Woodmizer Sawdust Burner . . . . .

farmerdoug · November 27, 2007, 06:37:37 PM

Producing power?

Now that well be great news if it comes together. 8)

But Bioman, you do not even have the test units out and you are making our mouths water with more great projects. :

We are at a stand still just waiting to hear who gets a test unit. ;D

I hope tests on all of the projects go great. I am sure looking forward to helping with the alternative energy production for our future.

Farmerdoug

Bioman · November 27, 2007, 07:31:43 PM

Yeah, there is a lot coming together at the same time. I told you guys we were going to push up the cogen schedule and it's moving fast. We won't be producing at capacity. We simply want to prove the technology were pulling together is viable.

The first two burners are done and waiting on the hot air system before we place them (locally).

ElectricAl, the air system to preheat/dry the fuel is going to work well. I have to make the plenum to hook up the blower tomorrow. We held everything in place and the difference in temp in the tank was immediatly noticeable. If we were to insulate the fuel tank the fuel would heat up in mere minutes. The air isn't so hot as to cause problems, and it will do some quick drying in the tank.

Also, preheating the air into the combustion blower and igniter is significant. Waiting a few more days for release of the test units is well worth getting to add the hot air option for the test units.

The dream of sending everything from a mill through a hog/grinder (screened to 3/4 is ideal - 1" works) and burning it wet appears to be the new reality of this ride we've been on this year.

The decision on who gets burners will be next week. We will begin the next round of burners next week also.

ElectricAl · November 28, 2007, 06:20:02 AM

Bioman,

I'm glad the pre-dryer is working. It addresses two main problems: freezing in the storage tank and combustion temperature.

Your idea of insulating the tank is a good one because the moist air in the tank will condense on the walls and run to the bottom causing other problems.

Are you going to add a moisture sensor to the tank to trigger the pre-dryer blower?

Cedarman · November 28, 2007, 08:22:25 AM

As the fuel is drying, where will the moisture go? When the outside air is very cold that moisture will condense on the first thing it hits and turn to ice. Can the moisture be vented directly into the air?

Bioman · November 28, 2007, 11:11:37 AM

It would be easy to add vents to the tank near the top. For now it's leaking out the around the loose cap.

I noticed that when using wet dust the fog coming out of the tank was constant and heavy. However, we don't get the bang for the buck with chips. There simply isn't as much surface area to dry when comparing chips to dust.

The chip/dust fuel we tested yesteday must have been extremely wet as I couldn't get it to run without intermittant propane assist. That limit appears to be somewhere around 60%.

The other catch is wet chips/dust flow characteristics (in a full tank) are challenging. We're going to have to do some more work on the fuel delivery system for this fuel type. Dust by itself is easy. If there isn't too much of the other fuel it works fine, but when you add weight it can become a problem.

We're working on it now....

beenthere · November 28, 2007, 11:29:54 AM

Quote from: Bioman on November 28, 2007, 11:11:37 AM
......................................
The chip/dust fuel we tested yesteday must have been extremely wet as I couldn't get it to run without intermittant propane assist. That limit appears to be somewhere around 60%.

The other catch is wet chips/dust flow characteristics (in a full tank) are challenging. We're going to have to do some more work on the fuel delivery system for this fuel type. Dust by itself is easy. If there isn't too much of the other fuel it works fine, but when you add weight it can become a problem.

We're working on it now....

Bioman
Puzzling to me that you are doing the experimenting and testing, where moisture content is a definite factor, but you are only guessing the moisture content of the material you are burning.?? Taking a moisture sample, weighing it, then oven drying it for a dry weight to calculate the true moisture content for all material in your test runs seems critical and very important, and not difficult. Seems you need this critical bit of information for making design changes ("work on the fuel delivery system" for example) and for recommendations on which fuels work and which don't.

Maybe I'm missing something here, and don't mean to just poke at you, but it causes me frustration when reading about all these interesting tests on a variety of materials to burn....and these materials are the bottom line for the burner to work.

Bioman · November 28, 2007, 04:55:03 PM

Sorry about that.

The tests yesterday were more related to feeding fresh hog fuel. Oven drying a sample like this will take 24 hours or more and I didn't get that far because of the feed issues. Had we been successful I would have measured the MC. It's a moot point right now.

Now that I know we have a new set of challenges related to feeding hog fuel in the current inexpensive system, we've decided to quit researching that possibility for the moment and get the test units out. We wanted to offer the hog fuel option on the test units so we had to try everything we could to see if there were show stoppers, and there were.

The test units are going to be equipped with a 100 gallon fuel hopper for dust and small chips (3/8 or less and not 1" chips), fuel pre-heater, combustion air pre-heater and the deluxe touch screen for enhanced control. It also comes with a Taco series 13 pump. Based on tests to date we will be able to burn wood 60% MC or less with very little or no propane to maintain the burn. I still don't know how much ambient will affect the MC threshold.

We will go back to developing a different type of feed system for chips as soon as we can. We will miniaturize the industrial feed system technology which we know works for chips. This option will be more versatile and hold more for longer load time. It will also cost more, and we were trying to stay away from additional cost by using the existing system.

We're done chasing limits on the domestic unit for now and will commense building for distribution.

By the way, I do appreciate candor in responses. I hope you appreciate the efforts we're pushing into this project to get all we can while still trying to release reliable and versatile product. We finally hit the wall I was looking for and it's time to move on.

beenthere · November 28, 2007, 05:32:54 PM

Thanks for the heads-up.

Wish you all the best as you move forward.

Furby · November 28, 2007, 09:40:41 PM

Just had a thought and maybe it was already talked about, I can't recall, but now that you are talking about burning wet dust and chips, are all the parts that come in contact up to par as far as corrosion proof?

