Mercedes-Benz E230 vol. 2, charcoal powered

Kristijan,
If you are interested, I will send you a differential vacuum gauge. I’ll have to check, but it is either 15 or 30 inches water column. I can send dimensions and specs if that matters. It is big 4"diameter. Just give me your shipping address and it is yours.

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Check air filter gauges for heavy trucks, and equipt. I found a couple of used ones cheap. Most of them are inches of water measure

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Bruce, thats too generous! I was looking at them today and the prices are just insane. I will look some more (Als idea too) and if l cant find anything usefull, l will wuld like to try making my own first. I have a few ideas, will present them shortly. But if all else fails l will turn to you :slight_smile:

Tom, l know what you mean. Driveing on wood demands a special kind of atention by its self, no need to complicate our lifes further thain nessesery. My personal goal is to come up with a system where any person can get in the drivers seat and drive away without even noticing driving on wood. Still far from from the goal but geting there slowly. The double throtleing hybrid system seems to take care of 80% of the job but its the litle things that are a pain to take care of. Like making a plugless firetube, a bridgeing less hopper, a gasifier that cant be overdrawn… still lots to do :slight_smile:

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Oh, on the bridgingless hopper. I think l accidently made one. I run the exhaust trugh a port in the ashpit so the pulsating effect of the exhaust gases shakes/vibrates the whole thing real well. Too well in fact, as it actualy starts to separate the fuel by granulation, adding to firetube constipation. But hey, it doesent bridge :wink:

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Rubber inner tube diaphragm, fulcrum needle, tin can and dial divisions. All homemade.

:sunglasses:

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Pretty big and ugly:

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Jeff yes l was thinking about something like that. And maybee a small tube pressure guage (perhaps even filled with mercury?) For the Pitot style gas flow meter l plan to install. Pressure differences are small there.

Bruce, thats exactly what l need. Even the range is ideal! I will turn to you if l am not sucsessfull otherwise.

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I would not use mercury, just too dangerous to have around. You need inches (mm) of water anyway. Something with alcohol to prevent freezing. Coffee with a bit of vodka! :open_mouth:

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Mike, ha, l live in a different world. Its mbar (milibar) here :wink: the thing with mercury is its 13 times hevyer thain water so a U tube pressure guage can be made 13 times smaller. The scale can be adjusted easyaly, just divide by 13.
But l agree. Its not a no 1 choice.

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Hi Kristijan, what price range is acceptable? I found some in the $20-$30 range.

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My gasifier / motors usually don’t create enough vacuum to make a showing easy to read with inches of mercury . I use inches of water an usually with a scale of 0 to 30 inches .

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H2O vacuum gauge. I only had about a 20 inch long board from the floor of the truck to the top of the dash. I brought the plastic tube in above the rear window and ran it under the head liner to the front widow, then down to the floor of the truck at the bottom of the board, then back up to the top of the board. Level out the water (?) at the center of the board. This will give you a 20 inch of H2O reading. I ran at about 5 to 10 inches of water vacuum. Yes there were times when I wasn’t careful I sucked the water out of the plastic, but only a couple of times. TomC (what Mr. K said about Hg)

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I may be missing something but if you are still having issues with your auger could you do something else like make a conveyor belt type thing? I think you could make it lighter and it would put less load on the moter.

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Hi Corey,

Actualy l made a temporairy test hopper, just a 10gal oil drum screwed right over the gasifier, and l liked it so much l just made a preetyer version of it and stuck with it. It holds about 11 gal of useable char (dead “cone char” excluded) for a range close to 50 miles. Perfectly good for my needs.

Thanks for the idea thugh!

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Hi Kristijan , just wondering if Eddy Ramos has been in touch with you to make the drawing of your system as i think a lot of us here would be interested in seeing the finished system drawn up , i myself would like to one day try and duplicate your system and sneak a truck onto the roads here in Aus :wink:
Dave

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Funny Dave l was wondering the same thing. Last l heared from @ramosedmundo he was working on a nice truck he wanted to DOC.

If he doesent respond, l will make the drawing. I shuld make a report and walkaround too, but l wuld like to finish it all first. The Mercedes is in a driveable state but far from finished. Still missing some vital components like a fan, automixer and all instrumentation.

I had problems with constipation lately. Dust formed a inpenetrable lair on the grate that was even hard to poke trugh with a poking rod. The grate l had has prooven ineffective for shaking out dust, char filled the tracks and it got stuck. I made a new one, a circular one that fits loosely in the restriction, resting on a center pin. Similar to Pepe’s grate. It rotates and slips char nicely only when rotated.
Yesterday l installed vacuum lines, hooked up to hopper and gas outlet and started the system. For a test l built a simple hose manometer. The vacuum was much less thain expected. The engine run poorly too, having trouble runing above 3000rpm. The ashpit guage showd 10" max but the hopper/ashpit ratio was more like 1/10, if not more! I went back and rotated the grate a bit, sliping maybee a pint of char. Vacuum went down to a healthy 3/1. So, thats setled. I just need to make the grate shaking remote.

But the car still run crapy! Idled rock solid but didnt rev. I went in the front opening the filter and boy what l found. The filter sack was partly burryed with dripping wet dust! I took it out and tryed runing the engine for a few seconds without it. Nope! Still no better. Vacuum the same. But this is a proove that even in the worst case scenario the sack is breathable!

Then l let the car idle at 2000rpm for a minute or two, closely monitoring the vacuum guages. I saw a occasional distortion in the water level. And siting in the drivers seat, l culd hear the engine hickup slightly at that point, and the car moving slightly, like if someone leaned on the car door. Listening even more carefully, l culd hear a “gloup” sound under the car. Aha!! This for sure means water in the cooler/gas suply.

But where did the water come from? JO sayd yesterday one of the members of the Gengas meeting sayd there are usualy 3 gasifier problems. LEAKS, LEAKS and LEAKS. I went looking for them and l found a pinched seal on the ash cleanout door on the ashpit! It seems a part of the gas burnt in the ashpit forming water that condensed and accumulated in the cooler.
So the plan now is take the system apart, clean it all and fix the leak. Then go from there.

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Could be it. But also, isn’t it possible the moist char had more water in it than it was able to reduce into H2 ? I get the feeling it’s very much a balancing act.

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Ofcorse thats a possibility too. Allso char drying out in the hopper culd send moisture trufh the cool charbed.

I will try fillin it up with dry char and hope l dont melt the gasifier :smile:

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Kristijan,
I REALLY don’t understand your thinking. How can water added to the char become part of the reduction reaction? I would think the heat from the lobe would drive the water out of the char before it ignited, just as a WK gasifier drives water and tar out of the wood in the hopper. Perhaps somehow you could route the steam in the char hopper so that it goes through the nozzle?
I don’t have a practical way to accomplish this, so this is just an idea.
Rindert

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Well the wk hopper condenses the water but here it hasnt got any other choice but to go in the firetube. But l see your point, it still is less controlable in a way.

The thing is l plan to inject water in the heatex anyway, via carburator most likely. this now is just a test for the winter condition water injection.

I allmost forgot. The other day l pulled out the grate right after the gasifier was at full power. The char was burnt down to the nozzles so l emptyed the char out of the firetube. This is the picture a few seconds later. Thod it wuld be cool to show you guys this becouse we rarely see those things with our own eyes. This, my friends, is how a gasifier looks inside if you remove all the char from it.

What l learned is the char cone can support its self on much more thain 60° we like to use for lmberts. Its more like 80° on this gasifier, taking the angle of the restriction to nozzle tip.

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