plaasjaap

Hi guys - any updates on this parallel error...? I have the same on 3 x MKSii on single phase. They used to be fine as three phase and not current sharing... @Denarius, did that upgrade of yours solve the issue long term? Much appreciated

Make sure you have the comms cable that came with the Kodak the correct way around... On the one end it has a label "pylon'... Don't ask me how i know this🙈 It happens to the best of us....

Well... this is the beauty of it (so far...) - I had the bag made and it cost me about 1/5 of the commercial offering of a real 'biobag' or much smaller (1/3) 'jojo' tank type readymade models! That was when i decided it is worth trying it out...

HI Jay I am in WC in two weeks time... Always keen to help others out. It is really do-able, more so than I ever thought...

Since then it has been fun trying to convert every single gas appliance that i can put my hand on to see if it can work on biogas. The Alva space heater took a lot of tweaking but it works (so far only on one panel or so), but even the safety cutoff/thermocouple still operates. What one really needs is a huge variety of different sized jets to swop out - it seems to be a very sensitive matter - just too much or just too little and it won't burn or would only burn sort-of. My wife's Smeg (!) has also been stripped and reassembled and it is now a multi-fuel machine... The oven i couldn't get converted and allowed wifey to keep that on LPG as my (unmentioned...) forecast would be that, even if i got it to work on biogas, it won't be as predictable as LPG heat and there goes those nice nice Red Velvet cakes as well as keeping her on board regarding this exciting new energy source... Below are the two types of gas (es? - one gas many gasses/gees/gases...;-) burning side-by-side. LPG now suddenly looks green compared to the bluer colour of the biogas. Admittedly, the biogas is lower in 'oempf' so the same size flame is less heat and takes a little longer to get something to the boil. The key is just to get more gas to flow whilst still getting the air mixture right. And all this time, which we are not cooking or I am not testing the gas it is bubbling out of my over-pressure container... Over time one will probably get a very good idea of how much it is really producing, but a couple of nights ago I left the valve open outside. By the morning it was still blowing out, even though the pressure had dropped from about 20mBar to 5. After plugging it in the burner it still boiled the kettle in no time and that is the cup of coffee you can see above... I haven't yet installed a pressure system (tyres on the bag...) as it is operating at max all the rest of the time. Next items to convert are gas geysers (at least Dewhot have indicated they have successfully done this and can supply me with the jets) and then... the generator. The latter probably won't happen too soon.

Thanks - yes nothing on that system. it is worth noting that in the original biogas 'bible' (A Chinese Biogas Manual) not a single mention is made of any such thing safety feature or need therefore. And this is after thousands of small scale digesters of various kinds have been operating for decades across the Chinese countryside. Maybe they didn't know of such a measure that can be taken, but I am quite sure if it was a big risk and many explosions happened due to flash backs, it would at least have been mentioned. Anyhow, it is a simple thing to put in yes.

After some tweaking and opening up jets and getting the right air mixture, I managed to have a very nice steady burner flame going by the next morning. And it was coffee-time!

I had learnt that the first couple of 'bloats' will not be very rich in methane and be mostly CO2, but i still tried to light it at the end every now and again... After day 7 I was getting a wee bit worried that I had build a huge CO2 emitting rumen... I mixed it again (pump the thinnest stuff from the bottom outlet tank back to the inlet tank). The next evening i could hardly believe it when i saw the first signs of a magical blue flame...

By now i had finally connected my first section of gas piping - I used old rigid 32mm water piping. One needs to avoid low points and design the running of your pipes to firstly drain out any moisture - water vapour is always part of the gas coming out and this condensates in the pipe and will eventually block the flow of gas at the lowest points. Within about three days there was action, a very fat white worm was starting to bloat!

Ok ,now it is allowing me to add photos again... So after 'ditch' was finally ready we installed the bag. The next important step was to 'prime' this monster and it took about 10 000L of manure slurry that I carted from a nearby dairyfarm. I don't have a decent slurry pump yet and i realised that the stuff i was sucking is too thin. I then got hold of a tractor trailer load of wasted sorghum silage - we mixed this in with the thin stuff. This stuff just reeked of "potential' energy...!

Wow.. That's interesting. Well, the top half/more than half of the inlet hole is open and as far as i understand one needs to especially warm up the new slurry coming in... so perhaps one can put a tank 'in' this tank above the slurry that is on the way in... OK, now i read your reply properly... you mean the poly tunnel keep it warm.. Yes, i was thinking about that initially, but i heard to many stories of rats and stuff eventually getting to the bladder en there goes the gas..

It will eventually be 90% cowdung. I started it with about 70% dung slurry from a nearby dairy as well as some waste sorghum silage

Cool DeepBass, Yes i have seen. Why can i not load more photo's now....?

Note the blocks on top - that is the pressure regulation system! Needless to say - the chap inspired me and off i went to University of Google for a good few months (ask my wife... i was gone-gone). Anyone who has looked at the subject will soon see there are various kinds of anaerobic (without oxygen) digester types each with it's own positives and negatives. Cost was the main concern for me even though I realised I need to get to quite a sizable setup to even think about additional heating as well as supplying cooking gas also to the other cottages. I have long thought of starting up a 'hobby dairy' or some intensive livestock feeding setup and when i then made the link to have biogas from the waste it was another reason to go through the effort as there will be a beautiful synergy. Without going through all the detail, the biogas model I decided to go with is basically the horizontal operation 'plug-flow' model using a type of 'biobag' as the actual digester. In most instances this is the cheapest way to go bigger with the main downside being insulation in winter. For this reason I put the whole system sub-grade and am busy insulation the roof structure. Even from Moeghesi I learn that wintertime is not great for producing biogas in our region.... The microbes do not like temperatures colder than 10C and also do not like fluctuating day and night temps. Insulation, as well as some winter solar/gas heating, i do realise will be key to adequate winter gas production. My choice of site was simple - a sloped area, below some old diary infrastructure, which is also quite close to the house/point/s of use. 'Stable' waste will be drained straight into the digesters pre-mixing and mixing tank. On the third photo the in and outlet tanks are being casted.