Amen to that Steve. I guess Mr. Haynes taught me all I know about auto mechanics. Awesome books, take all the mystery out of any mechanical systems, literally complete tear downs. Great wiring schematics too.
Incidentally, old manuals and European stuff can be found on Awesome books ( the company) from the UK, excellent selection and service.
Saad you can just purchase the book on Amazon.
Sorry, that would be a copy right violation. Not to mention that the file is lost somewhere on an old storage device. Much better to have the paper version, In my opinion.
Way better. And time resistent too.
I think there are a lot of Ben Peterson videos on youtube. Not an easy build.
Last week I ordered his plans. It doesnt look to complicated. It is designed for small engines. It is advised to start with charcoal in it and if you get some experience you can switch over to wood. I think it fits my plans very nicely. Making charcoal is one extra step in less efficiency, you get the ease of use for that in return. It is a proven concept, so if it is not working the way it should it is clearly your own mistake. I like it.
Thats actually false and misconception. Charcoal is actually more efficient and less steps not more. You lose energy running your processor, lose energy in waste yield, energy in drying process and 30% in the gasification process. This all adds up to more than a 50% loss of your gross feed stock. Charcoal you can easily achieve a 50% yield and Ive done way better than this up to 70%. You are not spending tons of time processing you only need to size fuel to fit your kiln process, this is way .less time involved. A charcoal gasifier spends less than 10% energy in process and you get 20% energy density back with your water drip. Use your kiln for heat, hot water and plastics to diesel and its FAR more efficient. Spend your time building more advanced kiln processors.
Steps to process for direct gasification:
Steps for Charcoal:
Run a chipper with a gasifier and you will learn very quickly its not all that efficient If you are running a small engine then you are going to be running a small chipper. Small Chipper equals small feed stock = lots of time prepping fuel for it, along with limitations of what can be used. Small chipper produces a lot of fines lots of un usable waste. These guys with chunkers and saw mills have good systems but unless you have this type of set up small engine for stationary power will not be practical and tar will be a problem at some point. NO amount of tar should ever be allowed inside an engine it will destroy the rings in a heart beat.
Please note I am referring to small engine stationary power not DOW or WK gasifier. Thats a whole different animal and at much larger scale. Small engines if over loaded will not sustain combustion temps in any gasifier I dont care how good it is. Fuel flows will be a challenge and as soon as any of the internal processes are allowed to fall out of operating parameters the damage is done.
I spent ten years avoiding charcoal and had good technology. I had success and I had failures, and so has every company in this space. I finally actually tried charcoal it took me less than a month to completely drop raw fuel direct systems. This is ten years of extremely fast rapid development and probably well over a million dollars spent in this time frame. Looking back I have no clue how I even managed it was absolutely nuts how fast things evolved. I went from a garage operation to a huge commercial building grossing $300k a year in less than year. `One month experimenting with charcoal has changed my path forward forever. Until you have done both and successfully you then only have your perception and its most likely false.
To those that may not know, Ben is the creator of this book and there is a fellow that has inferior plans and kits basically copying his work.
Wow I didn’t know that, thanks for the heads up.
Edit: watching the video now, I can’t believe this guy took your automation design.
That is a subject Id rather stay away from. Yeah I dont have anything nice to say about him, so Ill keep that to myself. Its way over his head so I have nothing to fear anyways.
Edit: Just to be clear, these systems were sold at cost not exactly given to him. Development wise yes but system wise no and this was a developmental project.
Try watching his video on YouTube.
Then read the comments.
MattR and I have put up very detailed comments there.
It seems whenever I bring up the name of Ben Peterson here on the DOW the Haters come out pitchforks and torches to burn witches.
It is just a DYI INTENDED; all-weld-up woodgasifer. With a book on how to get it fabbed up. How to operate it. How to integrate it onto gasoline/propane electrical generators primarily.
This intense Hate has been a real puzzler to me.
Hate of BenP.? For maturing, evolving, and changing?
