The Bairmatic - Van Wert Project

lsayre wrote:Unhippy, the BTU's of your coal are a bit down vs. anthracite, but your 4.7% ash is a big plus. Off the top of my head, that's half to perhaps less than half the ash of typical anthracite.

Is that 8,460 BTU/Lb. measured on a "dry basis"? 30+% moisture would be the concern here. Your effective BTU's may be well less than 8,460 if the measure is for dry. It means burning loads more coal, so on a real world basis, your ash to BTU's ratio is probably about the same as for anthracite.

Its measured on an "as received basis".....its 'Dry Ash Free' measurement is 13,095 btu/lb....AFT is 1320 deg C

StokerDon wrote: That's interesting, but I've never read about anyone else on the forum holding a fire for 12 hours. Maybe they do and they just don't write about it.

I saw your thread about going to re-lit the fire 24 hours later and being surprised that it was still lit! That is amazing to!

-Don

How many people on here are running underfeed stokers?...i think we are in the minority as most of them seem to be flatbed's of one variety or another....which might have something to do with the lack of fire holding skite stories.

We might need our own sub-forum for underfeeds only if the word gets out, to prevent stoker rage when a 'flatbedder' loses their fire after the power goes out for an hour and then reads on here about someone being able to hold a fire for 12 or 24 hrs

Callum

My boiler stokes by gravity, with stoking initiated by automated ash removal from below the fire. Automated ash removal is triggered by the temperature of the "ash grate" (more of a very slow back and forth knife motion ash cutting "sled" actually) falling below a set temperature value. As ashes build up higher and higher the sleds temperature falls, then it triggers the sled to (knife like) cut away at the ashes until hot coals eventually heat the sled back up and ashing stops.

I believe that due to the specific burning characteristics of anthracite as opposed to bituminous, this method of hopper fed action is only possible for anthracite. The reasoning here is the same as for hopper fed hand fired stoves, whereby the overhead gravity hopper is only safe for use with exclusively anthracite coal. Bit coal would burn through the entire overhead hopper reserve unhindered. Anthracite coal does not do this. A PDF drawing of the essence of this ashing method is below. In reality the ash sled only moves back and forth about two inches (give or take), and there is not as much "sled" overhanging to the left of the fire/ashes region as I have drawn here. The sled glides on rails, and has lifetime lubricated wheel bearings. A simple Pitman Arm (such as the the thing that makes train wheels spin) arrangement linked to a powerful and very slow turning gear motor moves it back and forth, crunching through thick and thin. One full back/forth ~2" sled cycle takes about a minute to complete off hand.

Someone should design a hand fired (fed) hopper stove that stokes (functions) as for the above. The simplicity of it is amazing.

unhippy wrote:How many people on here are running underfeed stokers?...i think we are in the minority as most of them seem to be flatbed's of one variety or another....which might have something to do with the lack of fire holding skite stories.

We may be a minority, but there are a lot of under-feds running here on the forum. I have run a few flat grate stokers and the worked very well but, they would not hold a fire for more than 10 or 20 minutes.

lsayre wrote:Someone should design a hand fired (fed) hopper stove that stokes (functions) as for the above. The simplicity of it is amazing.

That is a pretty simple design. Similar to the way an AA or AHS ashes? At some point I will likely run into an old AA130 that comes home with me. I still don't understand how they work. I have to play with one in person before I will figure it out.

I uploaded the other 2 videos of my stunned amazement at this fire recovering. This link will take you to the playlist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TQce9i8hc4&list=PLFU8SaWNbzx9mci79cXUaH2ECEraIT4AT&index=20

-Don

My drawing represents (rather simplistically) how the AHS Coal Gun ashes. Ditto for the AA's I presume.

If hand fed stoves were converted to stoke like this, there would never be another broken ash grate issue.

It has got to be the simplest way to automatically burn coal!

The biggest mistake I made in the drawing was in marking the ash sleds motion as being "when hot". It should have said "when cool(ish)". It shuts off when hot.

I think you guys are crazy! Your machines have twice as many moving parts as my underfed stoker. You have an ashing system and an auger system. I only have an auger system.

I have no auger system yet, hopper fed, one motor to move the grate, and a fan, that's it.

How does the air flow (what is the air path) on the AHS/AA system? It doesn't go up thru the hopper or does it?

Let's not hi jack stoker dons thread.

hotblast1357 wrote:Let's not hi jack stoker dons thread.

You are right. Besides you were about to get a smack down! Hahaha.

Oh please! Lol a new topic is only a click away!

hotblast1357 wrote:Let's not hi jack stoker dons thread.

It's OK, I have others.
Another VA-600 Project
The Van Wert VA600 Project
The Small Gentleman Janitor
Gentleman Janitor GJ-51??? Project
Picked up a Van Wert Stoker
My New Toy, Losch Stoker Boiler
Yellow Flame, A Christmas Stoker Boiler

To name just a few.

-Don

Yes and there all good threads on those style boilers, th AHS and AA Do not have many threads on here.