Hi Tom,
I thought I’d add my 2 cents from the imbert side.
How much HP will you need to power?
On the grate, I presume you are relying on vehicle movement to clear the grate.
The slots on the grate seem pretty wide, especially the one on the right. You may lose a lot of good charcoal to the base. In the worst case, you may not be able to keep the char bed established. You may, however, be running much bigger fuel than I am. Hope they don’t deform on you despite the ash insulating.
On the 1/2" nozzle diam, will you have enough suction to get good penetration into the oxidation zone? I know the imbert chart shows 1/2" diam for my build, But SU advised me to start with 1’4" nozzles. You can always drill em bigger. I even moved down one line ( to D) on the chart and left them at 1/4" and am getting good penetration.
I see a lot of even numbered nozzles on DOW. It’s been stated that having opposite nozzles may limit penetration, just a thought.
I like the nozzle design. Will you be installing a locking nut to counter vibration?
Here’s a pic of my line D sized for about 45 HP. The exed grate is new, higher and ventilated on the side for max exposure of CO2 and H2O through the char bed.
Good luck, Pepe
Thank you Pepe for your thoughts. I have been running a full size Chev truck with a 4.3 L, V6 engine with a gasifier that is dimensioned close to what you have drawn, for several years. After hearing about Kristijan and JO’s performance with Imberts I decided I need to try some improvements. A couple of years ago Max Gasman, had recommended changes that he thought would improve my gasifier. I decided to follow his suggestions, but when I took my gasifier apart I found the brake drums I was using for my oxidation zone and reduction zone where showing stress cracks from hot / cold cycles. Thus the entire new build of the “guts” of the gasifier.
I can’t give you a HP. When running a vehicle, you have to design for every thing from 0 HP to cruising at 30 HP to acceleration-- what ever she has. Basically I think about 2300 rpm’s is a good design criteria.
I went to a solid mount grate some time ago with no problems, so yes vehicle movement but more reducing the char down to ash which will sift through.
I am much more afraid the slots are too narrow. I should have put two more bars in, but left the outside ones of for more opening. My new grate is only 6 inches in diameter and somewhere I read where the area of the openings in the grate should equal the area of the restriction. The restriction is planned at 4 3/4 inches ( possibly 5 1/4 ) so that means for equal areas, I should almost go with no bars. ( Impossible ) I am confident that Max’s ash filled bars will work. I’ve seen this design used with lighter gage angle and it held up.
The 1/2 in. nozzles. I have 5 – 1/2 in. nozzles. I made inserts that went into the nozzles to restrict the diameter. Did many flares and came up with 3/8 being best. That is what I ran most of the time but on my final tear down I found several of the inserts had fallen out. I never picked up on it while driving.
The idea of even number nozzles again was Max. The important part is, I am going to 10 nozzles. I think the larger number ( even or odd ) will allow more of a pencil oxidation zone with each nozzle where fewer nozzles requires the some depth of penetration but also requires more of a “bloom” to fill the gap between the nozzles.
No locking devices. They will be screwed full depth on the threads and I co not foresee vibration problems.
The biggest change on my new design is the reduction zone. In the old, the gases came through a 4 3/4 inch restriction into about a 9 inch. reduction zone. The char would pile up in the grate in a pyramid and the gases could flow over the top of the char on the way to the grate. My new reduction zone is a 6 in. cylinder that will confine the char and thus force the gases to flow through the hot char.
As with all new builds or major changes, time will tell. Thank you TomC
Hi Tom,
Thanks for the answers, it’s nice to see someone is building. Also interesting to see the many variations and refinements tried. Looking forward to some fire.
Pepe
I worked on the gasifier Saturday and really got a lot done. Then I spent Sunday and Monday fixing mistakes I had made. Grrrrrrrrrr!!! So now I’m back to where I was Saturday night. One step forward and two steps back. TomC
Hi Tom. I noticed that you have expressed difficulties in converting back and forth to metric units. I find it pretty simple - there are 25.4mm per inch, so half an inch is 12.7mm. 14mm and 9/16 are so close that they can be used interchangeably. If you want to know what 10mm is in thousandths of an inch, for example, divide 10 by 25.4, giving .393. Printing off a decimal equivalent chart, that is nearly 13/32. (13 divided by 32 = .406). 30.5 cm per foot.
A meter is a metric system yard, effectively one pace. 1000 meters / paces per kilometer, so that is a very human and understandable measurement. For convenience sake, you just have to remember 1.609 km per mile. 2.2 pounds per kilogram, a liter is roughly a quart, 3.73 liters per US gallon, I believe. A deciliter is a tenth of a liter. That measurement is not really used commonly, but does appear in the Imbert tables.
The volume and weight systems are linked together very nicely, based on the properties of water. One cubic centimeter of water weighs one gram, one thousand cubic centimeters of water weighs one kilogram, and has a volume of exactly one liter. All that makes for easy calculation of water tank weights, etc.