Or hate of Steve Unruh? Because I will not change my wooden headed ways?
Steve Unruh
I’ve never had a negative opinion of Ben, the fact he’s willing to sell his heavily detailed plans and guide on a mass website like Amazon, and willing to update the design for better performance instead of saying “it’s fine the way it is, deal with it!”. Wayne has made many improvements on his design and it’s documented in Premium, I count that as published work since it’s included with the book.
Ben could have just rested on his laurels and sold Gen 1 manufacturing rights to someone that would just scalp consumers.
I don’t blame Ben trying to open more avenues of income like his PayPal Q&A, which is really more or less a way to keep track of questions and also eliminate lowest common denominators pestering his email inbox.
Ben also will be the first to say it wasn’t just his project and had a lot of help, endorsing Steve Unruh for example.
Some see us as we just have something to sell and financial gain is all we care about I thinks. Instead of seeing us simply as fellow developers. Ive been here long enough, those here I think or at least hopefully see me that way. What some may not see, is all the hours, hard work and finances that went into what we develop and all for a niche market with wild swings. lol For every success there many many failures getting there. We fulfill a market that had no one to fill it before. What’s cool is we all offer something just a little different.
I like your style Steve you tell it like you see it. To me it is just the same old story of I love Dodges and I do not like Fords type of thinking. Everyone has their favorite. Wait one minute here both companies produce great automobiles and that is a fact.
Ben’s book makes a very nice gasifier if you follow the book’s plans and it works. And this is a fact. I am looking forward to seeing more in the vehicles DOW. Lots of these units are generating power for off grid and for emergency use.
The WK Gasifier was designed for vehicles primarely but it can be used for generation too. Both the Imbert and it’s improvements and WK Gasifier are proven to work well.
What about the DARKSIDE yup charcoal gasifiers all different types have a place too. They work well also.
Bob
@SteveUnruh
I am writing this just so Steve’s narrative doesn’t seem like some kind of one sided old man’s rant.
Long before the DOW site. Long before the Yahoo Woodgas group. I belonged to a group called Biodiesel Infopop.cc. At that site, I met Maria Alovert (Girl Mark). She designed the Appleseed biodiesel processor. She taught a lot of people how to make fuel. She rented space in an old shipyard in the SF Bay area. Her land lord was this semi abusive self promoter named Jim Mason. She didn’t have many good things to say about him. Jim went on to form a company selling the GEK. If you didn’t have contact with Doug Williams, Tom Reed, Dutch John, Greg Manning or the inhabitants of the Yahoo Woodgas group, then you had little choice but to deal with Jim Mason and his GEK.
Jim had an agenda. He was always promoting his GEK, and channeling the narrative to fit his desired outcome. The atmosphere surrounding him appeared congenial, but it was all pretense and stage craft. His tech sucked. I could see the agenda and the big show all the way from over here.
Ben Peterson went down to visit All power Labs and reviewed the GEK. Jim ranted that Ben was on a spying mission, and was stealing his design. Ben did a review of the GEK, and laid out all it’s flaws. He did a good job. He pointed out a lot of the problems that I had been asking Jim about, but never had answered. Jim would never take the time to acknowledge criticism. He hated Ben’s public flogging of his product.
I have always given great credit to Ben Peterson for having the bravery to standup and call out Jim Mason, while everyone else was kissing Jim’s ring.
So Steve, it’s not you. I have always liked and respected Ben. I always had loved those beautiful stainless gas producers…it was like the Europeans had set up shop here in the US.
Steve, I don’t get a “hater” feeling here. The people on this site follow good etiquette. If Mr. Wayne or Mr. Chris are promoting something, its pretty subtle. I have never seen evidence of someone leaving with their hair on fire. Anyhow, this is a good place to be.
