Hi All,
I opened up the hopper this am after a nice evening burn and was surprised to find the bridge across the River Kwai.
I thought, “oh, no”! How far down did it just burn?
A closer look showed why the unit kept running like there was no bridge. The fuel you see in the firetube fell from underneath the bridge and the hearth was fed and continued a good gas producing burn as seen in the last seconds of the vid. I like the gas color. I estimate I would only have had another 20 or so minutes of run time before the fuel was 4" above the nozzles. Much, much longer had the bridge collapsed.
One tap from a stick and the whole bridge collapsed just as you see it. Odd, too in that I ran the vibrator several times during the run. It’s now ready to start over with a new char bed established. I’ll just top off the hopper . I think I will move/rearrange the vibrator mechanism more to the hopper side.
Ambient temperature 65 degrees.
Here are the operating times and temps throughout the burn. I hope they’re dark enough to read.
All in all it was a good burn. The temps were slow to peak which I attribute to the fan being under powered for my particular sizing of gasifier. It certainly works well though as a good starter fan. The scrapping racket you hear from the fan on startup happens when I push on the motor or switch housing. It moves the blade closer to the housing and the tops of the mounting rivets. Just be careful.
Here are a short and long version of some flare action
.
short http://youtu.be/BqnjOxSNEvI
long http://youtu.be/r9mjJT_83IA
Pepe