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Post by gadget on Oct 22, 2019 14:19:02 GMT -8
I used to work at a nuke plant and had some 500F water pipes burst at 1000psi. Makes any large building into a sauna in a hurry. As long as no one gets hurt its usually pretty funny. That would be a site to see. I've heard some pretty good stories that come from nuke plants. |
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Post by gadget on Oct 25, 2019 21:33:00 GMT -8
The higher output pump showed up today. I got it installed and water output went from about 1 gallon a minute to about 2.5 gallons a minute. I had a little bit of time tonight to run the heater and was able to try some larger pieces. I did not want to try a very large piece since it was so late. I am very pleased to say that this thing performed very well! I am very exited to have finally done a really good burn for a couple of hours. I now feel that this heater is a very big success and will start to finish this thing with a better door and other improvements. I'm thinking this thing may be a permanent heater for the greenhouse. Getting more water flow really helped to get this thing going. With the high temp flow volume much higher it helped bring down the temp rise of the water coming out. Before it was about 50F temp gain which is way to high and why it boiled over with a large burn. I am now seeing about 20F temp gain but a much higher volume of water. The second coil temp gain has dropped to about 10F from a previous 20F average. I believe the first high temp coil is now able to harvest more heat and making the water heating more efficient and easier for down stream water coils. Exhaust temps has dropped also. The pump on the left is the one I switched over to. These are very reliable and efficient if you use them correctly. Both pumps are 24v but I run them at 13.5-14.5v to help keep them cooler since they are submerged in warm water.  Here is the label form the higher volume pump. It has the driver for the brushless coils separated from the motor body. You can use a universal no-senser 3 phase driver on these with good results. About $54 on amazon. It has ceramic long life bearings and uses about 40 watts at 12v  This one is the lower power 2 phase pump I was using previous. Its a good little pump if you don't need a ton of flow. It has ceramic bearings for a long life. It uses about 10 watts at 12v. I got it for $16 on amazon  So some slight bad news on my fused silica window (Vortex if your listening), I got some etching on it from the large log I burned the other night that boiled over the main water pipe. Good news is I was able to polish it out fairly easily. I have not checked it yet from tonight's burn. Hopefully its fine.  This heater is working out to be a great performer. I'm now very motivated to get a proper door built and clean up allot of the loose/temporary items. I was worried this heater was maybe going to possibly be a 1 season only test heater but after tonight I am very excited about how well it works with the new pump. I hope I can get some time soon to get it finished up. It feels great to have that discouragement and doubt lifted. Here is video of the exhaust steam plume before I put in the bell radiators. Even with the radiators, I have not obtained "full condensing" yet so there is still lots of water vapor going out. I think I'm fine with this for now. Yes there is still 15%ish of heat in the water vapor but for now it goes out the pipe. Later latent heat |
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Post by Vortex on Nov 1, 2019 12:08:20 GMT -8
Keep us posted on how it turns out The High Temperature Resistant Fused Silica Glass doesn't seem to be any better than the standard Robax or Neoceram stove glass. After two burns I can already see the faint pattern of etching developing. It was sold as 1000C continuous, up to 1300C short term. It hasn't been over 850C yet... |
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Post by gadget on Nov 1, 2019 20:23:13 GMT -8
Keep us posted on how it turns out The High Temperature Resistant Fused Silica Glass doesn't seem to be any better than the standard Robax or Neoceram stove glass. After two burns I can already see the faint pattern of etching developing. It was sold as 1000C continuous, up to 1300C short term. It hasn't been over 850C yet... There is probably a chemistry mechanism of fluxes and corrosive high temp stuff in the flames that are doing the etching and not just a temperature problem. I did a really hot burn tonight with lots of small pieces of wood to get my water tank that warms the grow beds up to temp quickly. The 2" lense was glowing a very bright white/yellow color. I have no doubt tomorrow I will find its badly etched. I did manage to warm 55 gallons of water form 54F to 118F in about 25 minutes from a cold start while at the same time circulating the water through cold grow beds. |
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Post by esbjornaneer on Nov 23, 2019 5:48:25 GMT -8
Good going Gadget! Very interesting thread and good development in the water heating department!
You didn't by any chance get a thermocouple installed near the water coils? It would be interesting to know what temps you are having there.
It would also be interesting to know what weight wood you get through for a specific amount of temp increase in your water?