I hope that my mention of the ULTIMATE wood gasifier on the cover of Ben’s books wasn’t taken as a criticism of him. I don’t know enough about wood gas systems to criticize or even offer a opinion of anyone’s work. I just like seeing people exploring options and not getting locked into a box. Ben went into my hall of fame when he was TIG’ing using the force in one video. I do feel that some people I have seen on line and even in older posts here owe Gary Gilmore an acknowledgement when they build something that is obviously based on his early designs. I also think that Matt deserves a lot of credit for keeping us informed of his different design R and D. That is rare for a person running a business like his.
Yes BruceJ. you speak the truth there about real events that did happen.
And this created the first wave of Ben Peterson haters.
I was one of those early GEKkers. I’d commissioned buying a GEK II weld-up parts kit; BUT only if it could be supplied with all of the flat flanged and tube cuts in either 304 or 316 stainless. I fed in ideas to improve/fix the GEK I and II faults.
It took them over a year to fulfill that order. In the mean time I sought out and met two regional fellow with GEK’s in carbon steel welded up and assembled. Asked to visit and help them learn to operate them. A real up-from-from-just-reading-about-it, to on-hands self-training about gasifier char-beds, weak blowers, too wet of wood fuels, etc.
And then one Yahoo forum correspondent regional to me had to go out of country and wanted me to take his place at a Ben Peterson BBQ gasifier show at a county park.
Me. The known GEKker. Ben and his wife, and their families were very accommodating to us all, regardless.
And me, helping to on-spot sort out, always, live-presentation difficulties led to him asking me to come up and work with him. As his electrician, motors and engine man. I was O.K. But turns out I was better as a trouble shooting Operator. Later, on his own Social Network; I daily contributed and light moderated.
I did finally get my GEK II kit in SS. They were already onto improved GEKIII’s. My lasting GEK influence was forcing upped into the 21 Century with their mostly SS units then. Woodgas: as has well proven historically, and now again, will from the insides out kill carbon steels in hundreds, to a low thousands of hours with it’s upper system produced strong acids. And the lower system side produced a strong base Ph bias. No. SS was never for thermal erosions “better”. In place forming, ash slope do the very best affordably for that.
And then it was I (and a few others) pulling BenP. up from carbon steel into 21st century, SS too.
Two-three reasons there for me to collect my own following of Haters.
Me. The SHTF; true rural living, kinnda’ guy. Irritant to numbering/calculating geeks; Eco’s, and Futurists.
Later there were other attracted and asked to help out in BenP’s two different Victory GasWorks shops.
Eco-biased John-John. Was the modern electronics guy, machinist. And all around optimistic cheerful fellow. Counter balancing my short-hair, dry, graveyard humors.
A couple of three different guys who did welding and assembling. Roustabout work at presentations.
Later on a warehouse working fellow was supping the majority of the cut woods chunks from shipping pallets. Ben and I doing the raw woods fuels working up.
And a been quiet now; DOW member Chris Seymour. Historian. Promoter. Charcoal-tier. And BIG bio-mass systems advocate. He’d done his own small systems trialing works previously.
Later set up his own company for BIG systems. 50kW, 100kW and I think even 200kW all SS systems. For big stationary Cat? gaseous engines.
None of us ever stole or passed on VictoryGas works proprietary. That was income for BenP and his family. We others all had day-jobs.
We moved on; and it was understood if we build; it had to be out of our own designs.
Within months of Ben’s later published out book; intended for propane and air tanks carbon steel DIY building and using . . . a DOW member here found and posted up here a direct copy-cat book system being made up and sold on the internet out of India.
And now offgrid48 with his self-promoted V-3 named changes made to BenP’s book system. To be serial manufactured. Appropriating the book’s copywriting protections.
One other element BenP might disclose (or not) to this story that was the final straw that finally put him over the edge with this guy.
Steve unruh
Yes i have many of them haynes car repair books/ though not as detailed as vehicle specific shop manuals/ i have made many repairs using those electrical skimatics/ECT mechanicle repairs, USING HAYNES manuals. 
Mr Steve, I see no haters for Ben. Just like Mr Wayne he is an icon in this world. Encouraging DIY and help in operation. Very, very nice book he sells.