Good idea. Kinda like NITROS on race cars
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When we were building Simple Fires, ten or so years ago (time flies), Gary Gilmore taught us to adjust the water drip or EGR by watching the fire in the nozzle - something just under incandescent is what you are after. This ability to adjust the water drip or EGR maybe gives a little more control potential than does dampened charcoal…
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HI BOB MAC- i think you said you have a double flute char gasifier- i dont have a clue how that is built- could you refer me to a clear pictures or your design- air tube cooling ECT, THANKS
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@kmrland, here is the place to start on what I built with the double flute gasifier. Lots of great input by other members on what they built too. Just scroll to the top at the beginning.
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THIS must be the double flute design- are the 2 pipes just air feed to the charco–And i caint tell how far the air tubes are from the grate. Sorry if my questains are dumb. if i keep digging the answere may be here,?
OK thanks BOB M i see the pic of the unit with two air feed pipes-i will have to dig through the details later,since my computor is not letting me, go to the beginning of the thread. DID this unit work well on your superu- and about how much char you think it used per miles roughly. AND was the double flute used to spread the heat out better-or farther from the air nosel cones, or this design not use ceramic cones for air intake–THANKS
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It is a down draft and the two Flute nozzles make sure no air can bypass around behind the nozzles. This gasifier is designed for no more than a 2.5 L IC engine. I am building a new cooling tube roof rack for it so I can’t show you the cooling tube setup yet.
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Nice work BOB on your char gas unit, i will be looking to see how it works out after the cooling rack you are building- I slowed down on my dakota last few days, i think i sprained my back or pinched a nerve near my lower back- if i sit long at all i had a hard time standing back up and holding my back stait-- seems to be much better today after mostley resting the last 3 to 4 days.
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I decided to put a clean out in the bottom of the Double Flute Charcoal Gasifier. This will make it a lot easier to clean out the ashes. Digging and vacuuming out from the top is just not practical for me anymore.
I used one of the old ash dump lids of my 92 Dakota from the book. I put new lids on them when I rebuilt the Gasifier a few years back. It is still running good.
The old lids seals got hard and started leaking air. I checked it by using water, if it can not hold water there is a air leak too. I rebuilt the lid seal and with my ceramic wool weld blanket pad with a pipe spacer it should be good to go on this unit. With the new ammo box sticking out to the full depth of the box it will give me more ash space in the bottom of the Double Flute Gasifier.
I decided to make it easier to move around, so it will be mounted on the back of 1996 Subaru Outback with the 2.5 L engine. I am trying to keep it K.I.S.S. as much as possible. This Subaru is a great car to drive in the winter time. It even has heated seats, nice on my old bums when it is cold.
Since this unit uses water drip for the extra hydrogen production of gases. I am going to build a stainless steel water tank that will have a easy big drain out plug feature. The tank will also be heated by the Gasifier when it is in service. The heat will keep the water from freezing, well that’s the plan.
Still working on my other three Gasifier builds too. I am holding true to my statement of not having to buy a lots of parts on these builds. Welding gas and wire is expensive enough. They have both doubled in price around here.
I try to support locally but I might have to go else where to get these two things.
So I keep asking the Great and Wonderful YEHOVAH Almighty God for free metals and stuff to build theses Gasifiers and He is supplying it all in His timing.
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Thanks for the design photos, And i like that idea,time to refine your bouble flute char gas unit–Can you post a couple more pics of this unit with the door open-or it looks like there might be a swing door by this photos. THANKS hope i am not sounding like a pest- i just dont get the full picture how the flute in in there.And GOD BLESS on your free metal finds- caint beat free- though some times i buy stuff for the metals if its cheap too. I think i seen your air feed tube with air in holes on top of a pipe-do the air feed pipe burn through from the heat-- or am it vision wrong. I buy all my mig wire from amizon, probley cheaper than local.
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It is the same type of ammo boxes that are used on the WK Gasifier for dumping ashes/char out the bottom of the unit barrel.
Just back up on this thread and get through all of our discussion we had on double tube builds and you can look at all the pictures I took building this Gasifier.
Not only will the new hatch door will help with cleaning ashes out, I can also bump the grate and cause more ashes to fall out from above.
This unit gets hot, even though it has ceramic wood insulation in the walls of the unit with stainless steel liner over the top of it.
