Thanks for the suggestion, Tom. The mill uses a 23 hp Briggs & Scrapiron Vangard. Concern is that a 50% power loss running on wood gas would be pretty significant. I’ll look into charcoal, but it has so many other uses, such as a biochar soil additive, cooking, blacksmithing, and water filtration. Hoping to fire up my first gasifier (FEMA design) tomorrow evening.
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I guess it depends on your location. Being out of sight out of mind it is not problem for me to make as much charcoal as I want. Then when I grind it for fuel size about a gallon out of five is fines, too small for fuel but from that I make a lot of bio-char and also store it for water filtration. It’s just easier to work with than raw wood but it’s good to keep all fuel possibilities open.
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You -might- be better served with electric storage of some sort like a capacitor bank, or honestly, a flywheel design that would be better. Then you can run the generator at a constant -low- rpm (usually lower rpm is more efficient), then the energy is available for when you use the saw, and give you a constant draw on the gasifier. I wouldn’t use batteries because they need to charge and discharge faster, and have a much shorter lifetime. UNLESS you don’t use the saw all the time, and have another use for it, then maybe LiFe batteries will last a while.
You could actually build your own super huge capacitor, but … you can probably more easily build a flywheel, and have it be significantly less dangerous. 
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Good ideas, Sean. Basically, I am looking at energy storage. I have 2.5 kW-hrs storage in deep cycle lead acid batteries (leaving 75% charge so I don’t damage them), a 750 Watt (1 hp) photovoltaic array with a 4 kW (continuous) inverter. The flywheel idea is interesting, since my log splitter already has a pair of 75-pound flywheels already balanced and ready to go. I expect I’d need a continuously variable transmission, so that I have constant rpm at any usable flywheel rpm. With a stationary mill, I’m also considering a gasometer storage system, similar to this, only using one (or multiple) units made from 55-gallon drums.
(72) What Makes It Work? #32 GASOMETER gasworks TUBALCAIN - YouTube
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Thanks, Tom. I’ll check the charcoal threads in the forum. I’m guessing I’ll find more of your posts there. My location is southwest Missouri, and I am fortunate to have a plethora of hardwood available, and lots of sawmill scrap to feed a charcoal kiln and/or gasifier.
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I was actually thinking add a motor/generator to the flywheel to provide electric, rather then a flywheel directly on the mill, then just have it feed an inverter to supply power to the electric motor. 3-phase isn’t commonly found so I figured you already would need something to supply that. These guys in 2016 were claiming 150-250 per kw installed. http://www.omnesenergy.com/ They have a fairly high round trip efficiency, but I didn’t see charge and discharge rates or much else listed for them.
(they also arent the only company just the first one I pulled up…) I was just thinking it might be more reliable and cheaper then batteries, and may work more like a capacitor without being a capacitor (which are expensive, although you could probably roll your own, they can be fairly dangerous.) And MOST people on here are much better at mechanical then electrical. so building one isn’t out of the question…
But whatever works for you, I was trying to give you some ideas that might work better because compressing gas still eats up energy and has it’s own dangers, and Lead acid batteries don’t have the 500k+ cycle life capacitors do, even with only a 25% discharge.
And really you could use a combination as well. It isn’t necessarily one or the other especially when you start figuring out costs. . It also depends on how much you are intending to use it as well.
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Hello Dave
I drove through Joplin about a week after the tornado.
Wow what a mess 
Enough timber down to drive hundred millions of miles
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Hey Dave Boyt, I think this will all come down to the manpower needed when; and where.
Operating a sawmill the millers 100% attention and focus needs to be on the milling.
Yours, mine, WayneK.'s, others, IC engines take care of hands-off the power.
An electric motor driven mill the same-same. The power for it being made somewhere else. The responsibility of someone else.
Patrick Johnson in South Africa when he big engined woodgassed for electricity for his electrical driven saw heads had to become the dedicated power maker man. His saws operated by others then.
On storing woodgas to actually power up a 23 hp engine best you calculate out the actual CFM of woodgas you’ll be needing first before building anything.
Regards
Steve unruh
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I live 20 miles south of Joplin (near Neosho). Yeh, it was a real mess, but is now pretty much rebuilt. Wish they had followed the example of Greensburg, KS, but they opted for a lot of ticky-tacky houses that aren’t nearly as sturdy as the ones before… but they got it done in a hurry. All that wood went to the landfill, including some beautiful walnut sawlogs. The haulers wouldn’t even talk to me. The next one is just a matter of “when”.
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I agree. I’m a one-man business, specializing in custom cuts & unusual woods-- all local Ozark hardwoods. Production isn’t a priority, so hopefully I’ll be able to pay enough attention to both the gasifier and the mill. I’m basing my calculations on wood gas having half the fuel value as a comparable volume of natural gas, just to get in the general range.
