Hi Wayne,
You brought back good times for me, I used to live my life that way… Many adventures.
I hope with the help of my Woodgas truck I will be able to do so again.
Truly one day at a time.
Merry Christmas to you Lisa and Tally
Chris All the best to ya!
Not to mention all the Gassers and those soon to be.
TerryL
Hey everyone,
I found a free PDF file download of David Gingery’s Manual, “How to Design and Build Centrifugal Fans”.
It has some really interesting details on the hows and whys of fan design. Type the following link in your search bar and it will bring you to the download page, real easy. I use Adobe for downloading PDF files.
Enjoy, Pepe
Hi Matt,
I took your advice and tried some of the tape you use. It sure is easy to work with and no mess. Reasonable cost, too for a 25’ roll. I’ll see how it works in the next couple weeks when I fire up my unit with a bigger restriction (4.5"), cooler and filter.
Pepe
Hi Pepe; Looking at your pics, thats a nice looking gasifier.When you are done building and you get it cleaned up and painted, it’s going to look sharp. Looking forward to your run wishing you the success you deserve. Dan
I wonder how well that fiber type rope that’s used to seal wood stove doors would work for a seal. Edit: looks like your already using it.
Hi All,
Thanks for the kind words, Dan. Chad, the rope works well, but I replace it every time I do a tear down because it seems to pack tight and I’m afraid it wouldn’t seal well the second time. I’m trying a flat type Matt uses. I’ll see how it does. I’m moving ahead with a new cooler which will provide approx 39 lineal ft. of 2" d 16 gauge pipe from an old swing set. That translates to approx 23 ft2 of radiating (cooling) surface. This includes the surface area of the manifolds also. I could also use a shroud around the cooler to preheat incoming air and feed it to the existing preheat shroud on my cyclone. Need a new filter container first.
Pic 1 Concept drawing 1
Pic 2 Concept drawing 2
Pic 3 Full size layout of top and bottom manifolds
Pic 4 Lining up pipes with manifolds.
Pic 5 Layout for cut only
Pic 6 2" holes cut and the fit is good. Next, cut out individual manifolds and begin assembly. This is the base from an old belt driven 1 hp air compressor. It 2.25" deep and the manifolds are 4" wide. I planned the width of the manifolds so the strip in the middle was wide enough to finish some of the manifold sides complete with built in corners.
Pic 7 Weld from underside. Start bead on thicker metal and bring the bead just to the edge of the thin metal tube and don’t slow down! The 3/4" pipe will be removed.
Hope to have some assembly to share tomorrow.
Pepe
Cool Pepe, keep me posted. So far this has worked pretty well. I use it on the reservoir for my cooler as well. It will seep a bit until the tars settle and seal it up. But other than that its been working very well. Its cheap less messy, easy to apply and you can actually get the thing apart with out prying it apart and wrecking it.
Hey Mr Pepe looking very good. Glad to see you are still forging forward on your system.
I really like vertical tube coolers on small systems. They make good sence. Take a look at Arvid Olsens vertical tube cooler also. Ha! Ha! Did take me a long time to understand the better upflowing gasses and downward dripping condensate legs! Most dropped/washed soots and muck ends up down in the bottom slosh anyhow. Be sure and make your bottom clean out drains BIG like 2-3 inch. Lower side located will clean out better.
Regards
Steve Unruh
Hi Steve,
Long time no talk. That’s me, not you, lol. Steve, I think I know what you’re meaning with the north wet. I’ve never seen this much rain in the 42+ years I’ve been here in the north east. Fortunately I have well drained soil.
I like the vertical tubes as it makes a smaller foot print for my unit. I’ve checked out Matt’s and Arvid’s and Dan’ s among others for design ideas. I like the round design, too, but I wanted to use what I had laying around. Thank you all for sharing. I’ll probably only be able to use 1" cleanouts. I’m thinking that turning all those 90’s takes energy so it promotes heat loss
Looks like I’ll use my vac to start with for now.
Next is chamber baffles, condensate drain system and cleanouts and platform/stand, etc. Then a new filter.
Pic 1 Top manifold, row 1. Hole is outlet to top manifold, row 2.
Pic 2 Outlet hole in top manifold, row 1. Change union to vertical.
Pic 3 Air inlet for cyclone preheat shroud.
Pic 4 Basic layout. Gas exits cyclone and travels down via an interface to the hole in the bottom manifold, row 1. The gas travels through all the piping and exits via an interface up from hole in the bottom manifold, row 2 and travels to the filter.