So I am going to place this unit also inside a barrel that has been cut down to around 12" with more insulation under and around it. Keeping the unit hot and not to cool down to fast at a engine idle is good. There is the thermal melt down point of the metals we need to deal with here.
I am still working on a way to simply add more water drip while driving down the road.
Open a extra valve and it adds more water drip, if the valve is closed it returns to the original setting of water drip.
My intake water for the nozzle are two copper tube inside of a metal tube that is inside the 2" nozzles pipes. If to mush water is added it will stop the steaming action and the water will flow down the pipe chamber inside the nozzles pipes and drip out the intake openings. The nozzles are up hill slightly, the end of the nozzle is about 1/4" higher when the car is level. The whole idea is to have steam go out the two flute nozzles. 8 holes total.
I still have not run this Gasifier at full bore. I had hooked up to my 5.2 Dakota engine for a test and it ran fine at a idle of 2000 rpms. But it was running very lean on fuel mixer because of the way I hooked it up. Causing extra air to leaking in.
It runs my generators just fine. Hope my It will run the 2.5 L engine down the road at highway speeds.
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Just an idea for you all on grate material, especially in a static use case:
More recently a type of ceramic tile has become popular and available: Thin Porcelain Tile (TPT)
It’s often as thin as 0.125" though is can range up to 0.25 inches thick or equivalent in metric. It comes in large panels that are easy to cut to size because the tile itself is so thin and it is cheap-cheap-cheap.
A person could make a grate out of tile strips cut from these large panels. The tile is kind of brittle, but one foot long by 2 inches thick… on edge, IE vertical? That would be pretty strong in terms of carrying the weight of wood/charcoal charge above. IF you need it stronger just cut the strips wider.
The tile strips are thin and set on edge so a large fraction of the grate surface would permit gas to flow. Your gasifier “breathes easy”.
I picture 24 strips cut one foot by two inches, on edge… stacked such that the whole thing is one foot by one foot. That would allow quite a volume of gas to flow and at very high temperatures if need be.
The tile strips would be held vertical and apart from each other by spacer blocks cut from refractory brick. The thickness of the blocks would set the spacing between the tiles.
Ceramic tiles (and especially porcelain tiles) can take very high temperatures and are resistant to the reductive environments like gasifier have. Using tile strips would solve any degradation issues you might have with mild steel and perhaps be more resistant than stainless.
Getting the tile assembly to move and slip char, like with an agitator may be tough though. I have some thoughts on building the grate into an assembly that could rock back and forth a bit but maybe such complexity isn’t always needed.
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Will make it with ceramic wool and a welding blanket like on my Dakota ammo boxes. This time I will make it with out using any high temp silicone.
By using the bottom plate of the ammo box , bolts and big washers I camped the folded welding blanket and ceramic wool under the plate. Fastened the pipe to it with wire.
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This should work.
How I need to figure out how to place the cyclone and cooling tubes on the car with the hayfilter. The cool tube will have condensation traps on both ends to catch any moisture. I know there should not be any real big moisture problems but it will help with cooling the char gases too.
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Very important tip here is to wear a dust particles mask when working with ceramic wool and fiberglass welding blankets when handing and cutting. Clean up the mess and put it in plastic sealed bags for the trash or for storage it.
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Good looking fab- work project you have there BOB-i know what you mean about the ceramic blankets or insulation of any kind- -DUST DUST DUSTY- I wonder if water glass sprayed on the ceramic would melt away. Or keep the dust t bay around the ash door area-probley under 2000 F around the ammo can?
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Water glass has no strength at gasifier temperatures but will be gooey in a potentially useful way. Forge insulation is often faced with water glass to trap the fibers while leaving the bulk of the blanket water glass free for best insulating properties.
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If it gets gooey then it’ll probably just grab any ash or carbon dust, then you’ll have a pretty good insulating skin for the ceramic wool.
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Thanks Cody and abreaks- i thought maybe it only works best on surface so it dont hurt insulation property’s , though i did’ent know it got gooey from excess heat inverment- this sounds like good idea if it stays in place and catches ash on surface, and keeps the ceramic dust minimal-- I may try some water glass on my insulated burn tube, if the outer metal burns of the insulation in my insulated burn tube, test subject burn tube- I SEE HOW LONG THE OUTER METAL SLEEVE LAST.
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