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I was thinking of AC 110V generator. A DC generator/ inverter makes sense, since I believe it would be more flexible in the RPM range of a flywheel. I’m good enough at electrical to give myself a good jolt once in a while, and almost as inept at mechanical. It is great to have a lot of options to think about, and a combination might be the “final” solution.
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Yes, go see-do direct as much as possible.
I’m 69. You are 68.
We’d best set up systems others could step into. Discrete system components. Tied together sure. But not dependency chained.
Ha! Ha! Let the youngster “Digitalist” do their own overcomplications and have to learn that KISS is the way, eh.
S.U.
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I don’t know if you are going to find a dc motor big enough to feed a sawmill. It is pretty easy to build/get a rectifier. If it is a 110v generator for the gasifier, you need to add a capacitor at the minimum to help smooth out the dc. after the a rectifier.
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Here you go for a KISS see-do system Dave Boyt.
Hydraulic based. You have to move log sections up onto your mill deck. So you have some kind of loader that has hydraulics. Hydraulic chainsaws are now readily available in sizes:
https://topratedchainsaws.com/hydraulic-chainsaws
Just a sample article.
Hydraulic drive motors can be salvaged now out of lots of equipment or bought new for your saw-head power.
Search up on the Woodgas Farming and DOW general site for Ron Lemlers and Wayne Keith’s woodgas converted IHC tractors. Live hydraulics on both of these.
So there you go. Your mill waste making power to load, saw two ways for making value wood products.
That same woodgased powered tractor can PTO drive an electrical generator.
Drive a real water volume pump if there is a need. Fire suppresion!
My hard learned last 15 years lesson: Woodgasing for IC engines, SIZE matters.
The vehicle guys can easily fuel for smaller needs. The iddy-bity woodgas system cannot stretch up, and will drive a fellow buggy with problems.
No reason to have a whole homestead integrated for-all-uses power system.
Even Mother Earth News made this mistake with their 10-12 kW in N.C. stationary system.
It was stationary.
They should have spring boarded off of their woodgasing their Chevy truck learning, and done a wheeled tractor then.
Brainacs! Always re-inventing wheels when surrounded by pre-existing wheels.
Today: for the last 20 or so years; it is the digital controller folk thinking they have the woodgas problems solution. Not true at all.
As direct usages as possible is the woodgas using solutions. Using in equipment’s already been digitalized; produced; and years in service; use proven in lots of 10,000 to 100,000.
Regards
Steve Unruh
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Here is an industrial catalog giving a comparisons of gasoline engine system produced hydraulic pressures and flows versus 3-phase electric motors. Pages #8 and #9.
The good thing about an industrial supplier is they have factored in all of the power losses and variable location use losses with even more set-backs to always have the power to get the jobs done. Thier reputation is on the line.
Brainiacs doing wattage’s comparisons always falls short. With an, Opps! They have nothing to lose. No skin in the game.
https://rgctools.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/2022-Construction-Products-Catalog-for-web.pdf
Regards
Steve unruh
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Hmm link shows up dead Steve? But you mention hydraulic and that got my wheels turning. In the long run I really like your idea of a tractor serving multi purpose with hydraulic and pto options but as I was under the dodge the other day a thought hit me, the nv4500 five speed has duel pto ports. It’s already getting woodgasser… There are some options here
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I thought that the NV4500’s only came GM. I wish I had one.
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Marcus poke around on their site that does load for a catalog download link.
What I was trying to point out on their mobile hydraulic power carts the gasoline engined one’s were having to have 30% larger HP rated engines versus theirs with three-phase electric motors.
Power makers whether old steam, old higher voltage DC electric, IC engine gasoline or diesel do not follow easy math kW rules the Brainacs like to sling around.
Ha! Put a 240 vac 5 horsepower electric motor on your chunker Grid fed and you will not get that 4" stick almost stalling down. You be breaking something on the power train instead.
An engine driven electric generator IS NOT The BIG GRID.
A big lead acid battery bank can sorta’ act like the big Grid. Melting puddling out copper bar motor commutators!
Practical using teaches much more than a calculator.
S.U.
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Band saw mills in which the log is stationary and the mill head rolls down a track to cut lumber an energy source that can move with the mill head. On the configuration, gasoline flows directly from the fuel tank to the engine. With an electric or hydraulic drive, the energy would have to travel from a stationary source through flexible hydraulic or electric lines. I don’t have hydraulics on my mill, but may have to add them-- those logs aren’t getting any lighter! Tractor with a Winco PTO generator would sure have the benefit of being portable.
I don’t doubt that sensors and microprocessor controllers can make wood gas units more efficient and easier to use, as they have with gas engines (if you can get 'em), but my 8N Ford runs just fine without one.
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Not a small mill by any means, but the pictures I shared a while back about Aberdeen and Hoqiuam logging museum this is one town over in Montesano part of the big lumber industry that built Washington state no audio just black and white video of the whole logging/milling/ shipping industry
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