10-05-2013 Gasifier "How to construct" ...Video Three

[@flash001USA]

I don't know about teaching but making these videos have been a good learning experience for me too.

[@cameronassociates6699]

I am completing my modification on my gasification unit today. I really got refreshed watching some of your "how to construct " videos. I believe that I am now set to make my system work better.Regards Flash, you are a good guy.

[@lukeFugate]

great video as always. The baffel idea is great, that explains why the top two pipes on my cooler get warm but not the bottom two. All your videos have helped me tremendously. Thanks for all your effort.

[@guzman-do]

Excellent series. Very informative. I just found out about wood gasifiers while looking for information on incinerators. Thanks for posting.

[@jj01a]

That is some slick stuff brother. I greatly appreciate you taking the time putting these on video.

[@flash001USA]

I plan on constructing a second set of pipes down the road and I'll use one of those stubby fat propane tanks that you use for the Coleman lamps and my idea is to place the pipes in a circle around the bottom of the stubby tank then run the gas dead center of the top of the tank. This will guarantee an even flow thru all of the pipes. I probably could use just one tank and slice it in half and make bottoms for the halves out of scrap steel I have laying around.

[@flash001USA]

With a big enough gasifier maybe but they really don't put out as much heat as you would think because the ember bed is concentrated into a small tight area so even though they do produce heat, it's not that much. People see a gasifier and they think of a wood stove. They produce just enough heat to break the wood down into gas and biochar. I hope that helps answer your question.

[@flash001USA]

Shooter use the "How to" videos as a guide. Unfortunately I don't have detailed videos with exact measurements but if you watch the videos you can do a spin off from them with no problems. I just finished the final "How to" video tonight and this will also be a big help too. Before I forget, I did make a PDF of the tri-filters with all of the measurements included and that download link can be found on the tri-filter construction video description.

[@flash001USA]

I'll clean the filter after a 4 hour run and I'm actually working on a much simpler filter design that will make things even simpler if it works. As to sharing my work, there are very few on youtube that are showing the details on their gasifiers so I'm just trying to help others by making my build open source even if it isn't perfect. Once I feel really comfortable with my build I may actually sit down and write a PDF manual up but that will be down the road.

[@flash001USA]

There are a million good ideas out there. All Power Labs uses the engine exhaust heat in the manner you are suggesting. For now, I'm getting good gas so I'll leave everything alone but that isn't written into stone so you never know.

[@IrrelevantOne]

lmao dude when you drop that pipe in, "That's tits." that's so funny it made me home sick. You owe me the coffee I spat out.

[@flash001USA]

No problem. This is what it's all about. I've got one more "how to" video to make and I'll show everybody the best way to start the gasifier up for a clean burn.

[@flash001USA]

I haven't kept up with all of the cost but it's not that bad. The 55 gallon barrel was either $18 or $20 bucks and the rim for the fire cone was $15 bucks so the only cost in the job was investing in the oxy/acetylene torch and the mig welder and my time. The those tools have already paid for themselves when I repaired the cutting deck on my riding lawnmower.

[@dan1960100]

Great job bro very detailed thumbs up

[@Allen52172]

Just want to say great videos... and they helped a lot....built my gasifier and fired it up yesterday, must have some air leaks as the gas coming out of the flare tube was clear and sort of wimpy. Also the flame wanted to stay in the flare tube. I thought there was considerable tar, but the condensate jar was tar free.

[@flash001USA]

When the fire wants to stay inside of the flare tube you are drawing oxygen in so that sounds like an air leak. This could also cause tar issues too depending on where the air is mixing into the system. Are you planning on uploading any youtube videos with the gasifier? Never mind. I just seen the video but I'm at work and this computer doesn't have any speakers. I'll check it out once I get back to the house.

[@Allen52172]

flash001USA Today we're getting seven inches of snow... so started on my modification of reducing the cooling tower height (pain in the arse to get it out the door) instead of 5 - six foot tubes.... making a cooling pack of 10 - three foot tubes. I didn't use electrical tape for the "slip - n - fit" connections.... used Antiseize - which is rated at 1600 degrees.

[@em3mny]

Hi Flash, what are you using in the filters at this point? Did you settle on what material worked best? Or are they still steel wool, woodchip and pillow fluff? Thanks for all the hard work.

[@flash001USA]

Sorry for the late reply... Yeah I'm still set up to use the steel wool in filter #1 and wood chips in filter# 2 and the polyester fiber in filter # 3 and I have a mini filter that is a paper based filter right before it enters the engine.

