Hi guy’s, sorry for starting a lot of threads here, but sooner or later i start my next gasifier build, and i want to share it
Im going to draw some parallells to my old Volvo build, and try to document how that gasifier evolved, as i see today how i could improved it a lot. (For example i believe a: Tone-nozzle had helped this gasifier, as it ran “constipated” most of the time)
As i mentioned my wife gave her old Volvo 740 1991 to me, and im going to woodgas it.
First thing im going to make it ready for inspection, when it passes that i got 2 years to play with woodgas on it
So, first is going to be just boring stuff about making it road legal.
Some years ago i replaced the rusty brake lining because i got a inspection remark, i put on copper lining, never rust, but instead it get extremely stuck in the fittings.
Hi Göran, I’m looking forward to this build and to your improvements you have planned.
Also curious to if you are ending up with a trunk build or an ’outside build’, style of gasifier.
Fun fun fun
Hi Johan and JO, and thanks.
My thoughts so far is a gasifier unit hanging in the back, with easy to lift of possibilities, and a hot filter in the trunk.
I havent decided yet if there is going to be a cooler directly in front of the gasifier and plastic piping up front, or metal piping up front, and a cooler (with 2 extra lights mounted on it, in that case it becomes a additional lightning holder, not a added piece that mess with regulations )
Goran, don’t be harsh if I ask a slightly provocative question about whether we will be witnesses
the “new” style of gasifier, or the “old” proven technology? I am still thinking about some details that I would like to simplify or improve, well, I look forward to your posts.
Hi Tone, im glad you asked, thats why i started this thread.
The answer? To be honest with you i have no idea how the gasifier would be…
I got some ideas (a lot) but i also want something pretty simple, a fast build to get it running on wood.
Some ideas: easy to disassemble, for improvements and experimenting.
Mostly cheap scrap, not so much of my precious stainless, probably fuel hopper in stainless, and filter housing.
And, i got some war-time hearth’s i maybe would improve and use…
Further ideas and fantasies will follow… im looking forward at input.
(So, sorry, no new, secret, ideas…or?)
The closes vehicle i have owned to a valvo- was one of my first vehicles was an old 4 door i think but it was a simca ,i think it was german or from that side of the pond. Smooth running motors. GOOD luck with your new project- I dont have any experiance with small car builds–so i will be watching and learning from your small car gasifier building GROUP- THANKS for posting your build.
Well now that you are fixed on a vehicle specific . . .
are you going to declare the intended wood fuel type and form that you will design for?
Regards
Steve Unruh
Hi and thanks Kevin, Simca you say? I never thought they showed up in America, but when i looked it up, actually Chrysler bought the French company Simca in the 1950-60s. I haven’t seen a Simca since i was a kid, at that time they was called Simca-Talbot, after Chrysler sold it to Peugeot.
Hi SteveU, more good questions, as far i’ve planned im going to build it for chunks, my “favourite mix” mostly birch, with conifer mixed in.
On this build im going with smaller chunks than the Chevy, im also thinking about a more “active” grate, where all gasses have to pass the grate for evenly distribution over the area.
This will need some kind of grate cleaning/shaker, just in case, and im still considering Tones bottom nozzle, maybe with a valve for regulating.
On my old Volvo build i ended up with a hearth where oxidation zone/reduction zone ratio was wrong (to small volume of reduction zone) versus the big oxidation zone. This gave me a very stable, and reliable gasifier, with the big charcoal reserve, and wide oxidation zone, almost no bridging problems.
But it ran clogged “constipated” all the time, low maximum power, and always high vacuum.
By Tones results, i wonder how a bottom nozzle had worked in that gasifier? When i used it, i would never tried, oxygen in the reduction zone? A big NO-NO,
thanks to Tone the evolution of gasifiers are still going on.
Goran, the last few days we have been talking a lot, … well, here we will start right away in the heart of the gasifier,… You state that your previous Volvo had a wide oxidation zone, which forms a lot of pyrolysis gases and a large supply of coal, but it worked with high vacuum, I already noticed such signs with the first gasifier and also with the gasifier on Fergi, which bothered me a lot. The experiment with the lower nozzle eliminated the “clogging” and the gasifier breathes easily, I admit that it would be good to have a specially adjustable opening for the air supply to the lower nozzle, but think about it, here we are talking about a hole diameter of 5-6 mm, if you work in a narrower 4 mm is sufficient for the area. The hottest hearth, or the hearth with the least heat losses, is in the shape of a sphere, if we now transfer this to an oval shape, we get a hearth whose diameter or the distance between the nozzles is equal to the distance from the nozzles to the bottom, this is also my starting point, this is how I intend to build the gasifier with the same diameter from the top to the floor, the diameter will be approx. 35-40 cm, height 1m, below, a narrowing tube with a diameter of 20-25 cm, with a height of 10 cm and raised 2-3 cm from the floor,… but this is my way.
