Yeah Patrick those bent fins are holding that lite weight galvanized metal up about 1" from gutter and out from the bottom of other fins about an inch which makes a nice gap all the way around for gas/stream to recirulate back into wood hopper area, it does have to fight it’s way though the other fins, accept the ones that are bent back for inner skin holding duties, but I’m hoping that will help separate water out at this “cooler spot” that can run back into gutter.
Sounds like your system is pulling water out pretty good. Are you back to running your gasifier most of the time? herb
Galvanized chicken wire does not hold up well to anything woodgas. I was lucky to have a fella in Florida mail me some stainless screening. … Herb, I don’t think we will find any condensate anywhere the next several days. brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr… MINUS 24 Tuesday morning and nothing above zero the next few days. How is the wind at your place ??? Looks like you are getting slammed … Mike
Hello Mike, I’m sitting here watching Columbo listening to the wind howl, supposed to get down right vicious here tonight and tomorrow, I’ll be glad when spring gets here!
What do you do for condensate collection in your hopper?
Better throw another blanket on the bed tonight! See ya, herb
Hi Herb
Modifying my hopper in to a larger one to get more hours between fill ups, at the same time have gone with the conventional monorator design as in the article. With a single gutter at the bottom on the overhang.was thinking of extra cooling pipes like Wayne’s design, but that can be for the next up grade. I may have to put a fan blowing on to the hopper as I don’t have the air flow a vehicle has to cool and condense the moisture in the hopper.
Thank patrick
Yeah each set-up presents it’s own set of challenges doesn’t it, I’m glad to hear you are going to try the monorator design, makes sense to me getting that gas/steam as far removed from the action the better so it can cool off and settle out. That will be interesting to see how that works especially with your moister laden fuel/wood situation.
I don’t know much about what goes on inside the hopper when operating. The way I get it there is a plume of heat coming up from reaction zone, how much flow I don’t know, that works it’s way up though fuel/wood gathering moister then hits top reflects off to sides following contour of inside hopper going down along sides depending on what’s there. I can’t see it wanting to go down at that point so the only thing that would move it down would be the force from behind but without a solid inner wall seems like it would swirl instead of go down walls. It never accurred to me to make the inner skin out of anything but solid material until I saw Carl’s and what he had done. That may be the way to go, I just thought we wanted to keep walls of hopper as cool as possible but as long as hopper has fuel in it the wood itself does that. You drilled 3/4 holes around the bottom of your inner liner but it looks like mesh in your pic, Is that mesh or solid material. In a state of wonderment, herb
Herb, I use the same preheated air that I run to my nozzles to heat the lower section of the hopper.The upper part of my hopper is just bare metal with a gutter just a few inches from the top. I have a flat lid (hidden under the apparently curved lid) and the condensation forms readily on it and with all the convection gets pushed out to the gutter. I think most of my pictures of the last build run from 10/24/10 to 1/10/11 http://www.intergate.com/~mlarosa/images/woodgas/?M=D http://www.intergate.com/~mlarosa/images/woodgas/monorator-tank.jpg
I didn’t have a camera when I built this unit and I didn’t want people duplicating things until I tested it. I had so many people try to build a double rotor unit but they would always think they were smarter and would change a few things and then after having troubles would blame their failures on me. I made my gutter out of the outside of a tire rim. I had to cut it a bit short and then set it in my tank top just below the bung you see in the pictures. I just brazed tacked it in about 4 places and then put a bead of RTV to seal it to the tank. It has held up well. Every few hundred miles I scrape the tar out of it with the poker and put it back in with the wood and burn it up.My tank valve plugs up from time to time so I have to run a rod up through it. Next one I will use a larger diameter ball valve. I couldn’t find a picture of my gutter but there is probably one somewhere or maybe one of the guys took one in 2 years at Argos ??? Mike
Lots of really great pictures Mike, very informative, thanks for posting them.
I’m trying to figure out gas/smoke/steam, hopefully no oxygen, movement inside a working hot hopper. With all of your experience building and operating these things over the years would you write your idea of what is going on in there? I know air is being pulled in though nozzels and fuel igniting changing to gas/smoke/steam going down though hot char and on down though the system but what is happening from nozzels upward? I know the action varies with how hard the gasifier is being pulled also, lots going on. If anyone else would like to share please do. herb
Hi Herb, Typing with frozen fingers today. Wayne’s units have a bowl shaped combustion / cracking zone. Mine is pretty near planar (horizontal). Approaching wood will first release it’s water and then after that it will start cooking off the wood tars and turpentine and the such and begin to turn into charcoal. This all rises quickly to the lid of the hopper through the wood column and then billows and follows the sidewalls back down. Then it gets back to the nozzle area and is drawn into the inferno for the usual reactions to take place. Along the way the gutters on the sidewalls catch some of the water and bad stuff that is condensed out on the lid or assisted by the extra cooling tubes… I am a lousy welder so try to get this done as simply as possible. Wayne can literally throw wet wood in his hopper. I try to use dry wood but can handle a little bit of moisture …Well that’s chapter one. I need to put my mittens back on …Mike
Excellent explaining for the realities of whats happening MikeL.