Your diagrams are great at explaining what you were planning and have done with the flue gases, but I am not sure how you are running the water pipes. Is it just the one pump pushing all 3 sections (car radiator, lower coils (50' of 1/2" copper), and upper coils (25' of 5/8" copper, I assume this is the one you call high temp coil), are they in series or parallel(like you air inlet valves)?
In the last video of the steam/smoke stack: I thought it looked a bit more gray than just water vapour... but it may just be lighting conditions as I see a torch light flickering too?
I'm getting quite interested in having a go myself, but with a different combustion setup.
Many thanks, Esbjorn
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Post by gadget on Nov 23, 2019 22:43:47 GMT -8
Good going Gadget! Very interesting thread and good development in the water heating department! You didn't by any chance get a thermocouple installed near the water coils? It would be interesting to know what temps you are having there. It would also be interesting to know what weight wood you get through for a specific amount of temp increase in your water? Your diagrams are great at explaining what you were planning and have done with the flue gases, but I am not sure how you are running the water pipes. Is it just the one pump pushing all 3 sections (car radiator, lower coils (50' of 1/2" copper), and upper coils (25' of 5/8" copper, I assume this is the one you call high temp coil), are they in series or parallel(like you air inlet valves)? In the last video of the steam/smoke stack: I thought it looked a bit more gray than just water vapour... but it may just be lighting conditions as I see a torch light flickering too? I'm getting quite interested in having a go myself, but with a different combustion setup. Many thanks, Esbjorn I run the water lines in parallel. I have 3 separate pumps. I just redid my transfer tank setup last week and am doing allot of changes on the water side of things. I'm using this heater about 30 minutes at night to warm the water for the grow beds up. It gets it up to temp very quickly, especially if I load allot of wood. I really need to take the heater apart and make some changes. I haven't decide if I am going to limp it along through winter or make improvements now. When I do tear it apart, I will see about getting some thermal couples placed inside. If you build a heater, do a build thread with lots of pictures. |
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Post by gadget on Dec 16, 2019 20:40:39 GMT -8
Its DEAD!!! I killed the heater tonight or maybe I should say the heater almost killed me! I think I may have discovered a new failure mechanism that I once thought was not possible or very much not likely. I'm glad I did not get hurt and we may have a good lesson in safety here once I get it torn down.
I had not run it for a couple of weeks since I have been keeping the greenhouse above freezing using a ground water geothermal heater that is working out very well. Its been nice not having to tend a fire and being able to just flip a switch with minimal power usage. It was getting down to single digits tonight so I thought I would run a few pieces of wood through the fire to help keep things warm. I had not used the geometer yet at low temps and wanted the extra heat just in case. Looks like the ground water heater is pulling full duty tonight.
I am off work tomorrow and will do a tear down with pictures. There is also allot of smaller failures that I will cover that I have been nursing along.
I was just thinking the other day of not finishing/revising this heater and to just tear it down completely. I have been doing so much work with geothermal, solar air/hot water heaters and heat pumps driven off my solar I have been thinking wood will become a last resort/backup for heating.I was thinking a smaller wood heater just as a backup. Do to all the failures( I will share later) and complexity, I am NOT going to rebuild or finalize this specific heater.
The failure was not one I was certain could be likely and it happened anyway. Something to think about. Its a good thing I guess cause it forces my hand to go another route. Wife will be glad when its gone, its pretty ugly in the green house and takes up lots of room. Maybe I will turn the stainless bathtub into a nice little hot tub. More tomorrow......
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Post by Dan (Upstate NY, USA) on Dec 17, 2019 10:11:14 GMT -8
Greenhouse to sauna?
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Post by wisc0james on Dec 17, 2019 13:02:06 GMT -8
With shrapnel?
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Post by esbjornaneer on Dec 21, 2019 7:58:02 GMT -8
Sorry to hear of the failure! But looking forward to learning from it. But keeping the plants warm are the main point here!
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Post by gadget on Jan 10, 2020 20:32:47 GMT -8
Well I am not dead but for a split second I thought I was. I thought open loop copper tubing was fairly safe. I'm starting to think maybe not so. My initial thought was as long as the copper pipe has not collapsed what could be the worst case scenario? Well I found out. No, the pipe did not burst but I was very much convinced it had.
