I have attached a drawing of a future light gasifier, I have been asked for Africa, small gas generator electric production, and also small pumps of water hoses for gas generator irrigation, but it is necessary that the device is easily movable, because at night, it can not leave the device because of stealing, thank you in advance for your answers.
Francois,
I think Koen has that covered. See:
That post has 1000 replies, keep you busy for awhile! 
Je pense que Koen Van Looken a tout prévu. Voir:
Ce poste a 1000 réponses, vous occuper pendant un certain temps!
In my last translation, it is not understandable, but I wanted to say, that the group electric generator where water pump, it must have a light contruction so that the evening the farmer can return it to him not to undergo volle, for me, it is important to work with pieces of wood dried in the sun, the manufacture of charcoal makes smoked noble products, it is a waste, that’s why I work on a wood gasifier, ci joined the patent of a French model of 1924 Riché family, leader in the year 1900 in the concept of gasification, which works perfectly without dirtying the engines, provided you do the interview well, I visited the site where koen talks about these small groups, but the most important for me is the relationship with a builder to have a price suitable for Africa while having robust hardware,
On the site, if a participant has time to translate the patent into English, everything will become clearer for everyone
Volle meaning “theft”…
I admire the concept François, but keep in mind most of all the lack of tools, and basic knowledge and mechanical experience. For use in the third world a system must be very simple, robust and reliable.
First, a thank you to Mike R for his link, Garry T, the concept of Riché gazo, for these capacity without tar to fuel an engine, is very simple and not heavy, just for developing countries, to make coal from quality wood is a big challenge for them, without wasting fumes where noble products, using a wood gasifier directly and drying small pieces of wood in the sun, is for them what is simplest and performant.
I already work with Africans, and you will be surprised with what address and speed it learns, it lacks capital, machine tool, raw material, but they have more conviction and obtination for work because for them it’s their survival.
(fly, at night, if he leaves his water pump to the gasifier in his farmland)
Hello FrancoisP,
Indeed small systems raw chunked wood engine supplying gasification can be done. Many historic examples of this. The pictures of the WWII and just post WWII small farm 2 wheeled tractors.
Dutch John today current with his DJ2 and DJ3 selfpowered mower and portable electrical generator were raw wood fueled systems too.
With DRY wood . . . and willing to become experienced user/operators are the key to suscess.
I have read that some countries in Africa have made the making and selling of wood charcoal as restricted and even illegal to fight deforestation and desertification.
Fellows as nice as pre-made charcoal system are for system simplicity and operator usability you must accept that they are not the end-all, do-all for everyone, anywhere, everywhere.
Not necessary we all go to the same churches.
tree-farmer Steve unruh
All,
Even Dutch John warns of the complexity of his smaller gasifiers. Everything must be “just right”. 
I guess, as has been said many times, what is the ultimate abundantly available fuel stock. Maybe it is easier to do a low-smoke charcoal retort using approved waste wood, or to super dry uniform chunks of bamboo, or?? What do they have?
Tout,
Même John Hollandais met en garde contre la complexité de ses gazéificateurs plus petits. Tout doit être “juste comme il faut”. : pensant: je suppose, comme on l’a dit à maintes reprises, quel est le stock de combustible le plus abondamment disponible. Peut-être est-il plus facile de faire une cornue de charbon à faible dégagement de fumée à l’aide de déchets de bois approuvés ou de sécher des morceaux uniformes de bambou, ou? Qu’ont-ils?
9 08-18
I have suggested before, the Ericcson - Rider hot air, external combustion engines have been proven a good fit for pumping applications over 150 years.
I believe the technology is ripe for a new examination and the application of better materials. That approach has complete fuel flexibility and independence. If coupled with a TLUD or cone retort, char removed by auger below, biochar could be produced from a wide range of biomass, plus the pumping energy.
The hot air engines are particularly attractive for their few wearing parts and minimal lubrication needs. They have proven very long lifespans in operation.
I am uneasy about the idea of presenting an IC pumping rig with many critical parts, and adjustments, engine oil to change and buy, etc, and then all the operating parameters of a small gasification system added.
I fear this will make for a complex system with many potential points of failure. Such characteristics will prevent wide implementation amongst materially challenged people with little mechanical ability.
Also, even if such a system could be made robust and easy to operate, a small 4 stroke engine will only last some thousands of hours even with regular maintenance and oil changes, many far less. I believe the economics of engine failure and replacement would outstrip the budget of the target population.
Motor lister is the most powerful and robust to swallow syngas.
Millions have been manufactured by India for Africa and South America and also for India, whatever it is a contact for a serious manufacturer’s address.
Hello FrancoisPal
Be very, very careful of the made-in-India Lister clone engines that were sent to Africa. The Indian dirt-streets production companies had very loose production standards. Just like a Mother baking cookies in a home kitchen oven the finished cookies were divided up into three different categories: the overheated burnt cookies to the husband. the undercooked cookies to the family kids (children). The “perfect” cookies for public presentations.