I’ll be waiting for your chapter two. You say better with less words than me.
Herb exactly what MikeL described could be seen in gasifier hoppers with domed glass lids back around 2008/09 in the VictoryGasWorks Shop.
Startling the amount of “raining down” with wood fuels anywhere above 15% moisture.
Showed very well the need to have underside lid doming/sloping enough to NOT have lid underside collecting and COOLING then raining back down into the center wood fuel. Needs to be sloped ourwards and IF then upper gutter collected AND removed you get your best/cheapest system Heat energy cost for this removal. VesaM domes his lids - see his vidio. He even innner insulates his domed lid to prevent cooling/condensation here and force it more out to his upper collection gutter - get and read his book.
What I see Wayne doing differetly is his combining of an upper system with a lower gutter collection styems is to double up on the collection and removal.
Very, very sophisticated, evolving, and effective.
He is DOing in-system wood fuel moisture removal better than A-N-Y-O-N-E else in the world A-N-Y-W-H-E-R-E. Period.
And the measurable proof of this is the gross amounts of condensates he is collecting out at the hopper/hearth areas and draining.
It is WHERE he is getting them.
Condensates out of the PRODUCED gas cooling racks and filters have paid a much higher system Heat energy price to get there.
Really the only energy in a woodgasifier we are sending to the engine is a product of the gasifier hearth HEAT energy.
This heat energy then chemically stored and to the engine delivered. Thermalchemical process. Any heat enegy Not chemical stored and to the engine delivered is an ineffencency.
A 100% efficient heat engine; or a 100% efficient battery would get colder with use. Not warm up and get hotter as they actually do.
2 Cents update. I talked with Herb yesterday on the telephone. His computer is in the computer hospital so he can only read things at the library right now. I just thought I would post this to get his Caddy back near the top so folks don’t forget. IMHO he is one of the most enthusiastic folks right now and shares near everything. Side Note, David S took his for a drive the other day with new grate setup and dump out door. Also has a timing control on his toyota now. Gung Ho … He didn’t put enough wood in for a real drive so ran things below the nozzles. He’s way too conservative so give him an ars chewing if you can. Awaiting more snow tonight here … The salt bath continues … Poor old black truck. Hope we get a good thaw soon so I can torture it some more … It’s been a while. It has a foot of solid snow in the back right now. I won’t run the red S-10 until this snow crap is done. It’s sweet … BBB/SWEM, Mike L
Thanks Magne, Mike and “always wet wood” SteveU for the info on what happens above nozzles, very interesting. Mike thanks to you for the “2 cents update”. After about 2 weeks I got my computer back and i"m waiting for chapter 2.
Shortly after I posted the “outhouse drier” pics I started running the cow patty splitter and all of a sudden a loud POP, my 20 plus year old wheel barrel tire decided to BLOW OUT! It was time to redo, it needed some other changes too so I did that, got it done and working again, gave it more stroke, opened up the frame so split fuel could slip out the back better, will post pics latter. thanks, herb.
Good Saturday morning everyone, we are half way through February now and soon we will be Marching out of Winter, man am I ready!!!
Took some pictures of my revised “cow patty splitter” yesterday. About the 4th or 5th time I redo something it comes out kind of like I first hoped it would have!
This time It has more stroke, about 12". I widened out the frame so the split pieces have more room to slip out the back and slide down shut to wheel barrel. Had to buy a new motor, old one went up in smoke, it was wore out to start with. The new one is only a 1/3 hp. The wheel and tire are the spare out of the Caddy! It still drops about one time per second but with a lot more momentum and therefore more force! Works pretty good. Video out soon! latter, herb
Everyone living north of the Mason-Dixon line deserves a “tuff man” award. Looks good Herb, even in the snow! Fixing it now will mean trouble free miles lated.
Thanks Wes and Patrick, I think I finally have my fuel processing under control. After I got done splitting I shoveled all of the chunks into the drier and shot some heat to it. I know it’s really driving the moister out of it because I can see vapor coming out of the roof when the conditions are right, tried to get a picture of that but it didn’t show up good enough. It was only about 20 degrees when I took that picture so it warms up pretty good in there. Hopefuly you can see the temp inside on that last pic. latter, herb
