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

[SilverbackMP]

They might work well with the wood gas, probably not as finnicky like a modern engine.

I’d probably go strait steam though. There’s stationary steam engines and tractor engines.

 

[Unique3]

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.

 

[OffGridForGood]

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.

 

[32 volt boater]

This came up in my Youtube Suggestions,

 

[32 volt boater]

What ever,



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.

 

[32 volt boater]

The wood gas (compared with gasoline) was about 25% -30% of the Hp

I just searched www.google.com/search?q=steam+vs+wood+gas lots of results but time goes fast online, go to go !

But wouldn't having heat sinks on a converted gas to steam engine work to cool and condense your steam and reduce power ?

 

[OffGridForGood]

I just searched www.google.com/search?q=steam+vs+wood+gas lots of results but time goes fast online, go to go !

But wouldn't having heat sinks on a converted gas to steam engine work to cool and condense your steam and reduce power ?

if you use a boiler system, but i was harvesting the wood gas - flammable gas from the wood itself - and burning it in a convensional gasoline engine. part of the processing of the wood gas is cooling (this heat was collected and used to heat my workshop) cooling the woodgas allows any water vapour to condense for removal, and prevents premature ignition in the engine under compression stroke that occurs if the wood gas is too hot. The energy density of the wood gas is just much lower than the energy density of gasoline, period. so it takes a larger displacement engine to get the Hp you need to run the generator. my set up used a 20Hp Kohler engine in place of the original 8Hp Honda engine to run the generator, and honestly even bigger would have worked better.
I remember seeing a video by a team that were selling complete woodgas units and kits, can't seem to find it now, though. They used electronic controlls and were strongly advocating that in order to free the user from 'constant' tinkering, you really need the control module. This was rather expensive as you can imagine, and i didn't go that route, built my own unit and tried and failed quite a few times, plugged up the engine more than just a few times! and ultimately moved on to other means - including current PV/MMP6048/LiFePO4 system! (which doesn't take any tinkering to run!)
I would still be interested in a wood gas operated back up generator, my system has a 30A 240 generator plug-in as a back up to the PV and Grid, since it is pretty common that utility outages and poor solar occur simulaneously! Yeah I have a 7200W gasoline generator on wheels but the supply of wood is endless (in my yard) where as the supply of gasoline is not.