What happened was I started up the heater and got it pretty hot. I then put in a good load of know hot burning wood and got temps going really well and was warming 80 gallons of water ridiculously fast. Output at this point was very high. I noticed after a few minutes water temps where not raising as fast as they where earlier. I checked and the main pump on the very hot coil was not moving any water. Now granted, I have no fail safes or protective measures on this heater yet. What could go wrong? So I went to check some wiring and heard the pump start up when I touched a connection. A few seconds later, I heard what sounded like a gun shot had gone off inside the heater, then seconds later, water started gushing out from somewhere in the heater. It was very very loud! Nearly crapped my pants. I was very convinced I blew up the copper pipe inside the barrels.
So I took the heater apart. I got to the copper coil barrel and to my surprise, I found....nothing wrong with the pipes. I was expecting some torn up copper tubing. I was kinda disappointed considering how loud and in intense the boom was. I did however find some pretty bad unrelated problems that I will post pics of later.
Ultimately what happened was the rubber hose that feeds the main coil from the back side of the heater blew off. It is surprising since they usually have to be cut off and it was on pretty tight with a hose clamp and the other end of the pipe is open to atmosphere. Think about that, steam built up so fast once the water hit the probably glowing coil that the exit of the copper was not enough volume to prevent a steam build up and mini explosion. That is what it sounded like. If the rubber hose had not blown off could the pipe of burst? From what I heard, I think YES.
After experiencing how powerful the steam was in an open loop, I am no longer convinced open loop copper is 100% explosion proof. At least not at the volume of high heat this thing puts out.
I think I am going to get away from the copper tubing setup and go direct tank heating.
I'll post tear down photos soon. There is other things to cover. Thanks for joining me on this crazy build. I'm glad I lived to build another day.
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Post by michsamaipata on Aug 1, 2021 11:44:45 GMT -8
This is way over complicated and against the grain of how a J-tube RMH was designed but I like your enthusiasm and I'm living through you vicariously even if I don't understand what you are doing. But at night I sleep well knowing I can heat my whole house when the grid goes down (I work for my local grid) with a single match and some stored and dried firewood. I even have a hand pump right in my house when the electricity goes out for drinking water and flushing toilets. Keep going, I wanna know how this thing heats your house in the end. Your crazy stove is still better than relying on natural gas, kerosene or propane... Hey Wolf, this one is actually for my greenhouse. The heater i'm building for my house is on this thread and yes, its even crazier then this one so be warned; donkey32.proboards.com/thread/3559/vertical-corner-heater-condensing-chimneyI'm glad you made this comment cause I want to remind anyone reading that this heater is an experiment and I have no idea how well its going to work out. If you build one and blow yourself up don't sue me... I love your heater you built, I read through that entire thread and appreciated the pictures/details, it really helps newbies and I am still a newbie on year 2 of wood heating. I do like simple designs but i'm actually a closet inventor so this design seems business as usually for me LOL. This whole design is the result of one simple problem - using wood heat without a chimney and dealing with the side affects of cold exhaust gases. Is it possible to burn wood without a chimney? We shall see.... actually I already did it with my mini RMH build last year and I will say that I am hooked on turbo charged heaters. Are they for everyone? Probably not, but maybe there is someone like me that can't have a chimney and is in an area where the burn police patrol 24/7 keeping us safe from those criminal wood burners. I sleep well at night knowing the government is trying to micromanage my life. I hope someone can benefit from my experiments.. I'm actually a prepper and have a 24v 1800watt solar setup this will be hooked up to. I also have a backup 12v 1500watt system that is all wrapped up EMP proof. I also recently got an Lister 8/1 diesel slow speed generator. I have triple redundancy for power backup but wait...I am also building a little mini heater in my basement that will tie into my water heater flue that will not need any power to run so I will be good on heat when SHTF. I live in a cold climate area so it is important to me to have a way to heat my home if things go bad. I also have 2 shallow wells and a complete independent pressurized water system with hot water that I can tie into my house by just turning a couple of valves and flipping 1 switch. When the zombie apocalypse comes, I will have warm showers. I have been prepping for over 20 years and has taken a while to get to this point. Wood heat is high priority for me even though I have a brand new gas furnace. I'm almost to the point with my preps where I can take my entire house off grid within 2 minutes except for my sewer. Your more prepared then 95% of the people in your town, think about that one! Lets hope it never gets to that point. |
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tferr
Junior Member
Posts: 69
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Post by tferr on Dec 13, 2021 19:05:10 GMT -8
Glad you were OK Thanks for the enjoyable read.
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