For your mad flowers huh? haha 
There are actually quite a bit of DIY videos on youtube for both the foggers and the oxygen concentrators.
4 Likes
Actually it is part of the reforesting project and probably the elderberry project cloning chamber. But it could be used for Mad Flowers.
I have seen some videos but the component costs are like 10-20 dollars and aren’t any much better then what I can get from china for 3 dollars. The timeout and turn on button are the issues for me.
4 Likes
Matt - I would meter liquid water onto a hot surface to vaporize into steam vs using a fogger.
A given amount of water dripped onto a hot surface is a certain amount of H2O for the reaction. A fogger run at a particular voltage doesn’t necessarily produce a specific amount of H20 for the intake and that production could vary with ambient humidity.
I think vaporizing a controlled amount of water is going to MUCH more consistent and controllable for you.
4 Likes
Thats what we were just doing with the boiler nozzle. Flow kept stalling out we cant get stable flow with the rate of a drip. Or is this just my set up and everyone else is able to get a stable flow? Water likes to create surface tension so cant imagine im the only one experiencing this issue.
2 Likes
Matt - I’d love to help.
You are going to have some back pressure issues using liquid water because the steam is expanding 1700x when it vaporizes and that will raise the local pressure. If the steam is created in a small/confined space like the hearth, that back pressure will overwhelm the vacuum that keeps the gasifier “breathing” properly.
I’m looking at engine displacement and RPM for a sense of charge volume per hour: I get something like 670cc’s times 2000 rpm times 60 mins per hour which is ~80k liters. Char gas would be half that 80k and intake air the other half or 40k liters.
Your set up may be bigger/smaller and RPM higher/lower but I wanted to check some round numbers. I’d compare that to 1L per hour liquid water and 1700 times expansion… gets you 1.7k liters steam volume per hour vs ~ 40k liters air intake or 4.25%. Gasifiers run on pretty low vacuum pressures… maybe that’s the issue right there.
I’d have the water vaporizing outside the gasifier, say on a hot muffler (keep exhaust gas separate tho!). Have the steamy air created in say a large intake manifold so that it is well ahead of any constrictions. The back pressure from the steam will equalize before it can mess up the gasifier dynamics? It’s a thought and easy enough to test. The steam will displace 4% of the air and that’s not going to mess anything up.
7 Likes
The issue isnt the back presure. This has been a problem from the very beginning just trying to get it to drip through the tube into the nozzle. Ive been talking about this problem for years now and all the changes Ive made to my nozzle arange has evolved around this problem trying to solve it. Its why I was trying this new boiler set up hoping that back presure would keep adjitating the water flow.
The first systems I tried using the crank case vent to pulse the water tank that sort of worked but then you have a hose from your engine to the water tank and its just too crude of a set up.
Then I moved the drip tube to the end of the nozzle to use intake air to flow over the tube that works until the unit starts producing gas and then the presure drops. Like you said there is very minimal vacuum once up and running.
So Cody posted on this concept and I too had this same thought. So I built it and yup same issue flow keeps stalling. This first attempt I think the steam vent holes are too big and not creating back presure. I want it to do this. I want the steam expantion to back feed the water line to agitate it.
But I also think the needle valve is getting some crud build up in it. One of my clients put the housing of an ink pen into the NPT side of the needle valve that threads into the water tank. So that crud that settles in the bottom of the tank cant flow into it. He said its been workiing. So that may be a simple solution.
This Atomizer and the Oxy Concentrator are just experiements. We will never know unless we try you cant predict the unknown and we dont know it all.
The boiler nozzle when its working is pretty impresive. The steam expansion is desirable this is what is cutting out the atmosphere we want this to happen the more the marrier. More displace = more cooling and higher gas energy density. But inconsistancies are killing it because as soon as there is a flood the reaction crashes. If we can sustain this with better presision I think we can get a ton more water in these systems. So far recent test are proving this.
5 Likes
How are we really going to know if these things will work unless we actually try? You can do all the number crunching and apply all the science and engineering theory you want. But unless I see it in an actual prototype its all sudo science to me. Theory is a theory and reality is reality.
4 Likes
I don’t remember having too much flow issue with my Mazda, but I was using 5/16" fuel hose and a cutoff piece of a temp probe sleeve flared at one end. I was also using a petcock valve barely cracked open. Maybe it was only working okay for me because of the big hose size and that I used 5 gallon jerrican as my water tank. Lots of head pressure and big passageway.
5 Likes
Yup I may need to step up to a 3/8 line.
Edit looking back the reason I used the 1/4 inch line is because we were bending a solid line custom to each machine with limited room. So working with larger tube was not going to happen especially with employees having a hard time just doing it with the 1/4 inch line.
4 Likes
I need to see if my local hardware sells clear PVC tube, I’d like to make my own drip window just as a witness for flow. Maybe use one of my 1/4" hose barbs laying around as the bottleneck.
4 Likes
The top feed side needs to be smaller than out feed.
