10 replies to this topic

[PresentTeck]

I will edit this post to include video soon, I just got home and need to wash off the smokey smell :D will edit winthen a few hours

Over the past year and a half i have been working at making a gasifier out of found parts. I'm curently a junior in high school with only a few days left until summer. I have spent less than $40 dollars on this project and 90% of that was between plumbing/threaded pieces, and bolts.

Everything you (will) see has been made by hand with the garbage i had to work with, and the tools i had at school. my school has a plasma cam witch came in handy for making the fan, but lack of sheet metal was a challenge.

the fan is the same one used in your 2.0 setup, the motor is rated at 1800 rpm, and is AC... my dc motor was from a car heater and wasn't that fast or strong. It also was near impossible to mount.

As the video (will) shows, the first half of my run wasn't as good as i hoped, but once i cut holes in the swirl burner it ended up working amazing, there was so much heat i couldn't hold my hand within 2 feet from the top of it.

the centripetal filter is probably ineficent due to size, but it acted as a condenser making a few ounces of liquid smoke. this could be a tasty by-product ;)      I don't know if it's supposed to do that

I will try and get my hands on a motor soon to test it out... It feels good to prove to the people at school that i'm not crazy.
...and to have accomplished this, that's nice too ;)

one question, what do you use to insulate, because i used various caulks that where lying around the shop. the silicon melted, and the other stuff turned to dust... so i had a few flare ups at start.

Questions and comments welcomed after i post the video showing what i made, just wanted to post this now.

PS: is there a way to change my username? i've grown up a bit since then and have a better name i'd like to use now, without making a whole new account. please pm me if i can do this, thank you.  talk in a few

[jimmason]

waiting excitedly for the video.  do you have it yet?

building a gasifier in junior high is very impressive.  beware of the future of odd machinery that is likely to follow this . . . ;-)  i fell into this hole starting with testing sail shapes in jr high.  thermo is like a big aerodynamics problem, with similarly non-discrete and non-linear flow issues, just with heat rather than air.  well, it has the gas flow issues too.  ok well maybe they aren't that related.  but somehow the brain process to understand them seems not unrelated.

on the sealers, we use ceramic tape and black fireplace mortar for the hot joints.  the 600f and below joints can be rtv silicone.  the ceramic tape you can get from mcmaster, but it is sadly 32 dollars a roll, thus almost as much as all your other parts combined.  you can consider cutting out any ceramic insulation and hold it in place with black mortar.  fiberglass insulation will get you to about 1000f.  you need ceramics to go to the full fire temps.

if you want more encouragement down wayward mechanical paths, would you be interested in one of the gek weld together kits?  this may ruin everything you're already accomplishing on your own.  but if not, you are welcome to one of the weld together kits for free.  we'd be honored for you to have one.

any possibility you could come out for the workshop next weekend?  we'll set you up on the welding table and you can put together one on your own.  not sure of your welding skills.  but even if you haven't welded yet, we can teach you in a few hours.  mig welders are only slightly more difficult than a glue gun.

as for the username, tell me what you want the new one to be and i'll see if i can change it.  not sure if i can, but will try.  vbulletin is rather convoluted on the backend.

congratulations again on your progress here.

jim

[PresentTeck]

Alright, sorry i took so long on the video, but it was over the 15 minute limit the first time. exporting problems, bahhh... but here it is.

you most likely dont want to watch it smoke in 4x speed forever so i marked times in the description where i slowed it down:


check out my other videos too... speaking of sailing, what a coincidence, lol

I wish i could come to the workshop, but i live in Oregon (near salem)
I wanted to go there last summer when I was on a trip there, but i was with a group so i couldn't.

as for the kit, THAT WOULD BE AWESOME! I know how to weld, and could learn so much from that. I would study my own as well, why wouldn't i after making this much from scratch. it's actually quite complicated inside based somewhat off your own model.
however, i had an hourglass hearth and used the inside of that for the air preheating. that way i didnt need to use pipe for it.

the hose i'm attaching my swirl burner is a 3 inch dryer duct crimped down hastily with plumbers tape that was fairly large, and then some duck tape.. i have a little aluminum tape, but i didnt think it was worth it at the time, duck has a better seal dispite melting.

this post is getting long, i'll put up some pics of the process later, but for now i'd just like to talk :D too much stuff at once.

