Thanks for that reply. I do have uses for the biochar so it won’t be wasted but didn’t want to be separating the best stuff if smaller was better.
I think Gary has a 1/8 inch screen and saves between 1/8 and 3/4 inch as engine grade. I thought I read where others here were saving anything bigger than window screen so I thought I might be wasting some.
I’ve almost got my gasifier filled back up but will need to dig into my stash and grind some more to fill it. I assume I lost the burnt ash (sifted out) and I ground up the bigger pieces a little smaller so it takes more than I dumped out of it to refill it again.
Brian, one thing that I do when making charcoal is I pre sift my charcoal before grinding with a 1/2" screen. Then I sift the dust out of that with 1/8" screen.
The bigger stuff I will grind down and reclassify
I’ve thought about making a two tier sifting ramp, that collects charcoal into two buckets. Engine Grade and Too Big. Dust would just land on the ground to be shovelled up later.
Keeping your charcoal sizes on the smaller end will help increase your fuel density and give you longer run times.
My charcoal grinder has a 1/4 inch screen at a 45 degree angle and what falls thru the screen is 1/8th inch and dust biochar. 1/4 inch to 3/4 inch engine grade charcoal is what rolls down to the left bucket.
brian, eddy ramos, also here on the forum, uses charcoal size from rice corn to olive size…not too much rice size mixed in though…
quick method for charcoal making is burning twigs in a bath tube, of corse not the one in your bathroom…a old scrappy one, here in europe they are from metal, in u.s. i have heard made from plastic, not ideal…
with twigs i get the right size of engine coal automatically without crunching…
i have made a topic of this system here in the forum
I tried slowing down Don’s video to see the grinding mechanism better but just couldn’t catch it. In the link above and in the posts that follow it Don has better pictures and some dimensions and there are other people’s versions.
Thanks Tom for finding Don’s other video. I’m still experimenting so I want my gasifier to be able to be hooked up to other engines besides the generator but that looks like an easy to use, complete unit. I figured that was what a “flute” nozzle was but seeing the glow through the holes confirmed it.
My generator is the only engine I tried running on the charcoal gasifier so far but I’m thinking that a lot of the small engines around that don’t run anymore is because of the ethanol in the gasoline here (in the USA) messing up the carburator. Feeding them wood/charcoal gas should get them usable again.
Brian if you scroll through the Nozzles for charcoal gasifiers part 2 link then you will see a more detailed view of all the nozzles being used that should also give you dimension sizes for you to copy .
On the charcoal size the smaller it is the slightly longer run time you will get on a small gasifier as you will create smaller rat runs for the hot gas to bypass the cooling charcoal helping to keep it cooler longer .
Dave
I just bought a set of these TOM thanks for posting- i am sure i find a use for them once i get into char gasifier-i might use them on a insulated burn TUBE wood gasifier testing design. THERE is 5 or 6 sets left.
ONLY 5 left now. I debated on buying one but figured I should get one before they’re gone.
I’m going to keep using the piece of pipe I have in my simple fire since it’s still working but it sounds like this should last longer and I really hope to use this gasifier a lot more once I get it set up better. Right now it works but I want to get it on a cart or at least a base with the filter and probably a water drip as one unit instead of having everything duct taped and spread around.
I got almost another bucket of charcoal from my last batch of sticks but it still needs screened and maybe crushed although most of it was fairly small and broke apart by hand.
Started on another charcoal grinder that will hopefully work better than the welded nuts and bolts on my first test. Only one tooth so far but a quick test powered by a cordless drill looks like it makes it closer to the size I was hoping for.
CONGRADULATIONS on your charco gasifier simple fire building- i have never built any char gasifiers yet- though i plan to sooner or later , since i heat with wood long michigan winters, and there is char left over wood heater and in wood gasifiers-so no sense waisting charco power fuel, if needed/ though i am not an off grid person, i have built 3 wood gasifier units.
