Home Made Gravity Fed Pellet Feeder for Wood Stove
Вставка
- Опубліковано 2 вер 2021
- Light it once and stay warm all night long! This video shows how I built my custom, home made, gravity fed pellet feeder for a wood stove. The stove is a Colorado Cylinder Stove that I use in my Montana Canvas wall tent. It also shows burn times for different venting options and which one is optimal.
I’m thinking a pair of options would suit to minimise ash buildup.
Firstly, a very simple second handle below the other one, connecting to a bit of steel flatbar just at the bottom of the burn chamber below the angle grate. Give it a jiggle to push the bottom layer of the ash bed forward into the ash drawer.
Secondly, drill holes up into the bottom of the burn chamber, weld on a section of square tube with one side removed, and fit a drawer into it. This will allow the bulk of the ash to drop straight down, but any heat being generated still contributes to the overall burn.
Thanks for the ideas 🙂
To get more heat out of your stove, place the flue at the opposite end from the burner so the hot gasses travel along the top surface. To slow your burn rate you would need a smaller burner tube.
A 3 inch square tube rather than 4 inch might work. But, the practical limit is where it may clog due to the size of the pellets.
Definitely a good strategy on your first suggestions. Regarding your second , all he'd have to do is a simple redesign on that plate, moving those air intake holes further back from the burn chamber Doing it like that ash buildup would have been a non-issue through the course of a full hopper run, even with the stove dampened down like it was in his first test burn. It wold give him much more control over both temperature adjustment and overall run time, without losing the ability to burn as hot as he is able to now, as would be the result of decreasing the size of the burn tube.
Or just a simple burn basket to lift the pellets off the floor of the burn chamber. That would also solve the problem .
@@smallblockchevy1022 Im actually working on the idea you have of lifting the burn chamber. I just did a test run last weekend and it burned for over 14 hrs straight but I had a couple issues I still need to work out. Then I will do another video.
Sweet set up. I have a traeger gravity stove it pumps lots of heat out. The only thing I would add is a lid to the hopper to minimize fire and smoke risk in you’re wall tent.
We see a nice beautiful invention. What we do not see is the many hours of thought that created this invention. This product is artistic in its simplicity and very innovative. Again my feed is down due to dust blocking a vacum sensor tube. For us keep it simple inventors and enthusiasts I would rank this invention and presentation in the area of combustion solutions as top 3 in the past 5 years. As a general invention, top 100...Great Job Chase the Hunt
Thank you for the compliment. I have updated the stove and will be posting a video in the near future.
Great video !!! Thanks for taking the time to try different settings.
I will try to use your idea to convert a charcoal grill into pellet.
All the best !
That was a cool design! What if you added a burn basket directly above your ash drawer and cut a new air intake just below the burn basket to draw fresh air between the bottom of the burn basket and the top of the ash drawer? Rather than having holes drilled in your 45-degree burn chamber plate, the new air intake opening would feed fresh air directly below the new burn basket. That might solve your ash plugging problem, especially if the burn basket were made of welding rods lined up side by side with just a little smaller gap between them than the pellet diameter, so the pellets could get good air, but not fall all the way through the burn basket before they were burned. If plugging occurred, the basket could be shaken slightly to clear the ash. (Just a thought). Thanks for sharing your ideas with the rest of us. If everyone would do that, the world would be a better place.
Thanks Ron. I might just give that a try. Your right, im sure it would solve my ash problem.
I wish I knew what you just said?? Lol. Seriously. I need a schematic of the pellet chamber to help figure out what you said.
I think i could achieve that idea by plugging off the current airflow, pulling out the ash tray a little to allow air flow in from below and putting in a little stand for the pellets to land on and ash to fall though. By doing that, i wouldn't need to rebuild it without knowing it worked first. Either way, it works well enough now, its just fine tuning to maximize burn time and heat output
Great job on the stove!! I want to do exactly that. That many hours is PERFECT. That's all you need for sleeping time.
awesome set up
Pretty ingenious ...
... smoke coming back through the hopper cconcerns me though .
It concerned me to. I believe I have it all fixed now.
Great video 😊
Your design has one flaw. It need to have the flame travel under a plate (or baffle ) inside the stove, so the flame has to travel under it the full length of the stove then back to the flue pipe and out. This way the flame has a chance to burn more of the smoke and also capture more of the heat before it exits out the flue pipe. I made one that made the flame travel back and forth from the front to the back of the stove twice with a series of baffles to capture all the heat from the flame (or as much as possible) It ended up to be very efficient and you could touch the pipe going into the chimney without burning your hand and the stove would run 600 - 700 degrees with no problem (almost too hot)
Also, my burner is designed after the design used in the Riley tent stove pellet burner attachment. It's hard to find a photo of it but I did eventually thru a woodstove forum I found. Atleast if I were you, I'd lift your burner up tomake a 1/4" or 3/8" gap under it to send more air thru the pellets. Worth a try.