Happy Forth to All. Man, the fireworks show in Plattsburgh, NY was great!
Pepe
Hi guys.
My coolers have an array of 12 tubes that are 1.5" and the center is 3". The center is the inlet, I have a flange cap on this center tube inside for cleaning. I should show the liquid cooled versions they are very efficient. I simply weld a jacket onto this same cooler and add a pump and a go kart racing radiator and fan. The pump is a 17 ltr pr min RV diaphragm pump. They are about 60 bucks on ebay and the radiator with fan is around 90 bucks. Makes real nice compact cooler.
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Hey All,
I finally got some hours in the shop. I’ve just about got the 2 rows boxed up. I’ll fit the bottom manifold drains, etc. before I make the final assembly. No time for mistakes however, as I build there’s always an os moment, lol.
Pic 1 General layout with tall inlet pipe in row 1 and a short outlet pipe in row 2. Short pipe will lead to filtering unit. With a shroud I could pull cool air over the tubes and send the resulting heated air to the cyclone preheat inlet shown at the lower right side of the white cyclone preheat shroud.
Pic 2 General layout of top manifolds with cross over pipe.
Pic 3 Another view of the top manifolds showing the linear flow design. It’ll be interesting to see how it pulls. And cools, of course.
My drain system will move to the outsides of the bottom manifolds.
Pepe
Hi All,
I made the final welded connection today. I also added 6" flanged legs to make room for the condensate sump. Now I can bolt the unit down. Cooler foot print is 20" x 25 1/2". The cooler is 79" tall. Burner, cyclone and cooler foot print is 38" x 43".
Pic 1. Final pipe weld is the cross over pipe. Then I buttoned up all the chambers.
Pic 2. Flange legs also add a bit more lateral stability. Free standing it’s quite stable.
Pic 3. The condensate drain system. I had to be able to drain all 4 chambers due to the linear flow I am using That made a bit more work, for sure, but I’m really anxious to see how it performs. The bottom 4 chambers are isolated by shutoffs. I used gate valves for the shutoffs. Open valve 1, drain chamber 1, close valve 1. Open valve 2, drain chamber 2, close valve 2. Continue to valve 4. After all 4 valves are closed you may safely open the boiler drain to drain the condensate sump. Close boiler drain. The sump and associated plumbing up to the unions can carefully be removed as a unit. Then unscrew the valves, stick a high pressure hose to it, suck it clean with a wet vac via custom tubing nozzle and reassemble. It seemed agonizingly slow getting going, but it’s ready to interface. I have to pick blueberries tomorrow for sure.
Pepe
Good Morning Pepe
Yep blueberries are on for sure now. Pick n’ freeze ‘em here. Then while picking I distract myself thinking how to be damn sure those freezers will STAY powered up and frozen when our “Hundered Days of Summer” goes away and we are locked back into the perpetual no solar energy blocking clouds.
AND it’s that dreamin’ scheming’ that gets me whacked by the berry field master my wife!
I tell her truefully I should be out cutting and squirreling away more now finnaly sun ripened wood fuel for those other 250 days of needing heat and power.
Your cooler rack should be wringing out the heat for sure. You are only going to be able to hearth pull-in a small amount of that with your small systen required airiin flows I think. If you do not let the excess cooler heat out then you will not have the gas cooling occuring. So think also ways how to put this heat into the fuel wood also. Crowded, shrouded up next to your hearth/hopper will do some of this. And those combined heat sources rising will create a strong natural rising heat plume. Once you feel this try and think of ways to shallow basket set a whole hopper’s worth over the top in this plume of next to be used pre-prepped fuelwood to be warmed and de-humidified. Nothing perks up a gasifiers performance like a fresh batch of dried warmed woodfuel. Like a kid on fresh out of the oven still warm cookies.
“Let no BTU’s Escape Free, Un-Worked!”
My next tee shirt.
Regards
Steve Unruh
Hi Steve,
When I first thought about shrouding the cooler, it did come to mind about how much space to use. You’re correct, a cooler must first cool. Well, at least I was thinking about those BTU’s. Got me thinking now about a shallow saddle bag type cage above the cooler to catch that updraft of heated air for drying a batch of fuel. I’ll remember to measure a full load and see if I can make a cage that big or not.
Pic 1. Front view of condensate sump. It just lays in a small cut out in the support brace with a 3/8 inch space above it for ease of removal. The sump has a 3" d and is 18" long. This is 127 in3. At .554 fluid oz per in3, that’s 2.2 qts of condensate. Big enough for a full run I think.
