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Best way to get wood gas generator electricity into an all in one power system?

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4115steve

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I was wanting to build a wood gas generator to power a gas electric generator like in tactical woodgas video below. I might use a car alternator or I'll use a regular gas generator converted to run on wood gas. I don't know if its better to use dc from the car alternator or to use AC from the gas generators non pure sine wave inverter. I was wanting to use an all in one power system

here is an oversimplified wood gas powered gasoline motor explaining how wood gas works

tactical woodgas video

here is a great woodgas generator mounted to a lawn tractor. the design of this gasifier is small. I would also like to mention that you could scale this up and put it on a ford 8n tractor. A wood gas tractor would be great for the farm. there are many useful PTO and hydrolic implemints that would compliment a wood gas generator, to name a few; wood chiper, log splitter, pallet jack, pto generator, trailer ball


simple woodgasifier design mounted to lawn tractor

ford 8n tractor running on wood gas

I love the idea of a wood gasifier on a ford tractor because you could run it in a shop for heat and electricity using a PTO generator. you just need route the smoke outside.

Screen Shot 2022-07-15 at 2.13.00 PM.png
 
Standard gas rotating generator does produce a sine wave. Although depending on the load reactance and changes to the wattage the waveform can be distorted and the frequency may shift a bit as the regulator adjusts. If the all-in-one does not like the power... certainly the generator can power a common charger separately and feed the battery with regulated voltage. Alternator is fine too if the output voltage can be regulated properly.
 
time2roll said:
Standard gas rotating generator does produce a sine wave. Although depending on the load reactance and changes to the wattage the waveform can be distorted and the frequency may shift a bit as the regulator adjusts. If the all-in-one does not like the power... certainly the generator can power a common charger separately and feed the battery with regulated voltage. Alternator is fine too if the output voltage can be regulated properly.
Click to expand...
what kind of common charger ?
 
So I've bumped into a few folks that actually tried to make electricity with wood gas and it was a complete failure. I'm not saying it's a hoax but everything I've seen is indicates it's way harder than the YouTube videos make it out to be.
 
yeah, i agree, a working wood gasifier is difficult design and build. you need a lot of air flow, an air path that doesn't get clogged, a tar trap, and a good filter to clean the gas so the motor doesn't seize up. that john deere lawn tractor gasifier shows the best design I've seen.
 
4115steve said:
what kind of common charger ?
Click to expand...
Assuming the generator is 120vac output and the charger meets the battery specifications it will work fine. Amazon, Walmart, local auto parts store all have something.
Not sure what battery is getting charged.

Getting the wood-gas thing working reliably is a far bigger issue.
 
4115steve said:
yeah, i agree, a working wood gasifier is difficult design and build. you need a lot of air flow, an air path that doesn't get clogged, a tar trap, and a good filter to clean the gas so the motor doesn't seize up. that john deere lawn tractor gasifier shows the best design I've seen.
Click to expand...
Good deal. It sounds like you've got a reasonable balance of expectations vs how much you should invest in it.
 
OzSolar said:
Good deal. It sounds like you've got a reasonable balance of expectations vs how much you should invest in it.
Click to expand...
Only one I have seen work at all is a specialty built one from Victory Gas Works( now defunct).

It did a good job of running an old Ford straight 6 genset.

 
Now if you really want to kick butt spinning up a wind turbine generator with a wood gas engine I am thinking using a scooter CVT transmission


www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cKbzUgFdS0


Pulley calculator finds all parameters of a belt drive system: the RPM, speed, belt length, belt tension, and torque.
 
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A scooter CVT is like a MPPT, turns motor power into max RPM possible for the load, wind generators like high wind speeds.

I don't knw enough about wind generator charge controllers but I think they have circuity to pull max power from any given RPM.
 
During WWII the U.S. govt. put out manuals on how to convert combustion engines to wood gas. I have one that details building one for a good sized farm tractor. They are very detailed and do not require a lathe.
 
Just read that people make wood gas from cardboard and paper too.

All I would have to do is sign up for as much junk mail as possible and free fuel would be delivered constantly.
 
They converted a pre WWII delivery vehicle to wood gas on War Time Farm (BBC). Assembly wasn't all that detailed though.
 
Maybe just build a steam engine if your burning wood anyway.


Put a bigger flywheel on it.
 
32 volt boater said:
Maybe just build a steam engine if your burning wood anyway.


Put a bigger flywheel on it.
Click to expand...
There’s also leather belt to PTO adapters…probably rather scarce as they would have been only made for a decade or two.

Many of the old timers that where into steam are gone or will be gone soon. And old steam stuff could get cheaper. I don’t see millennials and zoomers being into flywheel stuff.
 
SilverbackMP said:
There’s also leather belt to PTO adapters…probably rather scarce as they would have been only made for a decade or two.

Many of the old timers that where into steam are gone or will be gone soon. And old steam stuff could get cheaper. I don’t see millennials and zoomers being into flywheel stuff.
Click to expand...

They might work well with the wood gas, probably not as finnicky like a modern engine.
 
I did a bunch of research into wood gas years ago. Seems like its really difficult to get it running stable. I've decided against building one and instead put my efforts into more solar and power saving techniques.
Depending on how sensitive your loads are I would avoid running direct to AC. Even with my propane generator the varying voltage and frequency are noticable in the house, I can only image how bad it will be with a less consistent fuel like wood gas

Before I gave up on it I did connect the 10hp gas engine I was going to convert to an alternator to charge my temporary 12v bank. I didn't do enough research on alternators and burnt mine out even though it was a 150amp alternator. Alternators ratings are designed for only short duration's, after startup it puts out lots of amperage to get the battery back up to voltage however the load on it quickly drops. When you connect the alternator to a large battery bank it is unable to bring up the voltage to set point and overheats itself putting out max current very quickly.
You can modify it and provide your own field current and therefore output instead of letting it it regulate itself. I never did figure that out because I gave up on the project instead of buying another alternator.
 
I was able to setup with wood gas for the same application - to make electricity and heat (co-gen) during winter when solar is not as abundant.
The wood gas (compared with gasoline) was about 25% -30% of the Hp, so you need to start with a bigger engine to run the generator part, and the issue was always the build up of soot/creosote either clogging the filters or (worse) getting past the filters and building up in the engine itself. It took a lot of hand-holding to get it to start up and then work properly and you find yourself spending so much time it takes away from other things you want to do.
The best I was able to do was run it in batch cycles for about five hours at a time. Then let everything cool down, clean it all out, and change filter media. The one bit of advice I have - USE DRY DRY DRY DRY WOOD SOURCE. I mean SUPER BONE DRY HARD WOOD.
 
What ever,

1662129652020.png

Here > https://tinyurl.com/bdevhrma

Now find a video on decent boiler!

Steam locomotive exhaust systems typically vent cylinder steam exhaust through the chimney to enhance draught through the boiler.
 
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