Thanks Dave, I have considered doing that. I'm 100% sure it would help. I know I'm loosing a lot of heat going straight up the chimney and out the top. With the one you made, did you have any issues with the wind causing it to go positive pressure and send the flue gas back into the tent?
@@chasethehunt2187 No, never. Once the fire is going, the draft is too strong to ever backup into the stove.
@@chasethehunt2187 No but I always run mine wide open so it won't backfeed with the draw. That's one thing I learned is trying to damper it down just caused problems with plugged burners or going out. I only changed the size of the burners to regulate the heat output. I have 4 burner designs I use and each one has a different burn rate and heat range.
@@PainterD54 that's awesome!!
thanks i am going to try that with my tent stove
Great ideao
Success congratulations!
Why not put some small holes on what is catching the pellets so the ash falls though? Or something like a really tight metal grid. Top layer is just small strands of metal just big enough to hold the pellets with supports holding them together from the other direction as needed. Should solve the problem I would think.
I have been working on this and I think it's finally dialed in. What I ended up doing is almost exactly like you mentioned. Thank you for your input and idea
Awesome job, I think with a little tweaking you’ll be able to get 10-12 hours burn time.
the longer the burn the less heat you have
Got a question t on the funnel, you made. First did you make a video on how you made it. I got a sm ss stove, thinking of converting to pellets. That tube looks like a 2x2 sq. tube, right? Also, since it is a gravity feed, was the tube cut at a slight angle to help that feed? If not, might help to keep the pellets clogging..9 hr burn is not bad. Also, think I would put deflector plate above fire, to channel heat up front then thru chimney.
Hope to hear on this making.
I believe the rectangular tube is 3" x 3-1/2". It is angled to help ash fall into the stove but the hopper is vertical
have you try when hunting? if so can you show in video
I used 4 little 50mm computer fans on mine it only draws .2A. It sure makes them burn further down to ashes. I get like almost 4 hours out of a coffee can sized burn pot. I want to get more time tho, so I can let it burn all night. That is why I'm looking at making a hopper. It keeps my 8X16 insulated CTC at 73-75 degrees.
So does it run on AA batteries?
@@chasethehunt2187 No they are 12v. For camping they could run off a toy car battery for a long time.
Try a small poker to clear the bottom holes but be careful not to push the fire off the burner.
Perhaps that would require the addition of a coarse "basket" railing around the the burning portion but above the clinkers.
A couple people have mentioned baskets. When I get some free time I will do some more messing around with it. Thanks for your input
Wealth of information, now,help us make one, I would of had more angle on funnel to feed pellet, and more angle on ash burn chamber. Thank you
Three levels with second grate to catch some on second grate...ashes fall to the bottom tray? 20mm air gap under burn grate...out of rod with 4mm gap for top grate and less for second grate?
...According to others.
What if at say 4-5 hours you just pulled the feed rod in and out a couple times to clear the ash in the holes? Would it putter out? Or would it clear it? Would it destroy your fire?
Or make a basket style dish for the burning, so when you pull the feed rod in and out the whole fire isn’t blown apart, but more just pushed onto a little platform with holes to let ash fall but hold the fire. Then you can slam it a little to clear the ash and your back in business. Add more pellets and go for an evening hunt. Just thinkin. Love the process, want to see more. I might build one to add to my four dog stove.
Thanks for the ideas TK. My goal is to not need to mess with it during the burn. Having the fire is for at night. I would like to light it and go to sleep and have it burn all night without having to wake up. I think your idea about messing with it 4 or 5 hrs in would probably work if i were to wake up during the night.
Is that 3” square or 4”? I really like that design
3 inch. Thanks
I do not like that the flames seem to be shooting straight into the chimney. I would prefer it if there was a way for the flame to spend more time in the stove and radiate heat through the stove (Example a sheet of steel that goes around 75% to the front, and maybe a secondary burn system).
Try a baffle so the flame can't go straight up the flu
That's a great idea bobby, i might just give that a try. The flame now pretty much shoots up the flu and that would definitely restrict that heat loss
What angle did you cut in the square tube?
Im not sure off hand but my guess is around 17-20°
Moisture heat is going through the chimney you need to recover some of that heat here waste a lot of heat efficiency is like 5%
Thanks for your input, I'm looking at adding a baffle to cause the heat to travel throughout the stove, or to move the hopper to the other end of the stove to cause the heat to travel the length of the stove to the flue pipe.
I don't understand why you didn't just do a simple redesign on that plate, moving those air intake holes further back from the burn chamber? Then ash buildup would have been a non-issue through the course of a full hopper run, even with the stove dampened down like it was in your first test burn. This would allow you much more range in the temperature adjustment, and ultimately allow you to lower the temperature, and greatly increase overall burn time per hopper load.
