Hi Pepe,
I couldn’t reply on your youtube comment for some reason. I like Wayne’s use of hay. I got a large bale for 6 bucks that will let me refill at least 20 times. Amazing how much cleaner my gas is now. Cheers Gordon
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Hi Bill,
One of my next projects I will be sleeving and gasketing the burner shell to the cyclone connection. You speculated in post 264 that maybe it was getting consumed little by little. So I went back and watched the cyclone emptying vid in post 258 again. I watched it closely and sure enough, starting at 14s and on to the end you’ll see bits and pieces of white fluffy stuff. Pretty good evidence of where the gasket material went, I’d say. Watch it again and the amount shows up good towards the end. I thought that would interest you. I was “whoa, what’s this”? Go back and look again. When I first took it apart I couldn’t imagine where the material went. I can’t believe it didn’t smack me in the kisser when I first emptied it.
Thanks,
Pepe
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Hey Gordon,
I’ve been slacking a bit. I’m still in the thinking stage on my filter, but it’s getting warm and I want to fire this baby up early and often. Post 228 shows how I loaded and directed the smoke up through the pine needles. The paper filter got sucked up to the pipe and clogged eventually shutting down the gasifier. I’m thinking foam at the top with a wire cage at the outlet so the gas exit can’t get blocked.
Pepe
Hi Gordon,
Speaking of filters can you tell me what kind of foam you are using? Thanks,
Pepe
Hi pepe. my comp broke… I just used open cell foam from. H ome depot.straw hay was almost free. this phone sucks. helps clean gas well
Open cell, OK, thanks, Gordon.
If you can blow through it. it is open cell
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Gordon,
Do you have link or part# for the foam? I am always up for trying something better.
Stephen
Hi All,
Just a little update on high temp caulk. I finally decided to look locally for the White Lightning Flame Buster, fire and smoke blocking, latex caulk. This one is rated at 1380 degrees F. The product # is WL 8803030. It is red and weighs 10 oz. One place required min of a case (12 tubes) and a min of 2 wk wait for a min order qty. I passed and tried my local lumber yard. They can order me as little as a tube and it’ll be here Thurs this week. Both places sold a 10 oz tube for $5.49. Shelf life is only 1 year so, I only ordered 5 tubes. I don’t know if the lumber yard will charge an order fee. We’ll see, it can’t be any worse than on line ordering!
I’m going to open up the shop door and do some welding tomorrow.
Pepe
The lumber yard didn’t charge an order fee.
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HI stephen. I got an 18" sq 2" thick @Home Depot. jusy a few bucks. An upholstery shop will have plenty.if you can blow through it. try it. I’m still on crappy phone. harddrive went down
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I got my Flame Buster caulk today as promised. A few pics to take notes. I see the caveat, “interior use only” and I’m shy to use it. It may be prone to deterioration from water even after it has set. All my stuff is set up outside. How well does it hold up? Anyone have problems.
I also found some 3" thick open cell foam right under, err, umm a my nose.
Pepe
I use this latex caulk for gasket material between two steel plates, hopper to gasifier etc., and no “weather” can get to it. Possibly a little at the very edge of the seam of the two pieces being fastened together, but that is insignificant and has no affect on the latex.
Using it between two pieces of wood that are not clamped tight together, which is where you would normally use “caulk”, and left outside to rain, snow, and sun, may deteriorate it.
I believe it will work for you as it has for meTomC
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Tom, thanks for the info, I feel a little more confident. Now that you mention it, I do remember you saying you used it on metal to metal connections. Actually, it was those edges that I was concerned about. I’m going to give it the old “college try”.
Pepe
Hi All,
Well, I finally made a little progress on my gasifier upgrades. Here’s a few pics of the heat shield from the burner shell to cyclone preheat shroud. All the welds had to be inside so as not to interfere with a flush engagement of the components or the gasket material fit. The angle cut is there to accommodate the slanted side of the preheat shroud gas entry. I had to do this piece by piece taking into account the configuration of the openings and the not so squareness of the original build.
Here you see I left just the corners of the flange for assembly lineup. The heat shield engages the not so square hole just right. Note the slanted portion at the top right.
I elongated the holes for ease of assembly. Yes it’s not quite square, ratchafratch! Take your time when you build, these things come back to bite you in the derriere later.
Here you see the components fully engaged with a nice flush contact.
This was a real pita to do at this stage. Lessons for next build for sure! I’ve decided not to install the cooling tubes on my monorator hopper. The hopper itself, as it stands, gets out an amazing amount of moisture. I also have a condensate drain on my cooler which has only a couple of tablespoons of water per hour of run time. To checkout the condensate draining see post 251 video of third run at 6:21 and 2 tbsp water in cooler condensate drain at 7:13. Also check out the condensate draining on the video here, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBVpSLIBJmY at approx 1:20. This second video had no water in the cooler condensate drain sump. Cooling tubes seem unnecessary at this point. Anyway, I’ll have the tubes built for my next gasifier or this one if conditions warrant it.