A lot of duct tape. I made a duct tape pipe cap on the left for when I’m running on gasoline. That’s where I attach the charcoal gas pipe.
Either duct tape isn’t sealing good enough or my flexible hose from the mixer valve to the engine is bad. I had to keep the air inlet valve almost fully closed to get it to run.
The planer shavings I put in that filter aren’t coated in tar or anything and has a slight “campfire” smell to them. Other than that, they don’t look any different than when I put them in the bucket.
Whatever this is, it isn’t tar. It’s wet because my charcoal gas seems to be damp. I’m guessing it is sawdust or something that got in that pipe in the years since I used it last.
Hi Don , I have admired your twin fluted nozzle since i first saw the video up on YouTube ,love the compact set up of it all , did you ever post any build video’s or photo’s of the twin flute , and have you altered anything since you first built it ?
LOOKS like you needed a drain clean out on your T fitting on your wood gas unit- A little fine tuning arranging filters and you got all the needed basic design working- LOOKING GOOD. char or wood gasifing is not exactly easy but most certainly nice knowing how to have engine grade fuel for ICE from scrap wood.THANKS TO DRIVE ON WOOD GROUP_ WK.
I have not changed anything so far but I want to experiment with pointing the flute holes upward and also downward to see if it makes any difference. Now they are pointing sideways toward each other and it seems to work good.
Not sure how much difference this will make but I had it from a previous gasifier. The gas from the simple fire wasn’t overly hot before at least on short half hour runs but I’m hoping to extend the burn time and condense at least some of the water. I had to grind, burn, and pound the old silicone and epoxy off it then brazed it all up to fix the leaks.
This is another change to the generator. Duct tape just wasn’t sealing the hose good enough so I used silicone and hose clamps.
I fired the gasifier up just enough to get a flare but want to put a water trap on it to hopefully catch any liquid that might condense out of the gas. I think my connections at the filter bucket were leaking a little too but I don’t have any more hose clamps big enough and I’d like to build a different filter as well as get the whole unit on some kind of base.
I’d like to do some more work on the charcoal grinder too but didn’t feel like getting coated with charcoal dust yet and I nailed the test build together so I’ll have to pound and pry it apart to add more teeth and a couple more slots.
This is my last batch of charcoal broken up a little by hand but not screened or ground. The piece I’m holding is the remains of a pine cone after breaking it up. I know it won’t make the best gasifier fuel but I threw them in with the other sticks when I was turning them into charcoal.
Good idea Cody. I’ve been meaning to take a temperature reading with an Infrared thermometer but keep forgetting to take it out to the gasifier when I run it.
Do you mean I should be able to run this until the gas out of the top gets to the boiling point of water? I had been running it with the plastic hose pressed onto the outlet pipe so I had to shut it down when the duct tape started getting soft. This was hot but not boiling hot.
Adding the cooling pipes I hope to condense some of the moisture before it makes it to my filter but also get the plastic pipe a little further away from the hottest gasses.
So far running the generator on the charcoal gas I can run some of the stuff I normally use that generator for but I still run it on gasoline to run the air compressor and the welder. Smaller stuff like grinders and saws and even my wood planer work off the homemade fuel.
It would be nice to be able to run at least an hour before needing to shut it down and refill it. 3 or 4 hours would be nicer especially if using it for backup power when the power goes out but mostly I only run the generator when I need to use power tools or refill my air tank. I’m too far from the house to run an extension cord but set up some solar panels and an old car battery to charge my cordless tool batteries or run a light or two. If the sun is hitting the solar panels I can run an angle grinder through an inverter but the old battery don’t last long with much of a load if the sun isn’t keeping it charged.
With the thermometer at the outlet of the gasifier, before the cooler, when your gas starts to read at 200°F it absolutely must be refilled. With the cooler you might be able to run it a little longer but it will at least save your plastic parts.
Eddy Ramos is the one that suggests 200°F/100°C for the refill temp, but he has a lot more metal plumbing.
I would put the thermometer where the gasifier meets the cooler.
