Wood Gasifier/Generator, Mark II Reactor, Changing Direction E17

[@PedigreeMongrel]

I can tell putting the first project on hold was a tough choice but sometimes just going back to basics to get a operating system first is the best move. At least you can gain insight into what works well or not on a test bed that doesn't have heaps of time and complexity invested in it once satisfied you can apply ideas that work to original reactor and swap out if needed. Really appreciate this series and time you invest in it bringing everyone along for the journey.👍

[@whathappensintheshed]

Thanks mate, yeah I'm not killing off the original reactor just yet, later on might revisit some of the concepts that never came fruition, but yeah first gotta get this thing up and running, cheers

[@LesThompson-i3t]

I tend to favour the Water drip/steam as the oxygen in the water coverts any licker products a stable flair increasing a stable flair, & when running an engine diverting a little excuse to will control the heat stabilizing the gas Production A mix of wood & charcoal is best. you are a step away from. Getting what you have built to work. So I think it is time I tell you of my secret font of knowledge. I was born off the grid in 1952, In 1963 I discovered that a wood gasifier I was using from my dad's old truck predust damp smock in wet & cold winters. & I thought that the gas was of poor quality, so I began to sever excrement's, my answer was to build a caracole colom on to the side of the vestal that was filed with charcoal. when lit i fed the damp smock into the colom & fasten the scion of the filer to the blower & flair the resulting gas now being supplied with air & smock laden whit damp H2/O including the C2 from the air intake gave me C3H4 . Very good snitch gas & just for a pint of focus propane is , "C3H8" So that is why I suggested you drip water on to a hot plat & it will flash to steam & as it is capered into the charcoal will grad it to for C2 & the hydrogen will be set free . But it must be a vacuum & a drip not a torrent. Les the Uk.

[@whathappensintheshed]

@@LesThompson-i3t Once I get this new unit up and running I'll experiment with dripping sump oil into the fire tube, and steam, but gotta get this thing built first, cheers

[@rodfrey]

Mostly commenting to tell The Algorithm that it needs to spread this video. I do like your new style of video, very personal. You obviously put a lot of work into editing, it shows. The mental fortitude to look at your old accumulator, with 2 years of work into it, and say "yep, she's gotta go", is astonishing. Hats off.

[@whathappensintheshed]

Thanks mate, thanks for the feedback, yeah I was reluctant to let go of it, but having the new simple one sitting there makes it worth while, cheers

[@klausastecker4288]

Well, you say you are not an expert on this topic, but you sound very much like one ! Thanks for this content! 👍👍

[@whathappensintheshed]

Thanks mate, well have learnt a thing or two I guess, cheers

[@Thrive-Off-Grid]

If you build the reactor on top. Build an Imbert with your concept. If you look at the V8 machines I used to build, those were Imbert units with an auger feed. The auger fed into the hopper and there was a hinged flap inside the hopper. As fuel would push into the hopper the flap would lift up and trigger a prox switch. What this does: 1) limits the ammount of moisture produced in the hopper 2) limits the ammount of Moisture that can migrate into the hopper charge. 3) Hopper charge is always static. Verses loading a hopper with a full charge of dried fuel and then it consuming down to the hearth. Big difference here how the machines will perform. 4) Now that moisture is controlled you can easily achieve 100% water shift.

[@whathappensintheshed]

Thanks for the feedback, yeah I feel this way I have a lot more freedom with what I do around the fire tube, thinking multiple ignition ports will probably turn into jets, question ? When you fill your fire tube, how far up do you fill it? Thanks for sharing your knowledge, when I get to the fuel air mixing I'll be looking at what you did, cheers

[@Thrive-Off-Grid]

@@whathappensintheshed Id say you could go like 12 inches or so. The idea is too never have an abundance of fuel. However, you actually want to have some fuel above the reactor so it can pre process it before it gets to the hearth. If you have a small hopper charge then you will not generate more moisture than the gasifeir can deal with. So that is really the limiting factor. How much fuel you can pre charge the reactor at whatever the moisture content you anticipate you will be running. Dryer is always better. Ive gone to charcoal. Im done messing around with wood gasifiers. Charcoal is so much better and easier and no tar. Use the heat from your retort and its actually a way better technology. This year I hope to experiment with a water heater integrated into my retort design. Very simple to do just a water coil wrapped around the outside.

[@whathappensintheshed]

@@Thrive-Off-Grid thanks mate, yep that's the heart of the concept of my build, feed in as little fuel as I can get away with, cheers

[@bradmesserle999]

Cant wait to see the new design in action. Great work!

[@whathappensintheshed]

Thanks mate

[@Luddethecoolibo]

Great video, cheers!

[@whathappensintheshed]

Thanks mate

[@fraid5508]

Very nice video keep up the good work!

[@whathappensintheshed]

Thanks mate, thanks for the feedback, cheers

[@Thrive-Off-Grid]

Pro tip. When cutting in the band saw; you always want the maximum amount of the teeth of the blade on the stock you are cutting. Never place flat bar upright it should always lay flat on the bed. Unless there is a special circumstance requireing it to be place the other way.

[@robertpoynton9923]

Well done mate. If your were to make the grate isolating but still wanted the floor scrapers could you make some kind of a ratchet mechanism so that the grate would move the scrapers in on direction?

[@whathappensintheshed]

Thanks mate, ahh yes I did think about that, but for now will keep it simple, will make sure it can be included in future, cheers

[@BubbleheadDiver]

I'm converting my downdraft stratified to an imbert. One question I had is why didn't you fully load the hopper with fuel - or at least partially? I would think that would better prevent the combustion from migrating up away from the combustion zone.

