Marcus, l now have a true 8" WK hearth inside, it can run on raw wood chunks or chips or moistened charcoal, or a blend of dry charcoal and wood chunks but l found wet wood is a no go in any gasifier. Even in a mix of dry charcoal and wet wood, the temperature inside is high but the wet wood cant combust fast enaugh and by the time the wood starts burning well the chunks have migrated too low in the gasifier and start to make tar.
JO, l baked a batch of chestnut wood the other day, absolute shit when it comes to BBQ charcoal but the gasifier isnt picky about 150$ worth of dino
IV been concerned about that the whole time running my truck you can see in the videos I have rather large chunks making it to the nozzles regularly being damp and saw cut. I still have about 14" of charcoal below the nozzles so it has not made any tar yet thankfully. If I have wet wood I load it at the top of the hopper hoping the heat of the char bed gets it dry before it gets to the fire tube. Still collecting crazy amounts of condensation though
You are using two bags of wood to get to and from work Marcus. If it were me I’d add an insulated barrel somewhere and fill it with wood and run the exhaust gas through it while I drove. Or maybe a flat hopper over the existing bed that you could just rake the fuel out of. Same condensate capture you are already using. More armchair quarterbacking.
Kristjan, I’ve been thinking a bit about mixing water vapor in your system, you use moist charcoal but the drying takes place over the hot zone and the humidity rises up in the center of the action and only dry air is blown in. Your gasifier has air intake through the pipe from the top, if you added an opening for steam entry on the inside it could improve the gas.
Ha, fun did not last long. From my part, the sistem runs good. Now, its the engines part thats playing tricks on me.
I have also seen this months back when l first gave the Škoda a sniff of woodgas.
Drove home on woodgas last night, was a wery pleasant drive. Stopped, swiched on petrol for a few seconds, to flush the injector of any potential soot buildup, then l shut off the engine and went to bed. Everything was perfect.
This morning, the engine played tricks on me. No idle (on petrol), no power. Barely kept it alive. Squirting petrol in the intake imediatly reved the engine, means the engine is starved of gasoline.
I belive the reason is l have a steep mountain road the last mile before home and its no way l can drive 100% woodgas comfortably. Even in gasoline mode, engine still sucks woodgas. I think l run too rich and the computer remembers the setting, cutting the fuel down on the next drive.
After a few drives the problem went away the last time, so did today. Well, kinda. Still not perfect. Will see on the drive home tonight.
Yes. Put in one of those rotary knob battery disconnect cable terminals.
At parking or just before next starting up; disconnect the battery to reset the engine control computer to base settings.
Regards
Steve Unruh
This morning the engine did not start at all on petrol. Not one hit. After a hour and a half of cranking, squirting in petrol and propane, warming the O2 sensor etc l found the fault. We had snow forecasted for the night so l parked it in a way l can drive off our steep driveway in the morning. Severely tilted on one side. When l finaly tested if the fuel pump pumps gas to the engine l discovered whats wrong. All the petrol has flown to one side of the fuel tank and pump ran dry l refueled 2 days back so l eliminated that fault when making a diagnose. Threw in a gallin of petrol, cranked on the first turn. For the next time, l know better.
As for the woodgas part, its my fourth drive to work on woodgas tonight, it keeps runing better and better! Still no speed records but takeoffs are smooth and cruiseing at the top speed of 45mph is what l wuld do on petrol also.
Fuel consumption figures are slowly starting to show. Im not gonna post any numbers just yet but for what l see l am werry pleased!
This evening, l chrushed some dry charcoal for the way to work, wife happened to be near by superviseing our kids playing in the first snow. Instead of water, l threw a few snowballs in the hopper of dry charcoal. I could tell by the look of her eyes she thod l lost it completely
I think in Finland they allow studded tires. There’s a special Finnish brand of nail studded tires you can technically only order in Alaska if you’re in the USA, but they are unscrupulous and will ship to your house. I prefer snow chains, but the road is more covered in ice than in snow around here. The snow melts partially and it all gets a glaze of ice over the snow.
Thank you for the ride Kristijan, you have a nice landscape where you live.
We have studded tires here, and I think these are much better than friction tires on icy roads.
I think it’s been about 50 years since we could use studded tires. They were great. I enjoyed the ride K. Always surprises me how much so many other places on the planet look just like where I live.
Here Oregon and Washington states studded tires have still been legal November 1 thru March 30th.
Because of our Cascade mountains East <-> West passes. Because of the many high mountain ski resorts day-trip drivable from the Urban areas.
YES, roads driving from swishy wet and then into pockets of snotty just-barely ice ONLY studded tires will see you safe.
You will not be chained up.
The best modern stud-less tires as in Michelin Ice-x, Blizzack’s, and Nokien do work. Tried the Nokien’s myself on the Honda CRV. Still not as effective as the studded.
And here aways the crying that “those studded folks are destroying our roads”.
It gets louder every year. Studded tire users are only at most 5%. The majority of the no-stud tire screamers will not invest in a separate set of winter tires. Too cheap. Too social/culture distracted. Convinced the All Season tires will do-all. (For half of the year here, yeah.)
Yet it is these same folk who after the most recent rash of icy morning spin-out chain-reaction wrecks with deaths that say our Road Service’s must salt the roads “like everyone else”. We never did this before the creeping expanded “trial” programs started ~2018.
Now state highways and some cities do this. Now I have to slam break off my corroded on, wheels from the hubs!
So it is the stud-less, cheap-skates; the ones responsible for salt rust early aging out our public bridges, highway equipment’s and all of our own personal vehicles.
Grump. Grump. Grump. From the guy having to keep his Home-Visting nurse Wife, out Nursing.
Anyhow, studded tires here can still be had from Korean Kuhomo; USofA Cooper; Finland Nokian. I’ve used them all.
S.U.
about 150$ worth of dino
l refueled 2 days back so l eliminated that fault when making a diagnose. Threw in a gallin of petrol, cranked on the first turn. For the next time, l know better.