Literoid CS engine were graded out as 1st production quality were distributed out to internal India users. 2nd production quality sent to export users in Australia/Canada/South Africa/Americas. 3rd production quality were designated “Africa” engines. Ha! To those least able to get redress for shit quality problems. Broken crank shafts. Loosening up, flying off, flywheels. Not ever able to be aligned cylinder cases. Etc. Etc.
I know. I was an America buyer of a new in-the-crate 12/1 (12hp single cylinder 1488cc) Listeriod India engine. Yep. Super easy to work on. Very easy to multi-fuel modify.
But at 950 pounds, hardly portable. And it required a true 2200 pound additional mounting block to not hop up&down and travel away. The ground shake could be felt for 300 feet around it.
In India even they converted to using much later designed lighter smaller higher speed twin cylinder engines of decades later Lister, Petter, and then true India designs.
I have by too many experiences now become NOT a fan/advocate of idealistic-for-woodgas engine designs.
The closest world wide current production I’d recommend would be the made-in-China cast iron “Changfa” single cylinder series.
It’s designed history was late 1930’s/early 1940’s German. Design sent to Axis allies Japan then. Japanese used in occupied China. “Left behind” and Chinese copied.
Many different Chinese factories(companies) have made these and worldwide have distributed them out. You want the smaller powered versions with Direct Injection diesel systems for alternative fuels conversions. Compression can be lowered by grind dishing out the piston top crown. The smaller still have true hand-crank starting capabilities. Do not have the more complex needed internal counter balance shafts required in the larger horsepower versions.
Yes. I did sell off my massive hopping Listeriod. Bought my much smaller 400’s cc JangDong 7.5 hp Chinese engine. I only wished that I had then gotten three of these while they were available imported into the USofA to have back-up capabilities and spare parts. We here, and now Canada, have been locked out from these as they cannot be made Tier III or 4 level diesel emissions compliant for importation.
The current BEST quality available version of this engine is made in Japan by Yanmar. I forget the Yanmar production model number. YA? YM? YZ? IS still imported into South Africa as the go-to-remote, see-do-repair, simple, diesel power plant.
Regards
tree-farmer Steve unruh
Here you go:
Yanmar TF series of cast iron single series of engines. IDI types at ~106 kg. DI types at ~88 Kg. 2200-2400 RPM engines.
I will let you find your own specs links in French. Or net-translatable into French.
S.U.
Thank you very much Stève U, I look and I come back to you.
I will make my 11th trip to East Africa in September. Yes, there are places where a wood gasser is the best choice. I agree that charcoal systems are not the “end all, do all.” However, for many places in Africa, deforestation makes wood fuel a non-starter. My plan is to create gasifier fuel from crop waste charcoal. I’m hoping that cassava stems will be the right diameter for gasifier fuel. If not, then we will make gasifier size briquettes. We currently use crop waste to manufacture charcoal briquettes for cooking stoves. I plan on gasifying a 250cc cargo trike during my February 2019 visit. The best market for our briquettes is about 10 miles away from the village where we are working.
Where wood is available, using a TLUD cooking stove saves money, reduces smoke and makes charcoal as a byproduct. If portability is important, then the weight of the system hands the contest to charcoal. If fuel must be transported as well, then charcoal is a double winner since charcoal with water drip has about 50% more energy than wood by weight.
I let you answer Stève U, but your reasoning,Bruce, forgets some technical details that is important.
I like the old hand crank forge blower on there, no electrical auxiliaries on that system.
Judging by the castings and technology being used, that equipment is quite old?
Do you have more information on that system?
One thing about that set up, I think it could be left in a field overnight without great risk of theft… 
conclusions
It is established that the use of wood in the form of coal wastes 4/5 of its calorific value. In addition, the performance of the charcoal fireplace is poor, it is common to burn 50 to 100 grams of coal to bring 1 liter of water to a boil while in a well-built wood stove this specific consumption is from order of 50 g of wood per liter of water. We thus arrive at the following comparison:
To boil a liter of water in a wood stove type MIHA / REDI: 50 g of wood
In a charcoal brazier: 50 g of charcoal
These figures lead to a consumption report:
1 kg of firewood for 10 kg of wood processed into 1 kg of charcoal
Unfortunately, there are many obstacles to the process of switching from coal to other fuels.
We must overcome ignorance of the nature and properties of coal. We must fight deeply rooted habits. Good multi-fuel furnaces, at an affordable price, are totally lacking in most markets. Finally, above all, in many countries a powerful lobby dominates the production and distribution of charcoal.
A common argument for charcoal is that transport costs seem to be reduced relative to the cost of transporting wood. In fact, the calorific value of charcoal is about twice that of wood.
This argument ceases to be convincing when considering the difference in efficiency between a modern wood stove (about 50%) and a traditional coal stove that uses only 25% of the heat energy. . Under these conditions, the transport costs of a unit quantity of useful heat from wood or coal are the same.
