[Stoves] T-LUD research at Aprovecho. Was Re: Ron Larson's Charcoal Making Stoves

[Paul S. Anderson]

Dear Dean and all,

Quoting Dean Still <dstill at epud.net>:  (snipped from 2 messages)

> I am very impressed with the natural convection
> approach. I think that you are right that it might be useful in places
> without electricity.

> I'm starting from the stove described in 
> http://www.woodgas.com/Woodgas%20stove.pdf

The "Reed-Larson" unit (dated 1995, with conference presentation in 
1996) is the
grand-daddy of all T-LUDs.  You have tested T-LUDs at Aprovecho before, 
and now
you are making them.  Wonderful!!!!!!  You will get 100%++++ cooperation from
me and Tom Reed and others.

There are probably some pictures or pieces of Tom Reed's pre-1995 T-LUD/IDD
gasifiers, but Tom has not found them nor sent them to me.  That was a 
ten (10)
year period of Tom's work, and I would love to see something from those
"great-great-granddaddy" efforts.  (That is a Hint to Tom!!!!  Please look for
the old pictures!!  What was the 1985 initial experiment like?)

The actual Reed-Larson unit is at my house.  I have fired it several 
times, but
that was five (5) years ago.  Since those early days I have made approximately
130 sufficiently distinct prototypes of what are now called T-LUD 
gasifiers. Some were short lived, some were useless, and some are still 
in Mozambique,
Bolivia, and India.  I could probably find pieces or photos of 50 to 80 of
them.  Those prototypes I have collectively called the "Juntos A-series" (A is
for Alpha).  The finalized ones that merit a name are the "Juntos B" (forced
air described in the 2004 LAMNET presentation that is on the Stove Internet
site) and the Champion stove that won the Cat Pee award at Stove Camp 2005 and
is pictured on the Web and described at ETHOS 2006.

> Wish that you, Paul and Ron
> were here to guide my experiments!

Thanks for the compliment!!!   Soonest for me will probably be in 
January before
or after ETHOS conference time.  But in the meantime, I am willing to 
assist via
e-mail.  And perhaps some others might want to do parallel work and 
participate
in the conversations.

I go to Cambodia on 23 Nov for 4 weeks, and I will be taking the absolutely
latest version of forced-air T-LUDs.  Some testing is still needed before I
report all to this Stoves Listserv.

Concerning the natural draft T-LUDs, the "state-of-the-art" (from my 
side of the
activities) is well represented in the Champion stove.  That stove is on the
shelf at Aprovecho.  You can leap-frog about 4+ years of experiments by using
that as the starting point.

But to use it there are several issues to address.  I suggest you use the
remainder of the woodchips that I obtained this past August for Stove 
Camp. They came from the large operation in Springfield, Oregon, that 
sells all kinds
of mulches and landscaping materials.  The moisture content of the fuels is
important in T-LUDs.

And the issue of separate control of BOTH the primary and the secondary air is
absolutely critical.  Air control in T-LUDs is as important as the metering
(insertion) of the fuel into a Rocket-elbow stove.

> Maybe instead of making charcoal the same wood could be
> cut into small pieces, dried and burned cleanly.

The above idea might work in some stove, but not in a T-LUD that are
intentionally making charcoal.  If you move in this direction with other
stoves, please keep us posted.

Sincerely,

Paul
-- 
Paul S. Anderson, Ph.D., Geography professor - Emeritus
Telephone:  USA-309-452-7072 (residence and office)
Internet site:  www.ilstu.edu/~psanders
For my gasifier stoves info, go to:
http://bioenergylists.org/contributors#Paul_Anderson




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