Good. I was hoping someone else would bring up commercial wood pellet characteristics.
I did not want to come off as too critical.
DarrenB. be sure and run out all loaded in wood pellets to the point of only leaving those that have been heat browned then surface torrified sealed.
Any out of the bag wood pellets left inside at shut down sealed; and the gasifer will turn them into sawdust mush from the trapped internal combustion moisture.
On wood chips as BobMac says; it can be done alright with chips sizing and form classifying. @spaco Pete Stanaitis has some very good topics and experiences to be able to use wood chips in his Chineses JXQ-10 gasifer system.
Another small system that was instead specifically designed from the get-go to use wood chips to fuel operate electrical generators were @sabbadessa Stephen Abbadessa’s.
A starting relevant topic of his on the DOW was his “Victoria’s Corner” set up in the Small Engines Category back in Oct 2014.
I’ll try to direct link to that:
A relevance test of a gasifier systems design is if others can build and operate them.
Arvid Olsen @tritowns consulted with StephenA. and made up many different sized and applications-use gasifiers used wood chips.
You system Darron Booth may be useable with wood chips directly. Or could be internally modified for them.
The chip sourcing/making clues any of these fellows and others would say is make the wood chips from hardwood stocks when the trees and bushes are in winter sap down.
Making your chips if you stip back to not putting into the chipper twiggy stems; whisker branches; leaves &needles; and thick barks you will be far ahead for direct using of the chips made.
One thing I’ve noticed about wood pellets. Not all batches are the same. Some bags work really good and others have too much moisture. I like the idea of charcoal but my goal was to keep it working on wood pellets.
The pellet woodstover’s in my family complain also about brand differences in wood fuel pellets. Ha! And I complain that thier in-room wood pellet systems are blowers and motors noisy. Accustom to nice quiet bulk wood stoves.
Avoid at all cost ever using animal bedding pellets. They have huge amounts of bark in them. The bark has high levels of low temperature melting silica. They are not spec controlled for an ash content. Or so much for moisture.
Yep. Nothing like power outages to put reality into DYI hobby’ing for power.
May your power come back on soon.
Steve Unruh
Good you have power back.
I fixed the link I tried putting up on post-comment #85.
I’ll repeat it here as lot of experienced info about using chips for small engine fuel in the posts, members questions and StephenA’s feedback answers:
Ah l see what you are doing now. Kinda similar to what l was fantasizing about once, l called the design the Cigarette gasifier. Abandoned the idea. Why?
Problem with sistems like these is actualy well seen on your operating video. The walls glow red. That hurts efficiancy a lot. All those calories could be used to split water in to gas.
Mr Wayne got around this problem in a clever way, he reclaims this lost energy. But usualy nozzles and restrictions are used to push the glowzone deeper in the bed of charcoal wich makes the glowzone insulated with charcoal and ash.
Edit: great idea with the grate design. I was about to write that problems with updrafts is eruptions of char at high load but you got that sorted out.
Some of you might find this interesting. This is the same setup but without the grate. I added kitty litter on top. It insulates the combustion zone and takes on the properties of a fluid. It completely prevents passages from forming and it breathes well. The gas is very dry. It does not fall down into the pellets and it doesn’t blow away. It stays on top mixing with the hot ash and glowing carbon throughout the whole cycle.
I should have paid closer attention to Tone’s sketch. I’m trying to catch up. You light the pellets on top, just under the grate or kitty litter, right? Kind of a TLUD without secondary air, but with a top barrier layer.
With kitty litter I’m not using a grate. You light it on top of course and then you let it build up heat for about 5 to 10 minutes. Turn the fan on high get it blowing really good and hot and start sprinkling kitty litter slowly it will blow around and turn into a light slag. If you pilot on top it will just form a slag crust. If you sprinkle it slowly you get individual small pieces of slag that float around on top and keep it insulated. It’s pretty interesting how it works.
I’ve been working on a new downdraft model. I added a pellet limiter and heat break. I let it run for 5 hours and just had to add pellets. It’s self-feeding and requires no shaker grate or any other manual interaction to keep it going. The combustion zone is double-walled and has a half inch layer of ash between the walls.
I got to go get some gasoline.