[@lbdavisjr]

Hay flash have thought about using engine exhaust preheat primary air or usr it in a tube heat exchanger wrapped around the hearth on the drying zone

[@cheepsk8691]

Great videos Flash! I was wondering about the heat these put off. Instead of your radiators and expansion chambers, could a person use a heat exchanger to heat water? Say, to heat a house??

[@williamweigle8130]

Nice neat work, Flash. Have you kept track of your out of pocket costs building this system ? You've made videos that make sense. Thanks

[@idealistfromontario3905]

Flash this is a real nice engineering job, great work. I'm looking forward to your new pipe design. How often do you have to clean your filter system? one more thing Flash thank you very much for the meticulous construction detail that you show in all your fabrication videos, I'm looking forward to your next energy project.

[@772777777777777]

Flash have you tried running your gas threw you cooler then cyclone and then threw a water bubbles to strip any last soot before you run to the tri filters

[@flash001USA]

James I have one final video to complete the "How to" videos. I'll cover the gas hose to the generator for you. To answer your question, no do not remove the carburetor! I see others do this like they have a point to prove or to prove that they are not really running on gasoline but there's no sense in removing the carburetor. I'll cover that in this next video too. Here is the link for the tri-filters. Look in the description below the video for the build link. /watch?v=-jE7FAi0zaw

[@flash001USA]

This pretty much covers the actual construction stuff but I'm going to make a final video showing people how to correctly start the gasifier for a good run.

[@laserfalcon]

Excellent video

[@tuckerdave1]

Nice job Mike !! You keep this up and you will be quitting your job !. You would be a grate teacher !

[@thehumbledabbler]

Hey flash, would u happen to have a basic diagram drawn up that would depict the flow chart explanation of your system. I'm wanting ti start tge build, and I think I want to base it off of your design, but I'm missing parts of the videos explaining certain components seen on this video. Thanks man for putting thus stuff out there. I'm literally going to name it the "flashifier" lol. Let me kno.

[@flash001USA]

The build has went through a lot of upgrades since this video. There is a PDF file of the build. Go to www.miniwoodgas.com and contact the host (me) and I'll send it to you.

[@Angus_McGyver]

thanks again for sharing your experience on this.

[@niteflyer3380]

one question that I have not seen an answer to is, "what is the target radiator temp?" I ask because in the winter running this system will be different verses running in the summer. so summer running possibly may need more tubes in the radiator for faster cooling, if I am understanding things correctly.

[@flash001USA]

Getting the gas to ambient temperature is the goal. In the summer the gas will be hotter and in the winter it will be cooler and I'm telling you something you have already guessed so let me explain. The main thing is to just cool the gas to whatever the outside air temperature is at any given time. The gas will be pretty hot like a hair dryer or a heat gun before it's cooled and it will contain a lot of moisture along with some soot and other particles. Just cooling the gas down to it's surrounding air temperatures is enough to allow it to condense a good bit of the water vapor out of it along with allowing any particles to settle into the filter before it gets to the engine. This is really a primitive design on the surface but it's effective and it works quite nicely when the system is running correctly.

[@Mr26Huffy]

Thanks for another great video! A while back you did a video on making the fire ring (sorry if terminology is wrong). It is the wheel rim with mortar around it. Any more vids coming on the construction of the main unit? Thanks again.

[@shooter155]

Hey flash thanks for taking the time to write me back. I'm going to watch your videos and start making my gasifier this weekend I know you probably get alot of questions and I'm sure your busy but I was wondering if I get stumped and have a question if I could email you to get a little advice? Thanks again for the videos and the help.

[@jamescowart1044]

You are a great instructor how to attach hose to a generator ie... Do you remove carberator. Also how do i get the pdf file you have spoken about not able thru youtube to put my email in comments thank you

[@andyn2919]

Nice build and a great video. Thanks for sharing! I see you subscribed to my youtube channel so I figured I'd check out what you were up too. It has been a couple years since I built mine and it makes me want to start tinkering with it again. I also ran into the problem of how to purge the lines and load them with gas for an easy engine start up. My solution was to blow air into the gasifier rather than suck air through it. That way you can push gas through what ever lines you have open at the time. You also don't have to worry about sucking air into your gas lines because all the gas lines are under pressure and not under a vacuum. I wasn't sure how it was going to work but it seemed to work just fine for me. I used the blower side of a small shop vac. I plugged it into a receptacle that I controlled by a dimmer switch to adjust the speed of the vacuum. (AC motors do not support this very good. They need a variable frequency drive to change their speed but it does work to a certain degree.) If you size the vacuum right you really wouldn't need to adjust the speed but it does make it nice to have another adjustment to play with. I'm sure with a little creativity one can come up with a blower motor that is adjustable. I had a little shop vac handy and just went with that. For filters I used 5 gallon buckets and they seemed to work pretty good. I engineered the buckets so the lids were connected to either the in or out and the bottom of the bucket was connected to the other with 2 inch rigid pipe. The lid would hing up using a relatively loose thread going into a 90 degree fitting on the two inch pipe arm and the bucket would then hinge down on its 2 inch pipe arm and dump the contents of the filter media. This way you don't really have to take anything apart you just have to pop the lid off the bucket and hinge it out of the way while you dump your bucket and refill with new media. Keep up the good work! I figured I'd share some of my thoughts and ideas. Mine is the one built out of the beer kegs and orange buckets if you want to see pictures. I didn't describe how anything worked in the video because I was still tinkering with it and then I put it away and never got it back out. Wood gasifier