[@whathappensintheshed]

G'day, it's fully loading the fire tube that enables the combustion to migrate up through the fuel, the more you fill the fire tube the more it bleeds away from the combustion, Imbert gasifiers run the cleanest as they near running out of fuel. If you run with the minimum amount of fuel you can get away with the charcoal bed will be the dominant factor not the fuel load and as long as you have air flow it will run hot and you will have no tar. Check out the drizzler guys in Europe, you just need a stirrer/compactor with fuel level switch controlling a screw feed, keeping the wood hopper separate from the fire tube, easy for me to say I know, cheers

[@alanmason7116]

Suggestions to your setup from observations: Based on E15 and E16. Take it in steps ... master each. 1. Run a charcoal setup to test it out initially. kzbin.info/www/bejne/mH-ymol5pbeKjtk&pp=ygUWdGlsdGVkIGJhcnJlbCBjaGFyY29hbA%3D%3D Will generate a lot of charcoal for you to 'test'. This will take the tar question out of the equation - you can then add it back in by adding wood later - saw dust, varying sized chunks of. You can then vary the charcoal size .. fine, medium, chunky (airflow). See what the results are. 2. Gas flare. Run on 2 blowers for the amount of gas to be produced. Where the gas comes out of the pipe - disrupt the flow so instead of going straight out it gets deflected and bellows. Maybe a slightly larger 'can' is needed? You need the volume of gas produced however where it exits you need to slow / mix it more with the air. Currently it exits fast but then is past the shroud and the flame goes out as at that point its still too fast. Disrupt that flow so it slows (bellows) and burns. Maybe the addition of a spark plug in the bellowing gas stream will take away the manual process of lighting it. 3. Bottom sweeps good. The mid sweeps in the charcoal bed, rotate them so they are not vertical 90'. If they are tilted.. 25', 30', 45' etc. The result is a more cutting and then agitation by lifting of the charcoal. Extend the central spire to just above the level of the ignition port and add 2 maybe 4 sweeps there. Have them tilted as well. As you add fuel you can then gauge if you are over or under visually - maybe a sensor at a later stage. Second if you add more fuel in and its overfull it will move the charcoal around by lifting and then filling in any low spots evening out the chamber. 4. Ash removal is something to consider if you want to extended run this in the future. 5. Grate - Good to see you opened up the grate on E16 - that is what was needed ie the draw through that area. Looks like there are still getting hangups that then break / jar. As per 3. rotated they may be able to 'cut' better or shatter the charcoal better or bump it up rather than 90' shear until is shatters. When using wood - if there is a bit that has not charcoaled enough, at an angle it'll have more of a chance of cutting through it. A++ Like what your doing

[@whathappensintheshed]

Thanks for the feedback much appreciated, yeah with my first design I was trying too many things at once, but I'm not junking it just yet, will get back to it later, but for now I just have to get a working unit, and then can try different concepts later, cheers

[@4evermetalhead79]

I love your craft sir! A question though, have you done any research to other gasifiers that are available already (i think off grid 48 is the name of the guy who has one and works)? Im guessing you have, so what is wrong with those other designs that made you want to start from scratch?

[@PhonePhone-sf8te]

iirc, offgrid48 really pissed off the guy that originated that design he's using. scammed a bunch of people. They original guy is the one that made the gasifier bible. Original guy has a ton of complaints with the cost cutting and dangerous modifications that offgrid did to it.

[@Thrive-Off-Grid]

He is the last guy you want building you a gasifier. There is a reason he does not have any engine run videos. Think about it. If a dev cant show you a engine running flawlessly for a minimum of 20 minute or more. Beware! Anyone can run an engine for 2 mininutes on video. Getting it to run for the entirety of the hopper load without stalling or tar production. Thats an entirely different story. Yeah and then they never ever will show you when they tarred up an engine bad enough they had to fix or replace it.

[@PedigreeMongrel]

There are many gassifier types out there running all sorts of different fuels the one thing I've noticed with most people is they like to build their own and try different ways to clean gas or burn fuel there are emergency gassifier designs free of charge from fema demonstrated by JR M available to everyone to build which typically aren't efficient and eventually burnout and there are designs like offgrid 48 which is essentially a reworked version of victorygasworks model from the gassifier builders bible it's a decent setup and then you have Thrive Off Grid with many different types and a tonne off experience to learn from best is build it, try it, fail, fix and try again. The most important in my mind is getting best octane and cleanest gas you can this prevents generator damage.

[@Thrive-Off-Grid]

@@PedigreeMongrel Shift development efforts to better use of charcoal production. Use that heat for something, heat, cooking, hot water etc. Then be done with the gasifier part because nothing beats a charcoal gasifier with water injection. That is where we are going in the next phase of development. Our kiln is pretty amazIng and efficient. If I can just get hot water from it thats a huge thing on an off grid system and gives you additional motivation to run your retort everyday. Going to try what Engineer775 did years ago with water coil wrapped around a rocket stove. But applied to our retort design. Im done with direct wood fuel input gasification for small scale. It dont work at small scale and it never will.

[@PedigreeMongrel]

@@Thrive-Off-Grid I'm in agreement the first thing I thought with current designs is where could a heat exchanger or coil go with wood it's only going to cool down reactor too much unless just using for central heating and hot water but when you go coal there is potential for steam turbine power a far greater use of direct energy output than a combustion engine converted to turbine for electricity generation it's the pressurised systems and super heated steam that present the biggest challenges but with decent relief valves and a constant supply of water it's a winner you can feed back any combustible gasses into reactor to burn off essentially making a compact coal power plant there's a reason energy companies used them 👍