Hi Wood Gassers,
Today I had Constance out for another try at a battery powered starting ejector. The results were encouraging:
I can tweak a little more performance out of this unit but there is only so much power available. The nice thing was that after running a hopper full of pellets the car started without any noticeable battery discharge. More changes are coming.
Stephen
Ahhhhh!!! It’s so good to be back in my corner!
Hey Stephen .
I just got my feet back in the stirrups a few minutes ago also .
In case you folks missed my latest exploit…here is my new Gas Station Light:
It’s meant to be a lower cost gas system for powering 8hp 4kW generators. Hopefully I will have it out today and video a run report.
And here is the report:
Hi Wood Gassers,
This is a quick video for the new folks. It shows how much dirt my cyclone takes out of a gas stream and why I am going to hot cycloning. My old philosophy of “cool and splat” to remove tar from a gas stream works, but it requires more maintenance than I would like to see.
Hopefully this will improve my time between cleanings.
Playing the video full screen makes the debris much clearer.
Stephen
Hi Wood Gassers,
It has been a long, cold winter here in Maine and my “girls” want to get out and have a good time. On June 6, 2015 Northern Self Reliance will be at Square Tail Brewing:
http://www.squaretailbrewing.com/
demonstrating engines running on wood gas.
Please come out and join us for some great beer and a chance to see wood gas in action. The demonstration will be from noon until 6:00 or the beer runs out.
Stephen
Hi Wood Gassers,
I just had my first engine run of 2015. I ran the 8hp chipper/chunker on the Gas Station Light.
It ran SWEET!!! The condensate coming out of the final filter was clear. Earlier stages were dark but I think that was because it was washing off my earlier sin of grabbing an unscreened bucket of fuel. I need to fire my operator!!
The final gas temperature was barely perceptibly warm…maybe 105F and there wasn’t even a cooler baffle installed.
All the moisture in the hose was clear.
I tried to run my 4kW but it just wanted no part of it. I have no idea why. I replaced the coil and plug but still nothing. Every other generator I have has run fine on wood. ??? Probably time for a run to Harbor Freight for a sacrificial 4kW. I have three little space heaters on the way so I can start load testing. Pete S made a good point that running an engine is fine, but achieving a task is why we are here.
Last item…I had been seeing some fuel hang ups for some reason but as soon as I connected an engine, the gas pulsing seemed to make the problem go away.
Stay tuned.
Stephen
Still hoping to drop by in a week or two to see your progress. Looks like you are making steady headway. Will be looking forward to the answer to the mystery of the non-responsive 4 kW gen.
Ha! Ha! I like your obsevati0on of the single cylinder engine intake pulsation able to fluff/pulsate back up gas stream for hearth benefits.When I have observed and post up about this I was called crazy.
We Steve/Stephen’s will be crazy, KISS effective together.
If your old 4 kW had a flat-head side valve engine you will like the new overhead valve higher compression ratio better breathing harbor freight engine much better.
Regards
Steve Unruh
Hi Steve,
Any one who loves to be outside on a sunny day watching a poison gas machine operate can’t be too well wrapped.
The new 4kW is on the way:
I agree about the compression ratio. That is the only thing left that could possibly be affecting my performance. I suspect that the high compression ratios make the gas hotter due to compression work and more ready to go Boom. Hopefully my ignition coil won’t break off this machine like the 6kW.
I am surprised people doubted the gas pulsing/fuel feeding connection. I have to tie down my gas hose to keep it from jumping around. There is no question that that impulse is going all the way back to the fuel hopper.
Stephen
Hi Wood Gassers,
My newest sacrificial 4kW generator arrived today. It is one of these:
It looks like a well made little machine, especially for the money. I put it together and then started stripping off the parts I am changing. It lost the heat shields, muffler, air box, and gas tank. I am installing a small general purpose fuel tank instead of the five gallon model that came with it. I only want enough petrol onboard to start the engine, purge the carburetor, and warm up the O2 sensor. Hopefully I can put a 1/4 cup in the tank and have it all feed to the carburetor.
The first issue I ran into was the tank mounts. This engine does not have the standard GX200 tank support arms over the on/off switch. It has two little low profile threaded bosses so they don’t hit the large tank. I will just have to burn a bracket. It’s annoying but not the worst thing in the world. The other side of the tank seems standard. I looked at my other generators and changing the block for generator use seems to be a common thing.
The custom threaded exhaust manifold I have been working on installed perfectly. The exhaust was GX200 standard and the exit pipe ran perfectly parallel to the generator housing. I don’t see any problem installing the exhaust heat exchanger.
Once I get all the changes made I am going to baseline the running temperatures on gasoline and then switch over to wood.
Onward and upward.
Stephen
Give’r can’t wait to see how it works out for ya.
Hopefully she doesn’t fuss too badly so I can get that automixer up to you.
Hi Wood Gassers,
The new generator is just about ready to go to test:
The rest of the pics are here:
I have the NPT exhaust manifold mounted as well as the O2 sensor to FINALLY get back to the automixer. I am going to do a full load baseline on gasoline and then go to wood and see how they compare.
Stephen
Hi Wood Gassers,
Jim Hart will have his Gas Station Lite on display at Argos. Please stop by and say “Hi!”.
Stephen
Hi Wood Gassers,
I always seem to be looking for some typical numbers like my chip density when calculating fuel burn rates. I decided to make a page where I, and everyone else, can find it easily. Here it is:
I also did some quick math to show how many “Home Depot” pails of chips it takes to run a 5kW for a day. It’s not for the faint of heart or weak of back! It does drive home how much power we use as a society, however.
Stephen
Excellent. Excellent. StephenA.
A five gallon pail of chunked up raw wood will measure out to between 11 to 16 pounds depending on the wood chunked sizing, it’s species density (even limb versus sap wood in the same species) and of course it’s dryness. Mid-range between your listed chips and pellets.
I just fudge down to an effective engine power of 5000 BTU’s at best for every pound of fuel wood system used.
And that plunks it down to ~20 pounds of raw dried ckunked up wood fuel for each US gallon of gasoline substituted.
Mid-range of what the best raw wood fueled gasifier systems users are getting.
Yep. Yep. We are now modern energy greedy, indifferent, and spoiled/jaded.
Making/using wood for energy Real, daily is the sweat reality solution to this.
Keep you moving and healthy too.
Regards
Steve Unruh
Hi Steve,
I was REALLY hoping you were going to tell me you found a math error. Those consumption numbers are painful!
Stephen
Hi Stephen, yes the magic dino juice is powerful stuff when you have to go without… I don’t know about your site’s charcoal numbers though. We worked out about 12-14 lbs of charcoal per us gallon of gas. Still more wood then raw wood units but it was not a 1 to 1 comparison of wood to charcoal consumption. I think it is due to the energy content of the slip char that you don’t consume, then thermal energy you have to add to “crack” the complex gas, then the energy invested in removing the heat and the 10-15% co2 we reinject for more gas. You still win hands down for total wood consumed but the relationship is… Complex.
Best regards, David Baillie
Hi David,
No question!!..Those are “back of the envelope” calculations. Moisture alone could sway everything wildly. The point was only to show the folks that prepping a couple pails of chips wouldn’t be meaningful in a real emergency.
Stephen