As others have said, 1HP = 750 watts (though watts aren’t metric, they are a unit of international measure). Hopefully this helps to show how useful metric units can be to calculate directly.
Thank you Garry. I will study it a little more. The volume to weight seems logical to me so I definitely will try to get my mind around that one.
BUT---- let me confuse you a little with my mental problem. Ok, just from memory, I know that a “meter” equals about a yard +3 inches= 39 inches. Now, 1 penny or “1 cent” is 1/100 of a dollar. So why isn’t a centimeter, 1/100 of a meter? In fact it is 1/10 of a meter. And for me, a "mil " is 1/10 of a 1/100. or 1/1000 of something. In my most common situation, my taxes a based on a “mil rate” In use, for tax purposes they state the mill rate and we figure our taxes by multiplying .001 x designated mil rat x property value. Now, the final one is not so clearly stated and in my mind is assuming some things. To me a “deci—” something should be 1/10 of some thing. Thus the term “dime” or “decimal”. So a “decimeter” should be 1/10 of a meter or about 3.9 inches.
So I think you can see now why I have no quick vision of how long something is when the say it it 28 mm. My mind jumps to 39 inches but does not know whether the mm is 1/10, 1/100 th , or 1/1000 of the 39 inches. TomC
Hi Tom, glad to see you taking up the challenge. A centimeter is 1/100 of a meter. I think some of the common confusion comes from the French origins of the terms - cent meaning hundred, mil and kilo thousand, deci, a tenth.
You are exactly right, and actually more insightful about the origins of the abbreviations, as the English legal community and upper class held onto the notion for centuries that they were still French, so we have the logic of the metric system embedded into our language and tradition.
Maybe you are over thinking the issues, but you have a solid grasp on the terms, a deciliter is 1/10th of a liter, and a ml, milliliter is 1/1000th of a liter, 100cm in a meter, 1000 millimeters in a meter, or 10 mm per centimeter, exactly as you describe in the mil rate example.
Thank you Garry. I went to my metric conversion and punched in some numbers and you are correct and it has straighten out my thinking. Now I can vision a dimension by saying 1 cm= 1/100 of a meter = 39/100 = .39 inches. Same with mm and kilo. It works. Thank you again TomC
JO I have to agree with you. I have spent a life time learning “our” system and many times questions come up that I haven’t used lately and I have to look the answers up. This summer I was spraying a chemical on some shrubs and it called for 2 ounces per gallon of water. I had nothing that would measure ounces of liquid, but I did have table spoons and tea spoons meant for measuring. So I had to get a chart to see how many table spoons per ounce. Crazy.
My discussion with Garry just now cleared up some problems I have had with the metric system and “SHAZAMM!!!” I think I have a much better handle on it. With a firm understanding of what a Meter is and understanding the “cents” “milla” “deci” etc. and with a little thought, I can visualize a dimension.
Hopefully I won’t be so confused when reading others posts. But please keep it in English. I am way to old to learn Canadian ( kidding) Swedish, German, French and all those other languages you have in Europe. And I thank you and admire all of you who speak English as a second language. TomC
Tom, l find it quite easy to convert from metric to imperial.
If there is a lot of inches, l devide inches by four, this way l get this way l get the number in tens of centimeters. Fractions of an inch require more thinking (the basic ones l know)
There are 2 pounds in a kilogram, 3 feet in a meter, yard is meter, oz is a third of a 100g. Tablespoons and cups we use allso (l think JO once sayd you cant eat soup with a fork )
Thanks for the concern, Mr. Wayne My computer died and I am working on a tablet. I have to hunt and peck when typind. Very inconvienet. I have my trucking pieces I started a lot of changes. The changes are a lot of and I started wondering if they would be improvements. With the WK design the builder is assured that each step has been well thought out and tried. With other designs we start with a few basic dimensions and how we use those and what excessoroes we add are just guesses on how they will work on oue system. My thinking today is I will put it back together with just the basics and see how it runs. Thenstart adding the irovements, one at a time. Fort I have to find better thermocouple, to make better comparisons. Happy New to you , family, and all the DOW family that you have created. TomC
Berrr!! minus5 degrees F in my shop this am. Minus 20-25 degrees with wind chill. ( -20 & -30 C ) I have two battery 'conditioners ’ to keep batteries in shape during the winter. One is 6 v and one is 12v. The 12v tells how much charge is in the battery. I shows full charge when I take the charger off. A couple of days later , when I put the charger on again, the reading is only 1/4th charge. Is this because the battery has cooled down to sub zero. or with a trickle charger the battery doesn’t get a full charge?TomC
When my baterys are too cold to run well ot they havent got enough kick to start the engine l short them for a second. This wakes them right up. Learned this trick from my father. Not a thing to do on a dayly basis but its a life saver sometimes…
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