I guess I'm not understanding correctly. The tray does a couple different things, it guides the pellets and is also a sort of "throttle" to only let so many pellets out at a time. So I'm not sure I can just move it back.
If you could make a drawing to explain your idea I'd love to see it. You can email it to me at chasethehuntbrothers@gmail.com
Thanks
Can you build a big "wood log loader" for logs with Ø 4-6" and a lenght 4-5 ft. ? xD with the same princip?
'That would be cool :P Is much more cheaper?! If you live in the woods
Not sure how'd you do it or if you would need to. I think if u had a stove that could hold 4' logs u wouldn't need gravity feed, it would probably burn all night anyways😁. I use the pellets because they are convenient and under $10 for a warm night of sleep.
I just use my stove for a week or two in the winter when I use my tent.
Cool beans dude good ideas
I’m with plex guy on moving the hopper to the opposite end for better flow, the air is trying to move above the flame as it heats up open entry.
But you need to seal the top of the hopper cause eventually, as you can see by the smoke coming out there, the flame will move up the hopper
@mikesalmon9945 I am currently working on some changes. I moved the burner and hopper to the front like you mentioned and i lengthened the tube from the hopper to the burn chamber to try and keep flame out of the hopper. I did a test run last weekend and got 14 hrs straight out of it. I still have some issues to fix, then I will post another video.
Looks like your burner plate design leaves no place for the burnt ash to fall away into the stove as it burns, so it eventually chokes out its own air supply. Most of these do not rest the angled plate directly on the bottom of the inlet pipe. They leave a small gap at the bottom and as ash works its way to the bottom of the angled plate, the river of air flowing along under the plate helps blow it into the stove. They have and angled mesh or hooks pointing upward at the end of the angled plate to hold the pellets from simply falling into and clogging that lower river of air.
Or You need the angled burn grate to extend into the stove farther(with the same hooked grate at the end) so the ash falls off the bottom end into the stove, like it does when you push in the burn plate. Opening the front door vent makes no sense and I am not understanding why the grate does not clog even faster with less draw/air in thru the pellet burner.
The open door vent will also send more of your warm tent air up the chimney to be replaced by cold outside air thru every opening in the tent. All of your pellet burner air should come from a duct that extends outside the tent. The first year I put in a pellet stove I was terribly disappointed with the warmth in the house until I realized it was pumping a tremendous volume of room air up the chimney and sucking in cold air from every crack in the structure. Once I brought that combustion air in directly from outside and brought in a second outside air source to feed the heat exchanger with fresh outside air and pressurize the house with warm fresh air, my comfort level went up tremendously. Thanks for sharing your testing.
I love your ideas. Bringing in air from outside the tent never crossed my mind. Definitely something to look into
Thanks 👍
@@chasethehunt2187 outside combustion air was great, but adding fresh outside ventilation air with a 3” computer fan blowing into a duct that fed the heat exchanger inlet made all the difference. That little bit of pressure turned all the cracks in the house into exhaust vents pushing out the cooler peripheral air and replacing it with fresh heated air. The whole room was immediately warm and the steady flow of fresh air was a nice change from the usually sealed stuffy winter house… I am working on a plan for a small pellet heater for an overland RV I am building. Here is one of the more innovative burner designs I have come across. I think I am going to build a test one today since it is raining here. This one is cool because you can control the size/volume of the burner, and throttle it… note the gap at the bottom(this one almost looks too large) but the river of air should continuously sweep the ash into the ashpan/stove body and maintain a clean burner and consistent burn… ua-cam.com/video/rTkYyFNLqQM/v-deo.htmlsi=zC9LhIijy-41bVkd
I made a test burner this weekend, more along the lines of the video i linked to. Works great! The gap under the burner seems to be the key, one I have missed in my previous attempts. The river of air flowing under the burner keeps the pathway clean and keeps ash from piling up and clogging the burner… i also didn’t drill holes and made the burner with long vertical slots.
How much $is a bag of pellets
Usually around $6
I don't hear a rocket? The air should be restricted all the way throughthe force should pull the ashes from the burn chamber down into the pan
There definitely is a rocket noise of air ripping through it. It can be loud enough at times that it could keep a light sleeper awake 😂
Death trap.
Браконьер
my homemade rocket stove self feeding pellets and wood chips or combined had it yesterday burning at 1100F no problem with plugging i have air all around the burner plus a secondary one bellow it and then the ashes bellow that , the longer the burn the less heat you make , the stove is an old oil hot water heater with a flue inside it the fire and exhaust goes up to the top then forced back down inside and exits at the bottom to another flue pipe it's still about 225F there
It sounds interesting, do you have a video on it or photos?
@@chasethehunt2187i can make one or some photos i just need to finish the hopper ,write your email
@@tonycavez chasethehuntbrothers@gmail.com