Congrats… wow wow wow… want to be there…
looks good… run an engine now please… and take video… 
Hi Arvid,
We plan to run the Honda as early as next week… We still haven’t built the carb, or the manifold that attaches to the generator yet.
Also, the ash grate didn’t work so hot, so we have a bit of re-engineering work to do on that front. We’ll post any/all progress reports.
Troy
Slag or melting? Just curious.
David, the ash didn’t fall through our grate very well. If you scroll up and look at our grate, you see small holes. The ash sort of bridged up on top of the holes, but didn’t fall through as we hoped. So, we either need to make a grate shaking mechanism, go with bigger holes, or re-engineer the way we handle ash.
Troy, will the engine running shake the ash through the grate?
Garry
I second that troy, the engine in close proximity will add in vibration; try that first. A courser grate with long lines instead of holes might work better for you too. I chose a much simpler solution of allowing the ash to simply deposit in the bottom. Position the nozzle at a height that clears it. 9.5 hours of engine run time since last emptied No ash removal yet… You are going for a more industrial design though so ash removal on the go would be important. Best of luck…
I would also suggest not using round holes…
Our first full-hopper test run… We cracked lots of steam 
Generator test coming in a week or so…
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With and without steam… We are convinced we can increase the steam flow even more. I think we’ll be jumping up to a larger size copper or stainless coil size, along with a much larger valve. Additionally, we’ll be plumbing the steam directly into the air inlet nipple.
enjoy, you’r doing great
We also plasma cut some makeshift “slits” in our grate with holes… And we vibrated the 5" pipe core with an electric sander every once in a while… It worked pretty good. We’ll have one laser-cut soon with skinnier slits, but a heck of a lot more of them than the plasma torch can manage. There really wasn’t a lot of ash build-up above the grate. There is some in the ash bin, and the rest is getting caught in the cyclone… Super impressed with the cyclone.
One thing we noted, and something that I’ve never heard mentioned before, was how hot the cyclone heats up just by the friction of spinning gas vortex. How do I know? Because the pipe in and the pipe out of the cyclone were ambient for 20-30 mins., while the cyclone was hot to the touch. We were also WAY over-pulling on the intended size.
All the little bitty pieces of carbon are just getting vaporized. It’s awesome. The wood chip pyrolyzer just happens to be IDEAL… Lovin’ it… No grinding, no sifting, no dust… 1.5 hour retort burn. The build plans are coming for anyone interested.
We were able to run it for about 4 hours. The hopper and core are about 30 gallons. Our initial (very rough) estimates are that the gallon of gas equivalent is about 30 gallons = 5 in gasoline… We were simulating a 2.0L car engine with the regen blower. We are actively seeking a DC, variable speed blower, in case anyone has some ideas…
Our 8.75 hp Honda is .39L… So we’re guessing it would do about a 12 hour straight run on a full hopper… gotta leave some charcoal in the burn tube or temps start to go off the chart.
We’ll be adding a water-to-air intercooler as well… With larger gas flow requirements, the intercooler will ensure ambient gas temps. For use with the Honda, I doubt we’d ever see temps much above ambient – at least for the first few hours… We’ll see.
Overall, we’re very pleased with the results.
Troy
We also plasma cut some makeshift “slits” in our grate with holes… And we vibrated the 5" pipe core with an electric sander every once in a while… It worked pretty good. We’ll have one laser-cut soon with skinnier slits, but a heck of a lot more of them than the plasma torch can manage. There really wasn’t a lot of ash build-up above the grate. There is some in the ash bin, and the rest is getting caught in the cyclone… Super impressed with the cyclone.
One thing we noted, and something that I’ve never heard mentioned before, was how hot the cyclone heats up just by the friction of spinning gas vortex. How do I know? Because the pipe in and the pipe out of the cyclone were ambient for 20-30 mins., while the cyclone was hot to the touch. We were also WAY over-pulling on the intended size.
All the little bitty pieces of carbon are just getting vaporized. It’s awesome. The wood chip pyrolyzer just happens to be IDEAL… Lovin’ it… No grinding, no sifting, no dust… 1.5 hour retort burn. The build plans are coming for anyone interested.
We were able to run it for about 4 hours. The hopper and core are about 30 gallons. Our initial (very rough) estimates are that the gallon of gas equivalent is about 30 gallons = 5 in gasoline… We were simulating a 2.0L car engine with the regen blower. We are actively seeking a DC, variable speed blower, in case anyone has some ideas…
Our 8.75 hp Honda is .39L… So we’re guessing it would do about a 12 hour straight run on a full hopper… gotta leave some charcoal in the burn tube or temps start to go off the chart.
We’ll be adding a water-to-air intercooler as well… With larger gas flow requirements, the intercooler will ensure ambient gas temps. For use with the Honda, I doubt we’d ever see temps much above ambient – at least for the first few hours… We’ll see.
Overall, we’re very pleased with the results.
Troy
How long before you have the gas samples back.
Garry
i am not using any grate , yet, but i tend to use some round bar at 1/2" distance from each other, forming long slits
This to prevent the whole mass coming down the moment i take out the nozzle at bottom side.
Hi Garry,
When I heard you ask about when we’ll get the gas samples back, I was a little confused… Then I watched the videos again, and on video #9, Jared mentions we won’t know until we get our gas samples back. I can see why this would indicate that we’ve already had our system tested. We haven’t. We’ve been discussing the idea of having our system tested, but haven’t set that up yet.
Sorry for the confusion. I’m curious too! We’ll have it tested as soon as I can find a service that can test producer / syn gas.
Thanks!
Troy
Troy, do you have a sketch or plans for your retort? I have a lot of wood chips and would like to try and make something like that, but I have a hard time visualizing it. A rough sketch would help a lot.
Good work on the gasifier, I can’t wait to replicate it!
Troy,
Please provide some quick clarification - your sketch has one lighting port coming in from the side, and the nozzle port coming in from the bottom. The sketch also suggests that you will be introducing steam to the nozzle port. The physical unit that Jared is testing has two side lighting ports, and he is introducing steam to one of them.
I have three questions:
In Jared’s demonstration, are all three ports open simultaneously?
Have you noticed different behavior from the nine possible open/closed combinations?
Is there a reason the steam is introduced at the side rather than the bottom?
AT in TX
P.S. If you look at a map, I’m closer to you than Jared is . . . .
Hey Troy, looks like you are having way too much fun. Have you considered that maybe you should model your blower/plume/steam profile closer to the one you will be generating at the motor first? What drives me nuts with all this is the amount of variables the bloody things throw at you and how quickly they change. My only answer has been to cut down the “known knowns and the known unknowns” to paraphrase an infamous american by reducing the things I change. In that vein I wonder if the flare you are generating is really telling you anything useable if the plume’s profile is so out of whack with the engine that you will eventually run. We all want to have a one size fits all system and charcoal gives us a lot of advantages that way but you must have a target size in mind and design for it… At some point you lock in that design and say yup further changes will go into the next one… Enough preaching, those flares look freaking awesome by the way; you could smelt with that puppy!!! Keep having fun, David