[@flash001USA]

Ahhh so that's your video with the Beatles playing in the background? I have been making it a point to keep up with everybody that I find on youtube that have built gasifiers because I find this interesting to say the least. I'm working on a website that will consolidate all of the information that I have found and maybe it will help others out there that would like to try a hand at building one too.

[@Amir__the__realtor]

amazing man...

[@timmee3543]

You can buy hand held pipe expanders

[@steffankaizer]

i guess it would also work to feed the gas into one end of the cooler endpipe and out the other side on the other end. that would omit two weldings and drillings and the baffle.

[@flash001USA]

The good thing about this is there are many roads that lead to Rome and as long as the gas can cool that's the end goal.

[@steffankaizer]

of course. by the way your flame looks the coolest of all on youtube

[@steffankaizer]

also if you still have it assembled, i have always been wondering what would happen if the fan pushes the air into the intake instead of the normal sucktion. the flow should be just the same but the gases should be much denser which usually means faster combustion. codys lab did some research on pressure and rockets. i would really like to see the results of that if its not too much setup for you. doing great work :)

[@flash001USA]

The setup I have is a negative pressure (Vacuum) system and they are designed like this for safety. What you are describing is a positive pressure system and they can be very dangerous. A gasifier works just like a cigarette where the engine draws on it making it a gas on demand system. If you ever build one avoid a positive pressure design... Very dangerous.

[@Anvilshock]

Ever thought of simply using a store-bought heating radiator and plumbing it in, instead of fashioning one yourself? A nice and small cast iron radiator, for example, 4 sections, about 60 bucks these days.

[@flash001USA]

Hey, no problem.

[@kittywampusdrums4963]

Anyone reading, SKIP THE VORTEX FILTER because I built mine to the exact specs in the math and it literally did nothing and let all the tar passed it into the radiator. Instead, build a big "condensation" tank with attached top filter like Flash made. This will save you ALLOT of BS work redoing the system because of the vortex filter.

[@agatdhiman5757]

You are great 👍👍👍👍👍👍🤝🤝🤝🤝

[@claysr100]

I would be happy to buy one from you as I can't weld let me know if you want to sale one thanks

[@TheFoundBeliever]

hi flash, hope your still keeping tabs on these videos and will reply to me. ive watched all your videos that ive found on this build and there are some things i can not find and im hoping you are willing to do an update video for the information or link me to it. first being its been a year since you did these videos, how has the filters worked out over time? and in your filter how to video you dont show the filter material or explain if its packed or loose? i know your pdf states its #1 steel wool #2 wood chips #3 polyester fiber? can you show an example of this fiber and where to find it? i can not find an update video for the changes you made to your filters as you posted or is the change just changing from 4" to 6" pipes and making them shorter? what are the length of this 6' design and most wanted for information is the cleaning process of these filters.... how often does the material in the inside need replacing? have you had to replace anything such as screens or filter parts due to tar build ups and whatnot? have you run the filters for more then 6 hours or to a point of blockage to see what it takes? is there a difference in operation running this system in cold winter temps? also how do you attach the woodgas system to the generator (or 2 if i can do so on this design)?? this is something i have not been able to find in any of your information, im very interested in building something like this to run one or two of these generators www.rona.ca/en/4-g-portable-generator-p56445002 during an emergency situation and believe this is the most ideal way to go about it as there is fuel literally everywhere :) thank you for all the help you have given with this topic and any information you can give me for it now :)

[@flash001USA]

The filter order is stainless steel wool then wood chips followed by the polyester fiber. The stainless steel wool can be purchased in big bags at SAMS or even online. The wood chips can be purchased pretty much anywhere and the polyester fiber is carried by wal-mart in their arts and crafts department. The filters are cleaned for each run and they are good for a easy 6 hour run. I just rinse off the stainless steel wool pads and I spread the wood chips out on a flat surface and let them dry out so I don't even bother to change them unless they are in really bad shape which so far hasn't been the case. The polyester fiber can be cleaned with Oxy-Clean and recycled too. You were asking about packing the filters I loose pack them. You were asking about cold temperatures and the gasifier runs better in colder temperatures because a cold gas cleans much easier and the cold temperatures allow more water vapor to be removed from the gas. The generator in the link is fine but I'll try to give you some more info in the near future. Right now I am slammed with everything so stay tuned and be a bit patient with he.

