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
I’d like to try this at the more low tech side of things. I’ve got a heavy plate I could make a Pederick nozzle out of and I could just drip water into the antechamber.
I’ve checked @k_vanlooken 's nozzle size spreadsheet and apparently my Single size for the 5.7 at a 2500 RPM peak is only 30mm. Not sure if Koen intended this to be applicable to crossdrafts and downdraft units. 3000 RPM is about a 32mm for me. 50m/s is the desired air flow, correct?
5 Likes
Yeah I was thinking of adding a second chamber. I could posibly put this in the igntion port. Water from tank would flow into this chamber first then a line out to feed the line in of the boiler nozzle.
3 Likes
Ok test run #3 vidoe is live
11 Likes
Matt I think I know why it’s hard to tell when the steam is flowing. I suspected this would be the case but I do think it’s at the Sensible Heating stage of steam, aka Superheated Steam which is “dry”. It makes sense considering just how hot the reaction is, WELL above the boiling point of water.
5 Likes
I appreciate all the effort you have put into sharing your R&D on this. I’ve been having welder issues and am not making as much progress on my build as I’d like. May have to sweet talk the long haired banker into a new one. I’m sure you are saving me a lot of trial and error when I do get it running.
11 Likes
The one thing I noticed is the glow inside was dim and not blinding when it was in that state
6 Likes
This makes me wonder if you could get away with a 5 dollar mini diaphragm pump. They can push 1-2l/min and use a lot less power. I can’t find any pressure ratings for them, and I don’t know what pressure is required for the super fine hydroponic misting nozzles. Although they would probably work with the drip irrigation nozzles.
I think we went down this road once before though.
3 Likes