I didn’t have threads on both ends so I just welded a washer over the back and blobbed on a bunch of weld to fill in the hole. Nothing fancy. Hard to tell how long this will last but should get me making electricity from charcoal again.
I only drilled 4 holes in the 7 inch long pipe around 1/4 inch diameter and screwed it into the gasifier trying to get the holes facing up.
This was a little harder to light until I started drawing air from the outlet instead of blowing air in like I had been doing. The mattress blower should make lighting it much easier and not require compressed air.
Still not finished with the new filter but all of this was welded powered by charcoal. My plan is to make this similar to the bucket filter I’m currently using. The gas will come in the bottom, through a filter (probably planer shavings), and out the top pipe. I’m going to use hose clamps or maybe just wire to attach pieces of felt over the holes of the “T” piece as a final filter and to stop any planer shavings from getting sucked out. The bottom will get a pipe plug as a drain in case it collects any condensation.
I was going to bolt the lid on this like I did with the access port but it fits pretty tight already. I might just make a silicone seal on the main tank and call it good enough assuming it doesn’t leak or I might use a spring or bungee cord to hold it down. I might even fill it up with whatever filter media I decide to use and silicone it shut. I open the bucket filter just to check on it but haven’t done anything to it for a while. Seems to be working good. I could always cut the silicone when it needs opened.
It will probably get some kind of legs to hold it up high enough to get to the drain plug. I haven’t noticed any condensation in the bucket filter but the planer shavings probably absorb any that gets in. The drain might be useful to wash the filter media. The threaded hole was already in the propane tank where the valve used to be so it needs plugged anyway.
In case anyone is looking at this and thinking it kind of looks like that down draft gasifier…
Is all this effort worth doing when I could just buy gasoline or use “real” electricity? I’m having fun experimenting with the gasifier and it still amazes me that I’m making usable power from charcoal that I made myself from sticks and scrap wood.
Restarted the gasifier and finished up the filter all except adding the silicone and testing it for leaks. This filter shouldn’t get very hot so I just got the cheaper clear silicone so I might just put some on the inlet and outlet pipes just in case I have leaks.
This is the new filter but the lid isn’t sealed yet. The generator wasn’t running as good as it was earlier so my welds were lumpy but are holding so far.
The gasifier is still hot so I’ll probably have to wait till tomorrow to check on the flute nozzle but I’m expecting those small holes are getting blocked. I burnt about another bucket of engine grade charcoal today finishing up this filter which means I saved probably a couple hours worth of gasoline by using the charcoal gas.
I don’t expect this new filter to work any better than the bucket filter I have been using since it’s basically the same thing but I’m still hoping to mount this system on a base as one unit instead of being spread around with hoses all over the place.
Yup, Dude whenever you stop having fun, just stop, and find something else to do.
But you’ll come back to woodgas eventually. You’re one of us now.
Rindert
The slag came right off but I drilled the holes bigger. Still only 5/16" holes instead of the 1/4" ones I started with.
Going to need to grind up more charcoal. I’m not complaining. I’ve been using it a lot and haven’t made any more charcoal but have more that needs ground up and screened.
You might look at @KristijanL’s flute nozzle. He starts with an extra heavy piece of pipe and compensates for Bernoulli effect by drilling the holes closer to the air inlet bigger. Also he made a cleaning device to open up the holes before lighting.
Rindert
Thanks Rindert. I’ll search for that later tonight.
Right now I’m still fascinated with this whole idea of making usable fuel from scrap wood and am documenting my build for my own use as well as for others that might want to do this.
I see I got the new user of the month badge for last month.
I knew I was posting a lot and reading even more but didn’t realize I spent 5 days in a month reading posts.
I really hope this encourages others to give this a shot. I’ve been interested in wood gasification for over 30 years but Gary’s simple fire design and using charcoal instead of raw wood was the thing that finally got me success.
I’m sure I’ll eventually slow down with my posting but I doubt I’ll stop using some form of wood /charcoal gas. I’m spending a lot of time getting my process figured out and experimenting but it’s like I asked Gary. You aren’t just playing around with this are you? You actually USE this thing right? His answer was that the last time his wood splitter run on gasoline was when his neighbor borrowed it.
Seeing Gary’s gasifier in person and seeing just how fast he was able to light it and start splitting wood made it look almost as easy as dumping $4/gallon gasoline in it and it is running on fuel that I can easily make myself.
