Joep, you are basically like my typical customer. They dont want to make fuel, they dont want to the run the machine, they want it to run 24 hours with out any intervention. All they want to do is put fuel in it and push a button and it works.
Even if those processes require more machine energy input, there is still user energy input. This is the part we want to eliminate 
Yes, that is right. If you wouls sell a gasifier that runs on sawdust, we would have a deal. If I want it clean and easy, I will buy a generator and pour diesel in it.
Sorry Matt, only trying to protect you from the same mistake I made. But try and you know it is a dead end. From different points of view.
If you were living near my place you could pick it up and try for yourself. We were cleaning out everything and then I saw the installation again. Had a lot of fun with it, I know I can now, but there are better ways to spend energy, money and time.
Impossible, start to read in about pelletmaking
You say pellots on demand is good i agree if your gasifier cans are smaller more effient units, what about sawdust on demand instead, would there be a gain from burning wood chunks.
Right, nobody wants to do ‘grunt work’. So the whole wood fuel thing doesn’t work.
But maybe a sawmill would buy a system that used sawdust, because then they will have to do less ‘grunt work’ handling sawdust. It’s all about reducing ‘grunt work’. If you can do that they will pay you.
Rindert
Its still easier than the other methods. You have to chip nearly four times the volume to produce that same equivalent in pellets. Nobody can seem to wrap their head around that. Your only chipping 25% of you would otherwise. Sorting chips is time consuming its a lot of work and so is drying the fuel. Unless your good with a small hopper that you are going to need to refill a lot than chunks would be a good solution. But bulk feeding is easier said than done.
Yup Im not ruling out going with straight up saw dust. But I still see an issue with energy density and run times. Trying to keep em compact and cost effective to produce it all adds up.
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I will run the engine exhaust through the die.
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Yeah thats the other possibility. That would be a huge game changer.
AMEN, I think that is worth a chase.
Grinding / burning sawdust on demand.Drying shavings on demand with heat exchanger available heat. Even IF had too grind dryish wood, this would eliminate chunking step, and open the auger feed posibilitys, and carry more wood being solid bigger logs before grinding.Pump heat down the length of the auger tube, insulated. Lots of heat sorce too build around too use.As steeve Uric is been saying about useing the recycle heat for the drying. Just need too get the logs too the grinder automated, could get miles more down the road with out refilling all the time. kill two and a half birds with that set up.Or i should say three and a half .
Hey Mr. Steve, hope n trust all is well in your world ;~) Appreciate the acknowledgement and even more your works.
My target fuel is brush pile “stompage”, since the day my 10 year old son stomped out a 5 gallon bucket of it in 2 minutes. He is now 21 and may be able to do a little better than that these days should the need arise ;~) Far less energy consumed than pellet processing from sawdust with all the hauling, forming, yada inputs. Plus stompage is a far superior fuel to pellets in moist environments.
To me it is a question of scale - the smaller the better. I don’t run a sawmill. I can clean out a fencerow, with a small chain saw or machete and pile up the brush. Rabbits and quail have safe haven for a year or two. Then we can stomp the dry stuff into a bucket and have a fuel density comparable to propane by volume.
Don’t see what I am missing in this scenario other than thoughts of grandeur. Works great for homestead scale energy, if anyone should ever want to live easier right they are. Lots of brush round here ;~)
Cheers!
Good evening doug brethower, have you run a truck with that fuel type yet, and what distance can be had with half barrel size hopper you think.
When depending on a small local sawmill for saw dust two things should be considered. If economy goes bust so does the mills and your fuel supply. If fossil fuels (assuming it is not electric) tanks so does your fuel supply. These would be the two times woodgas would be needed the most.
Hi jeff good afternoon what i am considering is what if like Matt Rider was contomplateing, makeing saw dust on demand while driveing , then could be steady augered in too the burn tube.eliminateing the chunking process, and getting more miles too the refuel. Could put the grinder Or the log feed pipe in back seat area of truck and load logs by hand till automated. On the other hand if saw dust on demand is too power consuming, i am thinking on just making a square channel feed chunks in while driveing, automated from the bed of the truck too extend the miles range before refills.
Hey Kevin the real appeal of a woodgas pellet-mo-bile is the fact that in many places ready made woodpellets are just a stop and bag away . . . .
until they are not.
Out of season. Not in the prime home heating season. Wood home heating pellets not so common in cheap natural gas and the have many-refinery areas with super cheap propane.
Then you’d be down to using 2X, 3X expensive Tragger type BBQ pellets.
