I have done this too. Take a look at my Škoda thread. My filter is a cooler, cyclone and a sack filter in one pack. Shuld work even better with the updraft, less danger to overheat the filter media
Mark I’m the same way. It’s like pulling teeth to find open top 55 gallon drums let alone 30 or 20 gallon drums.
If I even look at a programmable computer it’ll probably short circuit. I’m just incredibly lucky to have charitable people around me to find scrap goods. Heavy plate steel is also hard to find for me due to money issues and general availability.
1" nozzle can power a decent sized engine, if it was up to 1000cc you could have water drip and some engine exhaust gas return to cool the reaction if water drip isn’t enough. My B2000 had 5 .5" holes in the flute nozzle.
Water drip adds hydrogen to the gas as it’s vaporized and passed through the reaction so just plain water adds some power.
For reference, some of the old swedish motorcycle gasifiers had a half inch nozzle and powered up to 500cc engines.
I think the original Simple Fire was spec’d for 5 → 15hp engines. Need to double check that.
Once I get everything stabilized into a fielded unit, I will mount this unit on my Iseki 20hp tractor. That tractor is a Japanese copy of the Bolens G242 tractor.
If I under-power, overheat, or start burning up nozzles I will upgrade to a 1.5" nozzle.
I am in a place where there is no such thing as “waste oil”. Used oil is too valuable to just burn it up.
I don’t like using oil anyways. The one time I tested it for the Mazda I kept getting flames out the nozzle entrances and scared me, even with my copper scrubbing pads to keep embers from flying out. Great thing about water drip is it can be nasty water you’d never drink, or maybe old antifreeze water that’s contaminated.
Been there, done that. Not too long ago I sifted out some freshly made char and let it sit a couple days before I moved it for storage into a plastic tote. Got distracted and didn’t get the tote moved into the shed I store it in. Came back to find the tote melted into a puddle and the char all nice and glowing again.
I like me some Charlie Daniels. This has been my anthem long before he put it into words.
I store my charcoal in the burn barrel with a lid and bricks to weigh it down, then I’ll move it to another drum with a gasketed lid to cut off any other oxygen. So maybe a day and a half before I crush it and bag it.
Edit: I forgot to mention I wait for the burn barrel to cool down before I transfer it to the sealed barrel.
First try on 2022.03.29 was a miserable failure. Too wet. Liquid sludge seeped, and in some cases sprayed every where.
Then too dry. Think dust bowl wind storm. Only this time in charcoal.
So we spent half a day cleaning up.
Second try 2022.03.30
Charcoal dust left over from yak-a-yak-ing. Smaller than 1/8th"
Flat die pellet Mill. Pretty basic. Under the green shroud is a right angle gear from a Suzuki Multi-Cab. Rpm’s controlled by pulleys.
This is the binder. Locally it is known as “Gow-gow”. A mixture of an undetermined ratio of the worst quality rice and cassava flour. Usually obtained from cleaning out the traps, nooks and crannies of the milling machine.
Most folks mix this with babang, (rice bran), and crack field corn for poultry feed. Costs about 12 cents a pound. And everyone knows how to make it the old style.
Mano-mano mixing. Trowel, metal bucket, etc. So far the mix is …
1 kg charcoal dust
200ml water
50g of binder.
Finished pellets drying in the sun.
Tomorrow, depending on dryness … we will clean up the bottom of a kettle and do a burn test in the kitchen rocket stove.
If that burns pretty clean, then I will kludge up a particle filter out of a paper towel and water bottles tops.
Put that inline right before the air intake on the motor. We want to have some sort of visual indicator of post filter - pre engine fuel quality. Lowest of tech of course.
Wish you luck. The thing is, chemicly, there is litle difference between your binder and raw wood or whatever biomass. Esencialy, runing this charcoal trugh the updraft gasifier is like runing a mix of engine grade charcoal with 5 % woodchips/sawdust mixed in. I dont think anyone wuld be prepared to risk that. I realy hope l an wrong