Very interesting Tone, can you post a sketch? You don’t need to reveal any secrets.
About a spherical hearth i’ve thought about it, i got a extremely sturdy hydraulic pressure vessel (rated 400 bar) i’ve thought about cutting up and use, but it’s little on the smaller side.
If i remember correctly the war-time gasifier Czech made “Janka” used a spherical hearth, im going to look at that.
These gasifiers was popular because they run on almost everything, various chunk sizes, peat and chips, without much trouble.
The war ended the production, and the spare parts supply, so they are not mentioned in later publications.
Cant lift that one very high on the rack, it will be a ceiling toucher! I wonder what suspension modifications have been done, I am amazed it is not in tail dragger mode with that giant system behind the tire centerline
This Volvo looks like it could do a wheelie take off pretty easy by lifing the front wheels off the ground.
Airport ladder? No you just step up on the front bumper and hood and get up on the roof rack grab a bag of wood and put the wood into the hopper from the roof of the Volvo, no ladder needed. This does look like a long milage vehicle.
OK thanks GORAN-french car rings a bell-all i can remember is that it was a long and skinny body style,4 banger engine packed in it. I wish i could remember the year it was,probley around a 1962 to 1966.
The first part of this heating season will be using up the remaining half rotten, fungi growing somewhat bugs nests of a been down for at least four years on the ground, big old cottonwood tree that came “free” when we bought this property.
The worst bug sections and fungi growing split-outs going into the still filling raised bed planter boxes.
As can be seen even the half weight now sections can still make energy releasing heating and whole house warming.
The widest raw woods portions fuel wood input has always been my insistence in an engine powering woodgasifer system.
Many have been offended when I have walked-away, read-away from intentionally narrow wood fuel form, and species gasifiers systems.
No GEKS, no Drizzlers, no JonasA’s, or anyone else’s chipped feed systems have any interest to me. Too fuel form specific, picky, to be of any useable practical interest to me.
My INSISTENCE that an engine fueling gasifier must be to do the range of site harvestable wood forms I can woodstove with.
Ha! And this is not just me. Anyone with any sense of practicality using their own properties grown woods. Not off-site and bought out wood.
Steve Unruh
Yes, SteveU, it’s about my thinking too, i need a gasifier thats not picky with fuel, it’s ok if it runs somewhat not perfect on 100% light fast grown conifer, or 100% very hard wood, as long it takes me where i want. Can’t be built for perfect, uniform wood.
And as i know myself, not a perfectionist, a little lazy sometimes, i need a forgiving gasifier.
Had a discussion with a friend/neighbor last weekend, he is a real inventor, powers his house on 24 volt solar, everything controlled by arduinos. But, he always propagates for wood pellets, and drizzlers, i told him i could like put on two double throat weber carburetors, and fill it up with 106 octane racing fuel.
He replied that wood pellets could be made at home, and i agreed, if i had free power, like hydro-turbines, or like.
Well, about heating, same here, i got about 2m3 of rotten aspen wood, cut and split, in so bad state i can crumble it with my fingers…
People laugh at me, and keep telling me it’s better to bury that sh*t, it’s got no heating value.
Well, i burn my better wood, till i get a good bed of glow, stuff the stove with rotten aspen, and: it burns and heat my house… why not? I can’t tell a difference if the fresh wood gives more cosy heat?
My winter pile of firewood this year has about two - two and a half full cords of aspen and birch that has been lying as logs a bit too long and become a bit soft with fungi and such. But it still has heating value but not as much as the rest but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth burning, the work to cut the tree down and brought home had already been put in and why not take advantage of that (as long as it still holds shape and integrity when it is split and doesn’t turn to mush it goes in my firewood pile).
As Göran says, you don’t feel a different heat when you burn it.
And as Steve says it still gives heat and a warm house.
If you have it, use it.
Perhaps better to use half bad wood for heating rather than gasifying an engine though.
)
I believe it shows signs of Finnish design.
