Scooter
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My charcoal gasifier project
I wanted to make my own gasifier. It's really cool (though not literally) and can be used to make a vehicle move on renewable energy. Some of my friends have some really nice cars running on wood chips and blocks.
Finnish law prevents me from modifying my Toyotas to run on gas, so I decided to convert my cheap Chinese scooter instead.
The gasifier
The gasifier is really simple. I made it almost completely from junk parts found in various trash bins (really). There is a single intake air nozzle some 10 cm up from the bottom, and on the opposite side of the coal chamber, a vertical grid, behind which is the gas outtake. Product gas is then cooled and filtered using a simple paper filter element (from a car intake air filter).
Scooter
I bought a cheap Chinese 50cc scooter for this project. At the moment I am feeding the gas to the engine directly into the scooter's own intake air filter box through a simple coaxial gas mixer. The carburetor must be empty from gasoline when running with gas, so I installed a valve in the gas line. Gas/air mixture can be mixed while driving by inserting a finger into the mixer :) (Must add a picture of the mixer...)
Project status
- 1/2007 : Bought the scooter
- 2/2007 - 3/2007 : Lots of welding: first the gasifier, then cooler, filter, and finally the trailer conversion.
- 3/2007 : Modified the scooter
I have so far managed to drive the scooter on gas once. It worked perfectly until I refilled the gasifier with charcoal bits and pieces -- there was way too much dust in the charcoal that filled the filter. I must empty and refill the gasifier and remove any smaller particles and dust from the fuel...
- 4/2007 : working on the gas mixer
The test drives so far have shown that my first gas mixer was crap. It mixes a somehow adjustable amount of air to the product gas and uses the carburettor valve to adjust engine power. Because the scooter's own intake air cleaner is now placed between the gas mixer and carburettor, it's really difficult to adjust the mixture because of the large gas volume between mixture adjustment and the engine's gas intake.
I built a new T-joint-shaped mixer already. As the weather gets better, I'm going to replace the carburettor with the new gas mixer.
But it's nice to note that starting the gasifier takes less than 30 seconds. I'm using a modified 12V car vacuum cleaner to suck air through the gasifier and some isopropanol to light up the charcoal. And by the way, vacuum cleaners explode quite easily while sucking CO gas...
-- ossi at kavaro dot com