Article written by the Swiss non-profit association REDI, an Institute for the Development of Renewable Energies.
REDI Rue du Vidollet 5 CH-1202 GENEVE Phone + 41 (0) 22 733 74 22 Fax +41 (0) 22 733 50 49
Ditto, with a wood gasifier, we take less wood in the forest for more calories to use, so using a wood gasifier is essential, having less slag problem with burning with a gasifier charcoal ,
it is essential for the future to work for the southern countries on the wood gasifier of a drying less than 10% moisture made in the sun
I allowed myself to make this answer, not seeing Steve react.
garry, the Japanese gasifier is from around 1940, the president of Yanmar around 1930, visited a hardware fair in Germany, he discovered the MAN engine, he built it in the same concept in his country, during the WW2 he was working on charcoal, then at the end of the war, he developed small models for agriculture, which later gave the Yanmar serie TF that we know today.
What I could understand.
Large, Vertical heavy pistoned single cylinder four-stroke internal combustion engines like to counter reaction hop up and down. With some sideways motion at the crank shaft end.
Large, Horizontal heavy pistoned single cylinder four-stoke internal combustion engines like to fore and aft shake and walk. Note the blue tarp bunching at one end of the engine assembly.
Properly placed onto a crushed gravel bed this engines right angle to the cylinder lower mounting beams would resist this walking away.
This IS why the most modern of four stoke single cylinder power engines are slant cylinder configured. Splits the differences in these two movement tendencies to an indeterminate shaking.
Yes. Yes. Of course “idealized” opposed cylinders two cylinders boxer designs. Noisy from all of the additional spread out combustion vibrations sources. Complex intake pathways for a single point air/fuel introductions. Widely separated out split exhaust that then require longer pathways to combine. More noise making surfaces.
Twin parallel cylinders would only seem to solve all of these problems. Not on a four stroke design. Uneven firing pulses. Uneven split forces in the pistons traveling one up, the other down. Or. both pistons on the same crank pin up and down and then big single like vibrations/shake - still with uneven firing pulses!
V-twins are a good compromise, all in all, to meet all of the needs and demands.
Real advantages start at inline 3 cylinder; inline 6 cylinders. My personal favorites. But costs and weights multiply then. No longer really small and portable.
The myth that 650rpm is needed for long engine longevity it just that . . . a myth. Even with 1930’s lubrication oils and material/manufacturing techniques well designed four stroke engines were actually min 2000 hours life capable and reached 7000 hours service life handily. This was at 1500-2200 85% loaded working rpms.
That is use daily for one whole year fellows. With then just a once a year shutdown to re-ring and valve regrind service to restore.
Yanmar TS’s and the Chinese “Changfa” clone engines makes this just five-seven tools, in-place, easy, possible to do.
As much as many resist: ALL GOOD engineering is the best balance of compromises chosen!
Ha! Think not? Study V-6 designs! Then understand Henry Ford jumping directly from I-4 to V-8. (sex sells. two more than his competitors very,very smooth I-6’s)
How is this related to woodgas?
Stacking more and more sexy filters and separations cyclones steps does not make for a better overall use system. Filtration only have to be good enough, AND EASY TO SERVICE.
Regards
tree-farmer Steve unruh
Now you are singing my song. The V6 was often talked about when I was young, and it seemed to always end up— “It can’t be done” And then in about '62 (?) they did it for the Buick Special. I guess they kind of spread it around to other division of GM, but I don’t know all of that story. My '62 Pontiac Tempest had a half of a Chev V8. I think they did start putting the V6 in Chevies about that time. Just the other day I heard about another GM car that had the V6, but as usual I forgot what I read. Talk about “study V6 design”: it was always though that you couldn’t balance a V6. I was shocked when I ran across a Buick V6 that had two rods on each crank journal as usual, but that they split the journal at mid point and off set the journal for each connecting rod. Then GM kind of gave up on the V6 and tried going to small block aluminum V8s. The V6 dropped from the GM line but wait. They had a contract to sell V6 to American Motors for the Jeep. GM got tired of keeping the V6 in their line just for Jeep, so they sold the V6 to Jeep and told them to make their own. After years past GM realize what a mistake they had mad selling the V6, so somehow they bought it back. It has changed at GM and been built in several displacements, But the 4.3 l V6 is till in there line and no matter what they have come up with ( the 5 cylinder for example ) some of us still demand the 4.3 l V6. My wood truck is a full size Silverodo, but I have been looking for 2 years for an S10 with a body still hanging on it and a V6 engine. My everyday driver is a V6 Silveroto with a 175000 miles and the engine is running like new, but the body has only about 2 or 3 years left in it. Please correct me on anything I have said here, or add to the life of the V6 which I have missed—like the big displacement ones used in pickup trucks and was there a diesel made in the V6?? TomC