To see how the preheat shroud and cyclone were mated, see posts 50 thru 57.
Pepe
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Hi All,
Finally got the gardening caught up, that is something that grows so it can’t be put off without a bigger headache later. I thought I’d share my filter design and packing with all of you. Basically, the gas comes in the many holed pipe at the bottom and hits several plates that deflect it ( I hope) to expose it to as much of the pine needles as possible. The many holed pipe also has a small hole on the tapered end. The first circle spreads it out and the half circles deflect it side ways in a serpentine path. The layers are 6 to 8 inches thick. Then there is a 4" thick open cell foam disc at the top covered with a vacuum cleaner paper final filter. Note I weighted down the paper filter this time so it doesn’t get sucked right up tight to the outlet pipe (see reply 240). Hope to put a fire in it real soon. I still have work to do on an engine but I can still burn a flare for s&g’s.
Pepe
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Hello Everyone,
Today I sorted all the unburned fuel and char that I removed in posts #315 and #329.
Some of the char is from a previous clean out. I’m closing in on that snail now, lol!
This is what pyrolized fuel looks like and identified the pyrolysis zone in my gasifier. An important location to know for advanced refinements in design. One thing I have to remember is that the present pyrolysis zone (location defined by temperature) was located by an under pulling engine. Using a larger engine (the one the gasifier was designed for) will give me hotter oxidation zone temps and the pyrolysis zone will move upward in the burner (fire) tube. Remember this before you do something exotic, design wise. What you want to pull off may be in a different location than previously observed.
Overall view of char and sifted char.
This is the biggest char that was left after the sifting process.
This is from the 1/2" screen.
This is from the 1’4" screen.
This is from the window screen sifting. This got spread in a planting bed.
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I installed several BBQ thermometers to monitor temps in some (to me) strategic spots. It will be interesting to watch as the burns progress.
This one will tell me the temp of the preheated air entering the single port air inlet manifold. Probably should be insulated so these are about temps but good enough for trends.
NEW. This is the temp of the hot gas exiting the burner shell and flowing into the side of the cyclone inside the preheat shroud. Again, could be insulated. The poly was used to cover the connection while the caulk cured. I should have removed it for the debut, lol.
This is the temperature of the gas exiting the top of the cyclone and headed for the cooling tubes (radiator). This will give me sense of the temp drop through the cyclone. If this temp gets too low some condensation may occur in the cyclone.
This shows the temp of the gas exiting the radiator and headed for the filter.
I can use the lighting port to insert a temp prob into the oxidation zone. This is the temp I am most interested in.
Yes, everything got a new coat of paint all the same shade and sheen, lol.
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Hey Everyone,
I used to wrap the vacuum cleaner tube with duct tape to get an airtight fit, then wrestle with it a bit to switch from flare (no filter) mode to run mode with filter. Here’s a better and quicker connect/disconnect method. This is just a method, your sizes may vary. A flaring method will be incorporated into the final engine feed design.
Dig out a matched pair of those old vac wand pieces.
Cut a 3" piece off the receiving end (piece on left).
Epoxy the vac piece inside the 1 1/4" thin wall pvc pipe.
Glue the 1 1/2" coupling to the 1 1/2" stub on the exit side of the filter shutoff. Glue in the 1 1’2" x 1 1/4" reducing bushing and lastly glue in the 1 1/4" pvc pipe containing the vac piece.
Flare connection and shutoff. Fits like a glove, quick and easy and air tight. This valve didn’t need the 1 1/2" coupler.
Flare setup. Shut filter valve, open flare valve to direct gas to the swirl burner. I installed the “Y” upside down.
. When you are satisfied with the flare, switch to the run set up. ALWAYS shut off the vacuum first, then the flare valve. This will eliminate the point of ignition from the swirl burner. Pull hose from swirl burner and lay on ground. Quickly switch the hose from the flare outlet to the filter outlet and immediately open the filter valve and turn on the vacuum. MOST IMPORTANT: let the gas run for several minutes +/- to flush the oxygen from the filter unit and lines. Caution here, if in doubt let the gas go longer before using it. The filter could be a bomb.
Move vacuum closer so you can shut it off from the pallet. Do this first. Then shut off the flare valve, step down disconnect the swirl burner tube (notice the old duct tape sealing method) and step back up move vacuum line to filter and open the filter valve. If it takes you 10 secs, you’re too slow. Reconnect hose to swirl burner ( turn on fan) or engine, continue burn. If connecting to an engine you bypass the vacuum (it’s now provided by the engine).
The weather is supposed to be nice tomorrow, so I’m going to burn some measured amounts of wood, take some data and video and report back. My friend and neighbor, Bill, is coming over to watch the firing, it should be fun.
Pepe
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Hmmmm I’ve always shut the vac off first then closed the valve… I found that that the vac would try to go into jet engine mode momentarily if done the other way.
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You’re right, Arvid, I plumb forgot, “fan off”! I’ll add it in, thanks.