Author Archives: sabbadess

Picture from the Maine Forest and Logging Museum

02 Sunday Aug 2015

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Good Morning Readers,

Yesterday was another good time at the Maine Forest and Logging Museum. They served some of the best traditional Maine beans I have ever had.

Little Victoria was feeling muscular so she tried to feed their Lombard log hauler.

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Sadly, The Lombard uses one cord of wood for every seven miles so her 5 lbs of chips didn’t get this beast very far.

If you are ever in the Bradley, ME area I would encourage you to stop by the museum.  I am going back a second time just see everything I missed after the show died down.

Stephen

Cancelled – Dover Maker’s Faire Appearance

26 Sunday Jul 2015

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Good Morning Wood Gassers,

I have some bad news.  I will not be able to make the Dover Mini Maker’s Faire this year.   I just found out that my wife is planning a C-section litter of Lab pups on the same day.  That means all hands on deck here at the farm.  Hopefully we will exercise better planning next year.

Stephen

New video – NSR Gas Station Lite starts a generator on battery power

23 Thursday Jul 2015

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Good Evening Readers,

Many people have asked me, “How do I start my gasifier if the grid goes down?”.  My simple answer is to use a car battery and charge it with the generator.  Here is my proof that it works:

That is about as smooth as it gets!   The car battery can be charged by the internal alternator in the GX200 clone.

Stephen

Cancelled – Common Ground Fair Appearance

22 Wednesday Jul 2015

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Hi Wood Gassers,

I had to cancel my appearance at Common Ground Fair. It’s a GREAT fair, certainly my fall favorite, but because I am a business they wouldn’t allow me to give my once a day presentation. They wanted to bill me a decent amount of money for the whole three day event and have a booth. With travel and trailer rentals I just can’t afford it. It’s just a money issue.

If you already have it planned you will not be disappointed.

Stephen

New Video – Prime your fuel lines!!!

17 Friday Jul 2015

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Good Evening Readers,

Most of you know that I recently threw my back out badly.  Partly it was due to a poor set up at the Square Tail demo and the resulting excessive pulling on the starter rope.  Here is what I should have done to avoid the problem:

Priming the fuel delivery hose is especially critical for small engines.  Using the new configuration at the Seal Cove demo I started the machine about a dozen times and never ran out of starting battery power or had to use the pull cord.

Stephen

Seal Cove Museum Demonstration

17 Friday Jul 2015

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Good Morning Readers,

Yesterday was absolutely amazing!  I had a great time meeting everyone at the museum and checking out the Brass Era vehicle collection.

electric_vehicle

(1908 electric powered Rauch Lang and the NSR Gas Station Lite posing together)

I can’t thank the museum staff enough for letting me visit, especially Bill Barter and Raney Bench.

If you couldn’t make it don’t worry.  We are already planning the next event.  It will be a demonstration day for alternatively fueled vehicles.  I am going to get busy and convert my 1989 Jeep Wrangler to run on wood so I can give rides around the property.  I will announce the date when the plans become definite.

Stephen

 

Run results at Square Tail Brewing

07 Sunday Jun 2015

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Hi Folks,

Please let me express my thanks to all the people who came to visit us at Square Tail Brewing yesterday.  It was a great day.  I loved seeing all the astonished faces when the little generator started and ran with no fuel tank.  That was priceless.

There were roughly a dozen starts and stops yesterday which isn’t very good for machine cleanliness but the Gas Station performed like a champ.  I am past worrying about tar.  Now I worry more about soot fouling.  Here is the final condensate stage before the engine: condensate Getting the light correct was difficult to properly show the color of the water but to me it looked like dilute herbal tea.  It was definitely not black, sooty, or tarry.  All the water I got on my hands appeared perfectly clear.  This was something to write home about because it shows that I am extending the time between cleanings and maintenance.

Stephen

The automixer runs her new generator

20 Wednesday May 2015

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Good Evening Readers,

The stars have aligned and the automixer is FINALLY running an engine.  For the first time EVER I got to stand back, grin ear to ear, and listen to an engine run through an entire fuel load with no poking or prodding.  Life is going to get boring now.
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Maybe I will take up needle point while the Gas Station runs.
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In all seriousness I need to get the adjustment amplitude down but otherwise the core code is good to go. Then I can go on to load testing and get some REAL data.
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Stephen

New Page – Solar PV Refrigerator Power Supply

17 Sunday May 2015

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Good Afternoon Readers,

I published a new page for you to check out.  Imagine you wanted to make a solar power supply to run a typical refrigerator.  The system should be able charge in a day and then run for four days of cloud cover.  That is the design exercise I go through on the new page.  Here is the link:

Solar PV Refrigerator UPS

Hopefully I will be able to build and verify this later this year.  Enjoy!

Stephen

Test results for the Gas Station Lite and 4kW generator

16 Saturday May 2015

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Good Afternoon Readers,

I was just out running the Gas Station Lite and her 4kW.  I have been thinking about how open the air mixer was in my video and it dawned on me that I might be able to go with smaller nozzles, increase the blast rate, and get more power.  I reduced the nozzles from .25 to .188.  That may not sound like much but it almost doubled the blast rate and drastically improved the performance.  It was easily holding 500W and held 1500W for almost a minute before the fuel/air ratio went off and everything tanked.  Not bad considering that the timing has not been advanced.

The only down side was that there was more sooting, but I would expect that with a high blast rate.  Strangely enough she ran with the mixer in just about the same position.  I suspect there was more reduction and water gas shift resulting in more gas volume.

Back to work!

Stephen