I'm a first time gasifier owner who just received an M-2 ready to run. I wanted to go slow and get familiar with the machine, so I thought I would start first to light the gasifier and flare the gas.
On my first attempt, I had the blower plugged into 120VAC with no speed control, could not light a flare, and had trouble with the torch blowing out constantly.
On the second attempt, I used 24V battery on the fan, and had a stream which would burn with a torch but not sustain a flare. I emailed Matt and realized I made a very obvious mistake, in my rush to flare I did not plug the gas-out port.
On the third try, with the gas out port plugged with a rag and duct tape, about 2 minutes after lighting the gasifier I tried flaring and it started up instantly, and very strong. In fact maybe too strong and I should try a lower voltage on the blower, so I shut down the blower after only about 20 seconds of flaring, very excited to continue tomorrow and hopefully try running a generator soon. I will update this thread with any other mistakes I make as a complete beginner.
My next question, are there any materials besides sawdust that work for the ammobox filter? I could spend a bit of time making sawdust, but I have other things on hand such as straw, peatmoss, shredded paper, maybe even pine shavings, would any of these things work or is saw dust the way to go?
I think I may have clogged the coarse filter. Maybe fuel was not screened as well, plus i was poking in the gasifier with a stick to try to collapse voids in charcoal and that maybe ground up charcoal into more small pieces.
Anyways, with the blower running, I am not feeling much airflow out of the flare tube.
Is there a video or forum thread about how to clean those out? And where exactly they are. I see two things which may be a cover for a filter, one on the gasifier itself, the base of the lid. and two, further back on the blower module .
Also, it looks like both of them at least have some fiberglass gasket. Is there any sealant that needs to be re-applied after opening it?