Mercedes-Benz E230 vol. 2, charcoal powered

Kristijan,
If I understand this right the auger moves the char ok in the hopper but the exit kind of plugs, right? I guess you could make small changes to the auger to make it work a little better but wouldn’t it help to open up the exit some? The part of the hopper closest to the exit should be able to empty itself into the gasifier and the auger used only to push more char in that direction.

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Not sure what you have in mind. What you describe is ideal yes but how to achive it?

Yes the part auger apears to work fine.

Haha, always so easy giving advise when you’re not aware of all the details :smile:
Anyway, this is what I had in mind. With a wider hopper exit the auger could even be slightly angeled.

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Ah l see it now! It is the simplest way but a bit tricky to arrange on my setup.

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My first thought was that your ramp? Needs to be less angle so the char makes a gentle turn.
Other idea is another short auger pulling char out the exit

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Some pictures of the cooler and filter. Both somehow unconventional. The cooler will most likely get some fins welded on in the summer but l run the engine at high idle 2000rpm with occasional reving on chargas and it all stays cool to the touch. Sure feelsgood to hear woodgas burn in a engine again :smile:

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Certainly unconventional :smile: but pretty stelth I guess.

What? Does that mean you already cranked up?

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That is really “slick” But what am I looking at??? What happened to that auger you worked so hard to develop, and the deep narrow box it laid in— I thought that was to be the hopper. Is the box on the far left the hopper now??. the round pipe, is that exhaust gas feeding into the system. Is that hopper box (?) going on the passenger side??? Man I’m lost. TomC

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Yes l cranked without a hopper, l wanted to heat the seals some. I just fed the char by hand.

Tom, no, like l sayd above, this is the cooler/filter unite. It fits in as it is positioned on the first picture, right under the front bumper. The box is a filter that houses a felt sack (last pic).

Edit oh, the hopper. I neaded a break from that PITA :smile: but l did stumble upon a nice small ~70° angle adapter for a cordless drill and l am thinking to mount it on the back of the auger, with a aditional litle auger in the filling shaft. Doing sort of what Andy advised.

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So is the big box, like a cooler drop box under bumper to drop out particles as the gas slowly flows through it going across and then up into the filter box?
Bob

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Kristijan the reason behind me saying try something smaller and see how it moves along the auger you have already built was because that charcoal is very course and will bind up against each other unless it can drop between the flights of the screw , so just to check that your auger will work as intended its easier to change the feed stock size to test that out rather than keep changing the dimensions of the screw .
About 10 years ago i was trying to make some black masterbatch on one of our large extruders and i did not mix the carbon black well enough with the low density polythene and a hand full of the carbon dust went down the screw with no problems at all till it got to the part of the screw with shallow flights ( the compression zone of the screw ) and it stopped a 600hp motor dead in its tracks , the motor was put into reverse and still it could not move that powder back out the feed port because there was not enough torque on the dc motor at ramp up speed , in the end we had to use very large vice grips with a long bar and turn the screw by hand for 3 hours till it came back to the feed port .
Not fun :persevere:

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Not sure what you are refering to Bob? The squere box is the box you see with my hand, the sack filter housing. The left and right “boxes” are just the coolers, there was some space between the bumper and tires and l decided to use it. Later l plan to weld pipes in and fins around.

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Dave, you made me think! The char l used for a test was old char dumped out from my old gasifier, right size but full of dust and ash. Perhaps this caused problems? I have a picture in mind what happened with your auger. I guess char dust acts like a non newtonian liquid upon compressing? Being a sort of solid althugh it shuld flow?

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The square tube that is parallel to the pipe and the rounded end pieces on each end have larger inside area then the pipe from your gasifier. So the gas will slow down causing the soot particle to end up in the bottom of the cooling box. It looks like the gas goes to one end then across to the other end. Both end pieces look like a large area space inside for gas flow to slow down. It looks like the same principle as a WK drop box just running parallel under the bumper. I’m sure you will have a build up of soot in the cooler. My cooling tubes and drop box collect soot. You have your cooling tube first then a cooling box (drop box).
I like it, it is going to work unconventional or not.
Bob

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Kristtijan, Kristijan, Kristijan! You build things so fast! I was still thinking about your auger set up, and you had all ready moved to the other end of the car. Us old folks can’t keep up with you young folks. As always the build looks great. TomC

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The simple solution potential solution would be to put a guard around your paddle so it pushes towards the chute, but it gets covered as it starts pushing away from the chute. I would think you would want the kick plate right at the end of the auger.

What about instead of a paddle, you put a cam on the end that hits a spring loaded piece of metal to push it, more like a mechanical solenoid or piston. The shape has to be like a perfect cylinder that fits inside something. so it doesn’t get material caught behind it. A piston with a crankshaft might also work. but more work.

You could also use a flat rotating disk with maybe a rubber coating on it, the pressure from the auger should be enough to press material against it and nudge it in the right direction, and you don’t have to worry about it wedging up. It might work better flat on the bottom if it was half covered but that is a lot more linkage. And it would work better if it was running faster then the auger itself. but that would probably require a planetary gear for a vertical version, a horizontal version would be easier since you already need some linkage to turn the motion 90 degrees.

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Wow, stopped me in my tracks. I had to look that one up and it’s still not real clear.
My understanding, not the charcoal :thinking:

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Sean, l did think on the camshaft idea before. Its the side motion of the connecting rod that worryed me so l abandoned the idea. Thank you for your sugestion!

Pepe, serch “corn starch non newtonian liquid” and you will see what l mean. But realy, non newtonian liquids are rather abundant. Even kechup is a non newtonian liquid, staying in a pile when squirted on the plate but begins to flow when shaken.

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image
Ok I got it and ran into a term I learned when reading a story book when I was a kid, probably 1950, “oobleck”.
The book, " Bartholomew and the oobleck", check it out. A story with a great moral. Read it here and show your kids.
Click on the right top of the intro page to read full size option.

fliphtml5.com/pvcg/xivi/basic

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You would need a separate rod with linkage, then held on both ends, but you kind of have to do that anyway since, you need to go under/over the auger rod. The more I think about it, the more I don’t like it. I kind of like the disk idea better, but that might not work well with the angle you already have on the end. so that probably isn’t that great either. :slight_smile:

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