Pic 2. Rear view with boiler drain in sump.
Pic 3. This will be my basic foot print, 38" x 48". The filter has to fit in here so as not to block any operational control or access to interfaces.
I think I will set it up now with my milk can filter and shop vac blower, whilst I work on a space efficient filter.
Pic. 4 My old hinged dome top will be bolted shut increasing hopper size. I will make a simple airtight puffer top something like Dan Cox’s.
The vibrator will have to wait. I have a 2 pound hammer for an occasional unbridging. Do this as soon as you detect a decrease in gas production, ie engine starts slowing down, losing power.
Can’t wait to set this baby up outside!
Pepe
Hi Pepe; Glad to see you almost have it finished. Really looking forward to watching the video of this radically redesigned gasifier running. I think the improvements that you have made will insure you will be pleased with the results. I have not been doing much lately cuz of the overwelming florida heat and humidity that that we love(YEA RIGHT). Good luck with your fire up and run. Dan
Hello Fellow Gassers,
I’ve started work on my new pressure relief lid. I found an old top cut out from the same style tank so the curves match up great(pic 1). There is a 3/4" overlap (pic 2), plenty of room for a gasket (s), one on the hopper and a mating one on the lid. Both will use Dan Cox’s high temp silicone impregnation method. Dan uses a different substrate, but, I’m trying this stuff. Pic 3 shows a beveled edge so that condensate will hopefully flow down the dome rather than drip back onto the fuel as it did in my last lid assembly. Pic 4. I ended up cutting this 8" d neck out.to get to Pic 1 configuration.
The next 4 pics show how I made my condensate channel from layout to forming the channel to the finished channel. The old dome lid will be gasketed and clamped in place instead of welded. Last, the unit drains continuously, but can be emptied while operating. Close valve, unscrew PVC tube, empty tube and screw back on, open valve. I could put a boiler drain on the bottom of the PVC tube.
Coming soon, the lid seal and operating mechanism.
Pepe
Wow Pepe, nice work doing,…
Hi All,
I got my lid seal started and it went well.
Pic 1 I skim coated the board to help hold things in place while I smeared a full coat on.
Pic 2 Gasket fully impregnated. This will be cut in half for 2 gaskets. one for the lid, one for the dome.
Pic 3 I set the gasket to the outside edge.
Pic 4 I set the dome gasket to the line drawn to the outside of the lid.
Pic 5 I put a layer of waxed paper on the dome and set the lid on premarked index marks. When it was set I gently but firmly pulled the lid up. It held on and then popped off. OS, I thought, but the lid came clean off the dome and the remaining waxed paper peeled right off. Thanks for the tip, Dan.
I’ll add a couple more smoothing layers of silicone, then onto the hinge/latch mechanism. The old gas shutoff will be removed.
Pepe
EDIT: I scrapped this method and followed Dan Cox’s method. I used an 18" square piece of fiberglas mat and will cut my circular gaskets from it. I also made some small rectangular gaskets to use on my interface connections.
Hi Pepe; Your gasket sheet is looking good and thanks for the Acolades. When I was new on this site not so long ago I received help from many others including yourself. I said at the time that someday maybe I could contribute back to everyone as my experience grew. Makes me feel good to know that I am able to help out with something useful. Thanks to you and all on DOW that shared their knowledge with me. I am working on a new Ejector that won’t need compressed air and hopefully work very well. I will share here and on Youtube when done. Dan
Hi Dan and All, The spirit of sharing here is such a positive experience, a real connection and quite uplifting.
Here’s a few pics of some finished gaskets. Pic 1 the layout compass. I used a T-pin for a center pivot(1/16" d), and a Sharpie pen to draw the circles. The Sharpie bib fits a 7/32" hole just tight. Pic 2 I laid out all the gaskets I needed (the hatched areas) Note all the radii holes drilled in the paint stick… Pic 3 These metal cutting shears cut this stuff like paper. Blades are replaceable. Pic 4 Hopper dome to hopper body flange. Pic 5 The lineup, 3 of the 5 will be used here. Pic 6 The gasket was glued to the under side of the lid with a thin coat of high temp red RTV and left to set. I drew 2 sets of positioning marks on the lid and dome. This is where the gasket was formed, this is where it should stay for the best fit. The lid feels solidly sealed with just its own weight. I’m encouraged. Pepe
