Yeah I kind of suspected I could have trouble with them being in woodgas 100% of the time, now I know, another lesson learned. latter, herb
Yippie, The Caddy is on the road again. I donât have the new fans yet so I started the engine, wedged a stick on accelerator for a fast idle, poked a hole down to grate in left over wood/char, jammed the torch down in there and soon there was that âglowing char ballâ, right after that the engine began to run rich and soon choked so I turned switch off, smoke started bellowing out of hopper while I loaded it up with fuel. I closed lid and took off and soon shut fuel pump off, a bit latter I shut injectors off and it was running all woodgas, had a nice ride. I hadnât started it that way for a long time but it worked just fine, nice to have it running again! latter,herb
Hi Phil Covey, you e-mailed me wanting to know more about how I did the intake and asked how the woodgas entered the intake stream. Here are some pics I took of it today. If you have any other questions just ask them here, I donât check e-mails very often. latter, herb
First pic is just an overview
2 is just in closer, you may notice âpop offâ on top of metal canister, used to be plastic until I blew it up one test run.
3 closer in, starting to show where 2" vac hose comes in to intake runner
4 close up of 2" line from gasifier, there are two controls, one for fresh air inside of stock runner, one for open and close for gasifier
On the last one you see two levers and two 1/8" shafts, one is in runner coming from stock filter controlling fresh air, the other one is from gasifier. It doesnât look like it but they are both the same size, 2" butterflys
Herb, You inspired me to build a bicycle powered drop hammer. And then, even weirder, a foot stomping robotic arm and hatchet. Check it out
www.youtube.com/watch?v=9klWTHPUgok&edit=vd /www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcxoJ7bfyAM
John
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Way to go John, that is very cool!!! Sounds like you made it heavy enough to do the job. herb
Necessity the mother of invention.
With enough time and a need , man can build anything!
Thanks for posting John
Thanks Patrick
Nice videos John , like the old saying Work Smarter Not Harder âŚLittle bit of thinking and everyday stuff can be made to make hard jobs easier âŚ
Nice job John!
See if you rig it up so you can stomp with either foot - gotta save wear and tear on that right knee. Maybe procure an old weight-lifting machine from your local high school athletic department and use the âleg pressâ functionality to work both feet simultaneously.
John S.: Most âMad Scientistsâ are really just âMad Engineersâ but you are more accurately a Mad Engineer. Terrifying but awesome.
Hey John, what did you use for the âhammerâ itself? Did you weld a hatchet head to a shaft?
How much âstrokeâ does it have?
What is hammer dropping on after it splits cookie? How are you cutting your cookies?
latter, herb PS I know I have a lot of questions, thatâs how Iâve gotten so smart. haha
Herb, the hammer is just the head of an eight pound splitting maul I found in my junk. Itâs simply bolted through the hole in the head through the square tube arm with a 3/4" threaded rod. The stroke is in an arc, I suppose about three feet long. The head accelerates rapidly due to a pully arrangement at the elbow and the garage door spring pulling down on just above elbow. The hammer drops onto a big old stump. I cut my cookies with a chainsaw.
Herb, I just realised you were asking about the bicycle powered drop hammer⌠In that case, an other eight pound spliting maul head is bolted to the end of a 3" shaft about two feet long(I forgot how I did that). I have it rigged with two possible strokes. One is about two feet, the other is maybe three feet. They both come in handy. On that one, the blade runs into an elm cookie sitting on top of a 6x6 standing on concrete. If youâre wondering how the stump stands up to the abuse or why the blade doesnâ tget stuck in it, the answer is that almost all of my energy is spent chopping through the cookie and not much left to affect the chopping block.
Did you make a video of your roll-up cookie cutter? Anyway, I really appreciate your inspiration. I really needed it. My arm was hurting.
John S.
Cleaned ashes out today and wanted to share this.
Aluminum has a characteristic that I havenât heard talked about here and I think it is something that a lot of us could use on our units.
Aluminum âreflects heatâ, itâs used all over in industry now days, motorcycles and cars shield exhaust with it, they put it in attics to reflect heat back up and out, NASA discovered it way back and now used many many places all over our world.
I use it in my gasifier in 5 different places to control heat! One place is ash door. I took some pics putting it back together today. Before I started using that thin âheat shieldâ the red 600 degree sealer would melt, thatâs why you see several layers of red sealer on lid, with heat shield it holds up just fine.
Pic 1 is ash door at bottom of lower drum with heat shield and spring loaded âpuffer lidâ
pic2 has heat shield installed in opening
pic3 shows spring loaded lid installed
Hey Herb,
that a real cool spring puffer set up. until now I could not tell how those things worked. Very unique. Keep those photos of your system coming!
Denny Mullins
Howdy Herb,
Aluminum Eh?
Great idea! Thatâs a lot simpler than what I had been planning.
Thanks!
TerryL
Yeah Denny and Terry, thatâs one of those things we all know but seldom think about. It does have to be pure aluminum, aluminum foil and the like wonât do the trick because itâs a large part tin, then it becomes a conductor of heat instead of a reflector of heat. I think aluminum melts about 1000-1300 degrees, depending on mass, so we do have to remember that!!!
I lined the inside of my shop with it years ago, you can buy it in rolls 4â wide by 250â long (1000sq.ft.) You wouldnât believe how much faster it warms up in there because itâs like being in a aluminum box and all the heat keeps reflecting back inside!!! Just one of those things, they make space suits out of it for a reason!!! Fine Chefs wrap hot potatoes in it, the list goes on and on, it works. latter, herb.
Took more pics while I was cleaning things up and putting together.
pic1 first popoff/cleanout from grate at beginning of cooler, 3" round, gets hot, needs alumium heat shield, it is installed in pic,it has melted red gaskets in the past w/o heat shield installed.
pic2 spring loaded 3" lid/pop off installed, there are 4 of these, two on front, two on back. That makes 5 counting ash door with heat shield
pic3 hay filter cleanout, cool enough doesnât need heat shield, one of these in bottom of each hay filter
pic4 spring loaded lid/pop off installed
last pic added for location clarity
Good stuff HerbH.
Keep it coming.
Regards
Steve Unruh
That is destined to become a classic design in bumper mount gassers! I love the symmetry.
Hi everyone, had some fun yesterday, Iâve had Caddy in shop last few days looking things over. I had taken all the wood out and most of the char down about 6" below nozels just to see how things were holding up. I had it all back together and it was time for my favorite thing, a Saturday morning ride. My fans stopped working (my fault) and Iâve been starting it different ways just for fun. Iâm using Caddy fuel/wood for heat in my shop stove now days, had a hot fire going in stove so I rolled Caddy out and shoveled burning wood chunks and red hot char in on top of what was still in bottom of fire tube, put some wood on top of that. Closed lid and started engine on gas pulling though gasifier and within seconds engine started running rich, switched off fuel pump and it was running on wood. I still had injectors on but soon switched them off. That is the fastest Iâve ever got it running on wood, wasnât even out of driveway! Made a couple of passes up and down main and came back in for more wood. . Ended up driving around till middle afternoon giving rides and stuff, it was a blast!!! latter, herb
Yes Herb it is fun.
Wife asked why I was going to the coffee shop this morning when we had plenty of coffee here at the house . " Because it is 25 miles there and back !!! "
HWWT