inlet backfire safety.
These are positional sensitive with a top edge hinging flapper.
Becomes a starting up SOP to poke break these free (assure movement capabilty) on system liting up.
The “tick, tick” ticking of this metallic flapper becomes an operator audible “all’s-well” system flow meter on stationary systems.
No ticking - something BAD.
Slow, long duration ticking - low gas draw - low heat generated - be careful - aware.
Nice tic,tic,tic, ticking - and all is well.
I always think of these as Werner Tick-Tick valves. (Stigg-Erik Werner)
Manual pinball-wizard operating audibly, by actual smells, and felt viberations will be impossible to automate. I love this - keep a human in the loop.
Just automating around pressures and temperatures is actually performance edge finding capabilities limiting.
And full automating, again leads to dumb-dumb downing of the average user. Necessitating a separate Geek-Tech class of priests know-it-all’s to keep the automation operating when it does skew wild.
Learn to cook your own meals, and eat well for a lifetime.
Depend on Chef-Artists for your meals and once unable to pay-the piper and you will nutrition flounder eating out of cans.
Steve,
I used a spring loaded plunger type brass chackvalve, 1", with its spring removed. Mounted verticaly. I now see it was too hevy allso-now that l drive without it (untill l find a better option) l can drive at lower rpm and l can use my fifth gear for the first time at long cruizing speeds.
Unfortunaly those flap check valves are imposible to get here. Looks like lll have to make one.
About the click click noise; l t did produce that sound and althugh it was not hearable in the car lt was nice to hear it when refueling
there was enough air for a hybrid drive but not for 100% wood. Thanks god there was no tar produced.
).