LT40HDD51 · November 29, 2007, 07:04:02 AM

I think we all appreciate what you guys do even more now, and understand better what makes this company of ours so great

. Most people dont understand completely what it takes to get a new product like this designed, built, tested (over and over), tweaked, refined, simplified for production, etc. etc. because nobody is interested in showing the development of new things to the public. Bioman, I think you said something earlier about never having shown this level of development to the public before, it shows great confidence in what you do and in your projects. Again, we appreciate it ;D.

Cedarman · November 29, 2007, 07:48:15 AM

Wood pellets at Tractor Supply, $211.50 per ton yesterday.

Yes, this is exciting watching the development take place. Seeing people scratch their heads and voice their experience. It's kinda like a whole lot of relatives in the waiting room at the hospital waiting on baby's delivery after giving nine months of advice to the mother.

ElectricAl · November 29, 2007, 08:32:24 PM

I'm impressed with the technical advancements sense October when I saw the Latest and Greatest at the 25th show. ;D

There are so many ideas tried by WoodMizer that the general public never sees.
Some make it to production and some don't even make it through the R&D tests.

Years ago I was over at Indy talking tech with Randy Panko. One of the topics was slow hydraulics on the LT40HDG24. Randy said they were working on it. He took me to someone's test bench and there were 2 pump assembles side by side bolted to a piece of plywood.
That test turned into the 40 Super. 8)

But on the flip side we looked at a sawmill with two claw turners. One for big logs and one for small square cants. The small turner was to keep from pushing the cant up the back stops.
Great idea that made it to the prototype stage, but never made it to production. :-\
However we got a pretty slick chain turner now

LT40HDD51 · November 30, 2007, 10:10:52 AM

Quote from: Cedarman on November 29, 2007, 07:48:15 AM
...It's kinda like a whole lot of relatives in the waiting room at the hospital waiting on baby's delivery after giving nine months of advice to the mother.

:D And were all gonna argue over who gets to "hold" it and "feed" it first :D

farmerdoug · December 03, 2007, 02:06:01 PM

Bioman,

How are the test unit decisions coming?

I am sure looking forward to this unit when it comes out. How about the electricity generator coming also? You need to keep us informed better either here or on your own forum. Things have staled a bit there too. Posting keeps things moving in this web age. ;)

Farmerdoug

farmerdoug · December 03, 2007, 02:10:10 PM

Bioman,

When you tried ground corn, did you mean cracked or fine ground?

Have you tried oats, wheat, beans, etc? We occasionally have access to molded grains real cheap since they cannot be used for feed.

Farmerdoug

Bioman · December 03, 2007, 03:44:32 PM

Guys, I've been busy with the final release of the product so I've ignored the thread for a few days. Things are looking GREAT! We're choosing the test sites this week.

I'll be back later tonight to catch up on things.

farmerdoug · December 03, 2007, 05:11:19 PM

Sounds great. 8)

Looking forward to the update.

Farmerdoug

ElectricAl · December 03, 2007, 09:33:04 PM

We had an Ice Storm move through last weekend and deposit an inch of ice on everything. It could have been worse, last Feb we had 60mph winds and an inch of ice.

What I'm looking forward to is a nice new BioMizer Co-Gen in stead of this.

Bioman · December 04, 2007, 10:56:23 AM

Quote from: farmerdoug on December 03, 2007, 02:10:10 PM
Bioman,

When you tried ground corn, did you mean cracked or fine ground?

Have you tried oats, wheat, beans, etc? We occasionally have access to molded grains real cheap since they cannot be used for feed.

Farmerdoug

The corn we burned was fine ground. I haven't tried cracked corn yet.

I have not had the opportunity to burn the others. We need to when we get a chance.

Bioman · December 04, 2007, 10:59:12 AM

Quote from: ElectricAl on December 03, 2007, 09:33:04 PM
We had an Ice Storm move through last weekend and deposit an inch of ice on everything. It could have been worse, last Feb we had 60mph winds and an inch of ice.

What I'm looking forward to is a nice new BioMizer Co-Gen in stead of this.

Since I know the question is going to come up, I'll be head it off with this note.

We are imposing a news blackout on the cogen project - in a good way ;)

Bioman · December 04, 2007, 02:17:51 PM

Test sites have been chosen and applicants will be getting a call confirming continued interest. We had too many to pick from, so we've made a secondary list and will expand the program assuming all continues to go well.

Greg Cook · December 04, 2007, 05:29:51 PM

Congratulations to the lucky ones selected. I chose not to enter since right now I am not at a point that I could utilize the hot water produced, but REALLY much more interested in the power production potential. Since that's not what the test units are dealing with, I felt I should stay out and give others my chance. I do hope ElectricAl gets one so he can use the hot water to melt all that ice!

I am about to begin installation (first of the year) on a 4 KW off-grid system, and I'm leaving space to tie in the co-gen when they get it ironed out.

That's a hint, in case y'all missed it in Madisonville....

Greg

ronwood · December 04, 2007, 05:32:34 PM

Greg,

What type of 4kw off-grid system are you going to put in?

Ron

farmerdoug · December 04, 2007, 06:03:08 PM

Greg, I am sure that will make someone very happy.

I for one was chosen to be in the group and I am going to test it. 8) I guess in the near future I will have more to say about the unit than questions about it. :D

Farmerdoug

Bioman · December 04, 2007, 06:47:29 PM

Forgot to mention one of the updates we did the other day.

We got the flue temps down to mid 400 degree range in normal cycles. We're seeing approx 520 when running long load cycles at 150 K and near 600 when pushing it hard. That's a decrease of approx 150 degrees which means a pretty nice increase in efficiency. These temps are taken when water is at 205 degrees.