Worse trying to use unregulated for ash and moisture content animal bedding pellets.
And . . . all pellets bought by the bag have a very unfavorable energy per dollar ratio in comparison to pump gasoline and diesel.
Ha! On my Apology to MEN topic I kept waiting for someone to ask me, “Steve! You were there in the original MENS 1970’s and 80’s!! Why did you not get into woodgas then!?”
'Cause gee man in, Fall/winter of 74-75 gasoline never actually totally dried up. You were just restricted to only 10 gallons a week. Had to creep along in long lines (wasting gasoline) to get it. In the later 1980 gas-crunch, again never actually totally dried up. Same-same 10 gallons a week. Only then on the vehicle licence plated numbered odd/even alternative days.
So . . . I was systematizing out how to most easily get my 10 gallons. Expensive five gallon Class Three safety can walking up past the lines filled between the large full-sized tanker cars jocking for position. Later 80’s odd/even I made sure to have a vehicle with each. Had the front plates off them, taking the apropriate one with me and my can on my, “Sorry. Out of gas.” walk o’shame.
(Ha! And I was only asking for half the allowed. Two cans would get you refused.)
Then . . . .how to get the most travel out of my actual 5 gallons.
1098cc MG sedan. ~180 miles.
Datsun 1200 sedan. ~170 miles.
1300cc Datsun pickup. ~125 miles.
1478CC Saab 96. ~135 miles.
100cc Hodaka motorcycle. 125cc Kawasaki motorcycle. ~250 traveling miles.
10 speed road bicycle. Save the gasoline for the 15 mpg firewood hauling pickups.
The one-button-iers been watching too many imagineering Back-to-the-Future movies.
Not say in you MattR. Unless you want to own this.
I am saying the Mr X California fellow long left anything bulk wood capable behind for $60K please-all systems. I asked him back in ~2007 why he trialed with easy walnut shells and not wood chunks or wood chips.
He said, “Steve. Wood is hard for us to get here (in Berkley CA). Has to be processed down with reluctant labor. Walnut shells I can get truck loads delivered to me.” And so then onto to automated auger feed systems. And only fuel particle sizes and consistencies to meet augur requirements. The tail then, wagging the dog.
Even my good friend Mr Y now moved onto Urban plastic wastes systems.
Oh, I know well why . . .
Over 20,000,000 US/Canadian Urban lots households out dollars the mere now maybe 4,000,000 true Rural households any, and every, day. The Rural households the ones with the actual brush and on-property woods. Ain’t got restaurant cooking oils Rural. Ain’t got endless supplies of packaging plastics Rural. Got dirt, water, sunlight and green-growing.
All History says: follow-the-money. Add steps. Then make money at each and every exchange step. And make sure to build Dependencies into the steps systems. Must have a super special high purity catalyst. Must have a 8-10 channel digetal logic controller. Or must have a tax/use authority license.
The true Henry Ford Way. Sell/addict the car to-the-many for zero profit. Make the money on the replacement parts and will-needs services. Make addicts, wanting, craving. Then get them to be your make-governments-move, lobbyists.
The re-discovered again Gates, Jobs . . . now Google, Amazon, Facebook ways.
“The people must have 5G cell phone services! The people are demanding data-dense capable high speed fiber optics into every household!” Why slow intake with printed inputs? Plug them in Matirx-like mainlining.
I never asked for 4-6 megabyte pocket pictures. Did just fine with kilobyte pocket digital pictures.
Ah-h-h-h. The megabyte density is for their info/data farming of your usages, “to enhance your experiences”.
Very interesting thing I am observing. The four and six year old girls are more fascinated and engrossed with story dense old 2D flat simple cartoon stories, versus sensory’s overloading 4K presentations.
Short answer is people like to cook challenged from scratch in pot and pans. Using their own creativity and imaginations.
S.U.
Hey Mr. Kevin, stompage into kiln/stoves to make use of the heat while making charcoal. Charcoal to run small generator. Have done plenty of that. Did a Mother Earth News demonstration/presentation a few years back on the topic.
“Clean, Sustainable Home Electric Power… 8 Hours After the Grid Goes Down, Using Only Local Materials” If it is not in DOW archives I have the pdf still.
Have been steering my efforts mostly toward homestead scale energy and biochar soil improvement since. May be doing a good sized off-grid woodworking shop soon.
Still have a woodgas dodge but probably not much longer ;~)
All the best!
Ok thanks Doug Thanks, Plenty of projects to go around, its been a good experiance learning too drive from wood as fuel.Enjoy your time homesteding offgrid projects. All the best too your camp allso.