[@TheFoundBeliever]

flash001USA patients i have my friend thank you for responding :) we dont have a SAMS here im in canada but thats ok im sure i can find it now that i know what im looking for :) and knowing its loose packed also helps lots :) thank you for all your work on this system and sharing it freely, i would do the same and when i build my system ill record what i can and pass it forward myself :)

[@flash001USA]

Sorry for the delay but I have been slammed. The filters are loose packed. If you over pack them they will not breathe. The first filter is full of stainless steel wool pads to capture the larger particles along with water. The second filter is packed with wood chips (not sawdust) to capture particles and to help dry the gas even more and the third filter is polyester fiber that you can find anywhere in big bags for next to nothing and this helps polish the gas and the small filter is a paper filter which adds the final touch to the filter system.

[@baronelvin4797]

Hope you can help me build that one sir

[@laserfalcon]

I notice some make a cyclone tank for ash to settle. Is that even neccesary?

[@flash001USA]

Sorry for the late reply. It's a choice. It was simpler for me to do this than roll steel for a cyclone design. This setup works with no ash issues so my opinion is this works just as good as a cyclone. If the gas was perfectly dry with ash I would say the cyclone would work better dropping solids to the bottom of the filter.

[@laserfalcon]

@@flash001USA not a problem

[@allanseagrave8132]

Hey Mike, I'm at the stage of making my cooling system, would an old 100lb propane tank be ok?

[@flash001USA]

Yeah. Be sure to have your bottom intake pipe high enough to allow the water runn-off on the sides of the tank to have a small 1 or 2 gallon reservoir at the bottom so that the pipe isn't restricted by water as it builds up in the tank.

[@allanseagrave8132]

@@flash001USA awesome, I was gonna bring it in about 5" above the bottom curve. In this vid you have a secondary set of cooling pipes after the cooling tank, now you've ran yours awhile, do you think the second set are needed?

[@flash001USA]

This is an old video and this was still in process of learning. Go through some of the newer videos because I made some really good changes. To answer your question YES. Cooling the gas off is the key to good gas. I am still running double cooling pipes but not tall like these are in this older video.

[@allanseagrave8132]

@@flash001USA thanks you legend, cheers!!👍

[@rickking5343]

Flash, did you cover the construction of your two expansion tanks in a video, if so which one? Thanks

[@flash001USA]

That's something that I didn't cover but I have a new website where I will be covering this in detail very soon and I'll announce the website on a new video. The expansion tank is very simple and you could even stack 3 5 gallon tanks to accomplish the same thing. Just be sure to have a drain at the bottom of the setup.

[@MichaelJeffers75]

Anybody know if there is a standard for sizing draw fans to different sized Imberts? I understand CFM very well but not so good with vacuum, plus a lot of fans are measured in CFM. Any input?

[@flash001USA]

+Michael J There's not really a standard in blowers to start the gasifier but a good rule is it needs to move about much air as a decent hair dryer would blow. If the air volume is too much things heat up too fast and if the air volume is too slow you don't get a good start up. Don't try to use a shop vacuum because it moves too much air.

[@MichaelJeffers75]

+flash001USA Thanks flash! One more question, does the gasifier need to be drawn with vacuum continuously? Or does it move it's own gases when it reaches operating temperature like a rocket stove?

[@flash001USA]

+Michael J The draw of the engine intake is what keeps the gasifier going. The gasifier works with the same mechanics like a cigarette being drawn on. The gasifier is actually a "on demand" fuel source meaning it only produces fuel while it has a vacuum on it with either a blower or with an engine running and drawing a vacuum on the gasifier.

[@markgaloskowsky443]

What size is the pipe between the 2 expansion tanks and why the access door on the top one?

[@flash001USA]

The connecting pipe is a 1-1/2 coupler. Originally the access door was going to be a way to add some steel wool inside of the tank but I changed my mind. It still paid off placing the access door on the tank because I can take a high pressure sprayer and clean the tank whenever it's needed.

[@flash001USA]

I'm located in SC.

[@archlich4489]

You are a Southern Gentleman & an American Patriot

[@grahamjohnston244]

Hi Flash, do you have an email i could contact you from Ireland. Thank you Graham