That and the coal bed build up. Once you build up the coal and the wood is gasifying in the retort, then it will basically cook out on its own supplying gas for its own combustion process. That is why I have the valves. Once it goes into that mode I throttle those valves halfway closed. Otherwise it will melt the bottom of the retort off. lol. Yeah it can get that hot and litterally melt the steel.
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At the end you can see where its supplying its own gas for combustion to self heat.
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When it does go into gasifying mode, this is when you want to load up the firebox as well. Get it going and then throttle the valves back and let it go. Once it stops gasifying its done. You then harvest the coals out of the fire box and thats another 5 gallons worth of charcoal on top of the charcoal in the retort. I probably get around 12 to 20 gallons per batch and its only a 10 gallon retort. If the fuel is too wet then it takes more loads to get it done. So if it has not completed in one day. I will harvest that charcoal for the day and then start with a fresh load the next.
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Thanks much Matt. I see several improvements I need to make. Back to work. I drilled breath holes around the bottom of my 55 gal. so I may not be able to control air supply very well on this proto-type. Ill probably replace the 55 gal barrel. Im constantly looking for barrels with the removable tops. They sure are hard to find in my area. I’ll post my progress. Thanks, Joe
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Hi ya-all, I finally had success. I took Cody’s advice and re-split to a much smaller size. I ended with a nice batch of coal. I tried to load a picture here but couldn’t get it done.
In the end I think my problems were; pieces too big and my rig is not well balanced. What I mean is I think that the inner retort container (30gal) is a bit too big for the 55gal outer container. It worked really well when 1/2 full of smaller pieces. Eventually I’ll make a new rig.
Thanks for all your kind help. Next step is the charcoal gasifier.
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Wow, that does seem easy.
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Yeah, this whole gasification thingy doesn’t need to be difficult, at least if you are willing to accept very basic results to begin with. Like, baby steps and all that.
So now that you have some charcoal to work with its time to start making gas. I made something out of a 5" pipe. Its not ideal but it got my old flat head Briggs geni running. Its based on @k_vanlooken’s thread Some School in Thailand. Just one thing you really need to know: you must have at least 24" of charcoal above the nozzle. I came away feeling like you cant miss, even though I did a bunch of stuff wrong. Heres a link to my experience. LINK
Rindert
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This is a little strange. Did I shut down the discussion?
Rindert
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No, im still here. Ive just been distracted with a new puppy and some other projects. I gotta get back to this soon. Thanks for pinging me.
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Way cool!
(20 characters)
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Hi Dave & Brian, I’m trying to get back to this Simple Fire project. I got a 16 gallon drum today. Was wondering if this is a good size to run Gennie for 4 hours?
Your thoughts or anyones thoughts?
Kind regards, Joe
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16 gallon drum might run you about 30-45 minutes.
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Humm, any idea how big i’d have to go to get to 4 hours?
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I think Gary was getting 1/2 hour out of a 6 gallon can.
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I think you’d want to aim for a 100lb propane tank, or a 40 gallon hot water heater tank. For updraft, go more tall than wide.
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Dave is the only one I’m aware of that gets those kinds of hours. I have an updraft with a fifty gallon waterheater tank and I assume it would have enough fuel but it has never run unattended for that long. I find it necessary to adjust the metering valve occasionally. I go by the way the engine sounds so if I wasn’t paying attention while doing other things i think it would probably shut down. I assume others with more experience than me have overcome some of those limitations. Matt Ryan’s gasifiers could be run like that but I think it takes the electronics he has incorporated.
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Thanks Cody and Tom, I’ll press on with the 16 gal for now and plan to upgrade to a larger one later.
Great advice, Thanks, Joe
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I dont have electronics on the charcoal units
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A better way to build bigger is to team multiple units into one centralized filter. There are many advantages to this. One of coarse is fuel capacity, but when you have multiple units as a whole it will run more stable. If one unit has a hiccup for what ever reason the otherone will compensate. Another reason is having two or more units in a team allows re fueling on the fly. You install ball valves on the gas out between each gasifier and the filter unit. When you want to refuel you turn off the valve and the other unit will keep things going while you refuel the other machine. Then you switch and re fuel the other one.
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