Thanks Don. I reassembled it but didn’t refill it with charcoal yet so I’ll open it back up tomorrow and twist it a little more to redirect the flutes. I was afraid it might direct too much heat to the sides of the gasifier but I’ll start with 45 degrees and see if that helps. The sides get way too hot to touch but it hasn’t burnt the paint off yet and it’s just cheap spray paint and not the high temperature engine paint.
I’d already drilled all the holes a little bigger but if I go bigger again I’ll skip drilling the end holes bigger.
An updraft will get hot at the bottom. Mine did for my Mazda pickup. Once you start adding water drip the slag won’t be so bad. It’ll form more of a volcano instead of a scab.
today i prepared the nozzle for my tractor…same style as in my little engines with 250 ccm …
there this design, though in stainless, combined with exhaust gas direction , keeps up very well. only very small amount of slag, and this is not hard but crunchy…
the big head of the nozzle whitstands the heat better as thin tubing material…
on my little engines the hole is drilled 14 mm, with a fine layer of residues it comes in practice to about 10 to 12 mm…
the thread is from water tubing, 1 " nozzle head diameter is about 4,5 to 5 cm…
the hole on the foto is bigger, 16 mm because for the tractor…
will try the system from eddy ramos
I put some silicone around the inside and some on the pipe fitting. Then I put a layer of grease on the lid to try to stop it from sticking so I can eventually get it back apart.
I had previously drilled out the 3/4" pipe plug that I’m using as my drain plug so I put some silicone in the drilled hole. I might eventually get a new one or even add a drain valve if it collects too much liquid but I don’t expect there to be much in this filter.
The gasifier is refilled with charcoal ready to use with the old filter still hooked up. Those hoses are siliconed and clamped so I hate to rip them back off.
To be fair, I spent a good bit of time building the gasifier but mostly used scrap metal and I was having fun and getting lots of practice welding so it wasn’t wasted time.
Making the charcoal has been a learning process but using the better barrel to shovel the coals into after making it made a big difference in the amount I ended up with per batch. I should make another batch soon but I still have over half a 55 gallon drum waiting to be crushed so I haven’t bothered making more yet. Plus, with colder weather coming, I plan to use the house furnace to make the charcoal so I won’t be wasting the heat making it.
I’m not to the point where I could run a vehicle on it but it shouldn’t be any problem keeping enough charcoal to power my tools. I’ve run saws, grinders, a wood planer, the air compressor, and even the welder and log splitter using the simple fire gasifier. I run the wood chipper too but it didn’t seem to have enough power to run that but adding the water drip might help.
So, to answer the question about is this worth doing. I’d say, for me, I don’t regret it at all and I expect to use it a lot. I do still want to build another gasifier but this one does about anything I need it to.
I assume this is like a lot of hobbies though. Always some new modification to try and always the next one to think about building.
I still want to add the water drip and put this on a base but I’m close to needing to start working on the next one. My charcoal grinder works but powering it with a drill is a dirty job so that could be my next project.
No doubt about it. With gasoline, you don’t get a fine enough spray pattern to easily ignite when it’s really cold. Woodgas on the other hand is always in a gasious state. To find the correct air-mix right away can be tricky though - regardless of temperature.
I hadn’t thought about gasoline not atomizing as well in cold temperatures. I was thinking the oil would be thicker but didn’t know how woodgas would be any different than gasoline to fix that problem.
Getting the air mixture right was the only reason it wasn’t as easy as starting on gasoline and it took a few pulls. I didn’t time it but I’d guess it couldn’t have been much over a minute or two from the time I lit the gasifier until I had the generator running and producing electricity. Not as fast as starting on gasoline which usually only takes a pull or two and a little choke to get it to fire but definetely worth it. I filled up the gasoline tank to weld the access port on the side of my gasifier and have been running almost entirely on charcoal since I got that back together. The gas gage still shows full.
Looking at the generator’s manual, it uses 0.4 gallons of gasoline per hour at 50% load. The welder uses everything the generator can give and would like more but, assuming I run the generator over 4 hours in the last few days, that saved me at least a gallon and a half or over $6 not counting the fuel it would take to go to the gas station. In reality, that probably would have used over half the 4 gallon tank of gasoline.
For sure! My BCS per instance, l it WILL start on the first stroke on chargas. Set the air on the usual setting and pull the engine, one revolution and it runs. On petrol? Naah… hit and miss… might start on the first pull, if you are fast with the choke and know your machine well but usualy these engines require a few pulls…
It took a little longer than usual today to get the generator running but it was still only 8 minutes. The generator was running but not fast enough so it probably just took some time to get the good gas through the filter and hoses. I didn’t try lighting a flare this time so it might not have been quite ready to run the engine.
