[UPDATE 10/21/2021 -After 2018 I started posting my updates on my Patreon page, and so I'm filling in the back-logs for this project retroactively so the whole story is in both places. You can also read all of these posts with their original photo formatting here]

August 31st, 2021

This month I spent some time making some final tweaks to the design of the reactor. I've tried a bunch of different configurations at this point, and in general the design works quite well, and it can reliably produce gas clean enough to generate energy with. 

But I wanted to make a few changes based on what I've learned so far to make it a little more modular, more efficient, a little easier to use, and cheaper to build.

I've revised my parts list for this new configuration, which you can find here. Keep in mind that this is still a draft, but it's getting very close to being a stable build. 

First, I've learned that firing a whole batch of charcoal currently takes between 5-8 hours, which is a pretty long time. I decided to test out a configuration where I added extra insulation, and used steel 5 gallon buckets packed inside the reactor.

This change will let me pack burnable material into 5-gallon buckets, and load them into the reactor like fuel cartridges, which I hope will make the whole process of operating the reactor a lot quicker and easier. It reduces the volume of char you can make with each batch a bit, but it should also reduced the time it takes to cook a batch to around 3-4 hours.

I also bought a set of 1.5" condenser tubes to try out instead instead of the 2" ones I'm currently using, because they're a lot cheaper and if they work just as well, then it will make the whole reactor design a lot lighter and cheaper by using 1.5" fittings instead of 2".

I also figured out how to configure the condenser parts in a way that is a lot stronger than my original design, which allows the reactor to be oriented horizontally as well as vertically, and is just generally a lot sturdier and easier to move around. It makes it feel like a lot more of a thing instead of a collection of parts.

Unfortunately, whenever I pull the reactor apart to make upgrades like this, it puts it out of commission for a while, and so I haven't been able to make much charcoal recently, or play with fire very much.

My goal for this coming month is to get this new configuration up and running and do some tests, and based on what works and what doesn't, start building the documentation for the first stable release of the reactor.

Thank you all so much for your support! Stay tuned!