[Stoves] Charcoal Champion Stove. Was: Charcoal Rocket Stove

[psanders at ilstu.edu]

Quoting Kevin Chisholm <kchisholm at ca.inter.net>:

> Dear Paul
>
> Thanks for the clarification.
>
> Paul S. Anderson wrote:
>> For Kevin's benefit, please add the word "concept", to read:
>>
>>>> A.D.'s application of the Champion stove [[ concept ]] sounds very 
>>>> good to me.
>>
> What would you say is the essential concept of the Champion Stove? Is 
> it something that would be obvious to someone skilled in the trade, 
> or do you consider it to be invention?
>
Kevin,

The Champion stove accomplished cookstove-size top-lit updraft gasification
using natural draft with consistent good performance.  Tom Reed gets 
credit for
the TLUD concept of pyrolysis-to-make-combustible-smoke/gases.  That is the
"gasifier makes gases" part of TLUDs.  He was not fully successful with the
combustion aspects (that is, the smoke-burning part), as can be seen in the
original "Reed-Larson 1995" device.  Issues of sufficient draft and 
combustion.
So Tom moved on to forced-air TLUDs.  The bottom (smoke-making) components of
Tom's and mine and of most others are very similar.

The components I contributed relate mainly to the "smoke burning."  
They are the
concentrator disk, the setting of the gap for secondary air using the diameter
of a wire/rod, and the dimensions of the internal chimney (before the 
heat hits
the pot.)  Plus putting it together into a stove that can function for 
cooking.
My presentation at ETHOS 2006 remains the best description (with photos and
diagrams) of this technology.

It is an invention.  I worked nearly five years before I came to that point in
2005.  Who is skilled in the trade of TLUD gasifiers?  There are several (but
really very few) and none of them came to that solution.  In 20/20 hindsight,
things can look quite obvious.  But when creating this or any new stove, many
things are not obvious at all.  There ARE other ways to have the secondary air
enter, and I have tried every one that I could think of.  I know many 
ways that
do not work or have other drawbacks (including complexity to manufacture, or
problems for user-friendliness.)  But since completing the Champion Stove, I
have spent very little time on the topic of combustion (smoke burning) by the
natural draft TLUDs.

I presented this stove at Stove Camp 2005.  It won the Cat Pee Award for clean
combustion by a natural draft cookstove, and hence I named it "Champion 
stove".

The intellectual property rights have been placed in the Public Domain 
two years
ago.

My largest unit with this technology was in a 30 gallon (about 115 
liter) drum,
and it was very much an experiment of concept, not for practical use at that
point.

I am thrilled that ARTI and the Karve's are using the concepts at a larger
scale.  They live in a society where there are applications for this
technology.  I have not seen any pictures yet, so I do not know if the
concentrator disk and spacer rod are incorporated into that design.

I would not be surprise if improvements or even better alternatives could be
found for the smoke burning in natural draft TLUDs.  But Dale Andreatta
reported at ETHOS 2007 that he did not find ways to improve upon the Champion
stoves' design for combustion during his year of experimentation.

Thanks for asking.

Paul





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