4 Likes
This is what I use to view the drip on the Toyota and the generator/mill gasifiers. The clear plastic hose is about 3 inches long. I pushed maybe a half to three quarter inch piece of some thick wall rubber hose in each end, and a piece of 1/4 inch copper tubing in the center of that. It is all clamped together with two small hose clamps.
14 Likes
Matt - sorry to suggest things that have already proven not to work. I have a theory on the problem(s)…
The “drip” won’t work if the water is flashing to steam inside the delivery tube. The steam expansion will push the water backwards into the reservoir, fall down again and repeat the cycle by flashing again. No good…
Even if the water drip leaves the delivery tube as a liquid, the steam expansion shortly thereafter is going to make pressure pops that mess with all the gas flow. No good…
I think foggers vaporize what they can and make tiny water droplets of the rest. If even if you get the droplets carried over into the gasifier they’ll just flash as soon as they hit 100C with pressure problems all over again. Foggers give you cold wet air that will flash hard when it gets heated.
This is why I thought you should flash water to steam well away from the nozzle and/or gasifier and keep it vaporized all the way through. You want steam at the same pressure as your intake air and mix them.
This chart:
…suggests you’ll need air of at least 120F (~50C) to hold a 4-4.5% water vapor which is around the mass fraction you’ve been running. The hotter the air, the more water can run. Keep the water as vapor all the way to the nozzle and you should avoid any pressure problems.
5 Likes
For what its worth as we are thinking about optimizing water flow into our reactors–My “water drip” system is based on a small 12 volt (3 amp) high pressure pump (e.g., bayite 12V DC Fresh Water Pressure Diaphragm Pump Self Priming Sprayer Pump with Pressure Switch 4 L/Min 1.0 GPM 80 PSI for RV Camper Marine Boat) connected to garden misting spray nozzle(s). A PWM controls the flow. A filter on the inlet prevents clogs. I experiment with size and number of mist nozzles to match my desired flow. I just spray into one end of my 1-1/2 inch schedule 80 double ended flute tuyere that passes through my reactor body.
9 Likes
I think I fixed it. I hate saying things like that though everytime I get burned. But I rebuilt the boiler nozzle today and its up and running right now. What I did with the needle valve is I installed a tube on the side that threads into the tank. So far so good and I have a lot of flow without it cracked open very far.
The revised boiler nozzle is working pretty good as well. I reduced the vents to just one and the hole size is 80 though. Its perkulating and that is fine but its also venting steam.
Ill post the results later tonight at the end of the run.
Yeah I hate when ideas get shot down unless its been tried and to my knowledge no one here has tried and posted here? I dont care if its HHO are what ever. Build it and try it, there is no such thing as a total failure you will learn something from it. The only thing Ill be against is anyone wanting to presurize and store the gas. Otherwise experiment and see for yourself.
12 Likes
Nice I have a little RV pump I have kept around for this reason.
4 Likes
Ok Bioler Jet Test#3
Ok Tested the rebuilt nozzle with the sinlge smaller jet and revised the inlet side of the needle valve with a short pick up tube to prevent crud in the bottom of the water tank from getting in.
Unfortunatly I did not have enough charcoal for a full hopper load. I was 2 to 3 inches short. the depth the hopper is also `10 inches so one inch per gallon of charcoal. So 2 to 3 gallons short this run.
Total run time was 2 hours and 10 minutes. So basically its repeating from the last two runs with this jet.
Water flow seemed to be more stable this run. However about 3/4 the way through its stopped spitting water out the vent. I dont know if it was steaming or if flow was stopped. It seemed like I could see a steam flow but hard to tell with the air that is also pulling throught the nozzle. So I cant confirm. But one thing I did was I pulled the water hose off tube that feeds the nozzle and got a back flow and burned my thumb. lol So I dont think the flow stopped as the tank side was flowing as well. If anything maybe vapor lock or maybe it was doing what its designed to do. But Im going to order a check valve to place on the valve side.
What I need to do is quit fiddling with it when flow is stopped measuer the tank and then see what happens. More likely nothing is wrong.
So yeah 2 hours 10 min run and exaclty 2 liters water consumption on roughly 8 gallons of charcoal. This maybe the best it can and Im great with that. As todays earlier run is was more typical 1 1/2 and then you have to fiddle with it and stir the fuel to get to that 2 hour mark. With this nozzle is just runs and runs 1/3 longer that is a pretty good improvement.
Ill work on uploading this video tonight. Not sure If im even going to bother with the atomizer video.
Oh one other thing that happened. The flow or water stopped spitting out a second time so this next time I just pinched the line off and POOOOOF!! Flash back out the nozzle!!. Did it over produce and make a bunch of H2 causing that? Thats a strang coinsidence.
8 Likes
Either that, or maybe the steam pressure caused some kind of backblast and sucked gas backwards from the nozzle?
6 Likes
I have no idea as I my main concern when this went down was not becoming a pirate!!
4 Likes
Yeah thinking about that it makes sense. Maybe it blasted a bunch of steam in there and cut the air completely off and then once it died down air come blasting in and PooooF!
4 Likes