[jimmason]

yourmom003 said:

I wish i could come to the workshop, but i live in Oregon (near salem)
I wanted to go there last summer when I was on a trip there, but i was with a group so i couldn't.

as for the kit, THAT WOULD BE AWESOME! I know how to weld, and could learn so much from that. I would study my own as well, why wouldn't i after making this much from scratch. it's actually quite complicated inside based somewhat off your own model.
however, i had an hourglass hearth and used the inside of that for the air preheating. that way i didnt need to use pipe for it.

well, there are planes from salem to oakland everyday.  however, it is not everyday that impressive youth show up interested in gasifiers.  so how about APL designate you the honorary "scientist in residence" for the weekend, which requires us to buy you a plane ticket to oakland so you can weld together your new gek on site.  if we buy you a ticket, will be ok sleeping on the couch/floor?  is mom ok with a trip to the bay area?  tell her we'll cut your hair while you're down here, she'll say yes to the trip then . . .

good work on the gasifier from junk.  you need the fan going much stronger.  you should put a manometer on it so you can measure the pull rate.  you will find your current pull rate is much too slight.  this is common on first tries.  you need quite a pull to get the properly filling combustion lobe set up in the hearth.

all kidding aside, i really hope you can join us down here.  you'll likely feel right at home in a shop full of metal and machines.

jim

[PresentTeck]

well, my parents will have to talk about it, I was laughing telling my mom this... but can we continue this over pm? i'd like to talk about the project in the thread more than, well I don't know how to describe this really...

anyway? is there anything you would like to know about what i did?

Yeah, the fan was a tough one though, i was supprised it worked well enough at all, but i had to make it work, i wanted it done bwfore school got out :D just had to say i finished it as a junior...

ya know what, i think i'll sort those photos now, send a link to the album soon. (the welds may not look pretty on some of them, but at times i was welding across a 3/4 inch gap... on dirty galvinized metal, or painted scrap metal. you know how that goes, especailly when you didnt know how to weld all that well when you first started the project.

it only took so long 'cause i had to find parts... well i'll go get those photos

[PresentTeck]

sorry about the double post but...

I HAVE THE PICTURES, and a few short videos thrown in there too.

https://picasaweb.go...feat=directlink

it's all in an album on picasa /\
click the pics to make them bigger


EDIT:
PS: what would be the best way to contact you, I think we have a bit to talk about,
my Dad says i can go, but he wants to chaperone. He's a machinist and i think he's interested in learning more now that I showed him that the thing I've spent the last year+ on actually works...

let me know what's the best contact for you. THANKS!

[jimmason]

you can come with your dad.  that's even better.

here's our machine shop.  he might be interested in the local old iron.
http://gekgasifier.c...hread.php?t=124

the best way to find me is via email at jim@allpowerlabs.org.  i'm currently out in the hills and can't talk on the phone until tomorrow afternoon.  i can call you then.  or just send an email with the issues.

great to hear this might work!

j

[HarryN]

Well, I'm impressed.  Just a suggestion - consider to do early test runs with charcoal vs. wood.  It is just easier.

[PresentTeck]

I started it off of coal, about 3 gallons of it (3 gallon bucket)

it would take a bit of collecting to find the wood to make the coal, but i could do it easy. I have an old 55 gallon barrel just waiting to be made into a coal maker :D   well it's actually being used for storage at my school, one was filled mostly with parts for my gasifier, and the other with the wood chunks i made... man that took FOREVER lol  i'll probably use that one since i only had 1/3 of it filled to start, and now at least half of that's in the gasifier.

I will be running some tests on wed and thurs, maybe i can find a BBQ thermometer to check my core temp with... to those go up to 1800F? (appx 1000c) i dont know, but i can at least stick a fireplace thermometer on the outside, it's magnetic.

man, i found some great 3800 rpm ac motors at goodwill today for $8 each, damn in they wern't 240V. UGH... I could have used those, they were even hooked to a squirl cage, and the other had a small blade on it for inside a housing... I dont have that many 240v plugs, i might have 2 at home, and a few at school, but out away from stuff where i'd want to be testing it would be hard to come by.
~i dont know, they's still be there tomorrow if i find i really need them. would be nice for testing but i'd just upgrade as soon as I found a 120V or 12V that worked the same. (there also open core)

as for a motor that... nevermind, i mounted a vacume motor in some metal, but it's tearing itself apart 'cause i couldnt mount it exactly center. (by the way, i broke the plastic mounting on that end) it would work but i see a spark fly off of it every so often, and i'm fairly sure it could destroy my fan.

Jim: last day of schools tomorrow, so i'll send you an email with my # so you can reach me when it's convenient.


I think i might go check for a job at this place, theres a gasification plant about 2 miles from my house... only found this out by a lottery commercial a few years back. there site doesnt say much, but this link does: http://www.environme...into-crude-oil/

there home site:http://www.agriplasinc.com/index.htm
kindof a cool place... and i actually know how it works :D

[PresentTeck]

QUESTION: I came across an old angle grinder. It's broken, but the motors still good inside, just the gears and mounting are wasted making it not work as a grinder.

I was wondering if that would be too fast of a motor for use in your style of fan, the vac blower found in the 2.0 files. it said 1100 rpm, but that may be after the gearing. what do you think? think it might work?

Very sorry i cant make it to this workshop, my dads not well enough to travel at the moment. Jim, you have an email on that.

[PresentTeck]

EDIT: it's an 11,000 RPM angle grinder.