The automatic stoker.

[bizzard]

Elsewhere on the forum there's a topic running about getting your coal from its bag to the stove with talk of coal bunkers and shutes and things. These are all very nice but you still have to mess about with gloves and shovels and stuff, whereas you only have to mess about 'well less frequently really' by using the automatic stoker. I can think of two methods for doings this both with their own varying amounts of mess but should still be less messy than all that shovelling from bags, bunkers and shutes and things. Apart from all that my automatic stokers as well as being a tremendous novelty attraction will also bequeath upon the user great satisfaction and delight to watch this contraptions magnificent, gracefull and compelling movements in action. Poetry in motion in fact.

 

For my first version for making an automatic stoker. Assemble the following;--- First of all you will need to procure a 5 or 6' length of telescopic flue pipe. Four thinnish bowden wires. Four little pulleys. A plank. A box. A length of guttering and some house bricks. Various tools and drills.

Above your stove drill four 6mm holes right through your roof, exactly in vertical alignment with the four corners of your stove. Attach the four bowden cables to the four corners of your stove and pass em up through the four holes in the roof.

Clamber up onto the roof and fit a little pulley over each hole. Set up the plank on the box 'seesaw fashion'. Draw the cables up and around the pulleys and away to one side and attach them all with equal tension to one end of the plank with the planks other end poised daintily over the chimney orifice. Under the middle of the plank, place the box ''falcrum',' well along towards the stoves cable attachments end. Place a full bag of coal upon the plank at that end of the plank too, and slit open the end of it. From just under the end of the slit in the coal bag to the other end of the plank nail down the length of gutter poised above the chimney.

Now push heavily down on the chimney end of the plank which should lift your stove off its hearth and hold it in suspension ''magic''.

Whilst holding things in suspension like this strap the bricks under the plank under the chimney end until you get a fine balance with the stove raised up inside and you can let go.

By now it should be quite obvious how the auto stoker works. Anyway for those who don't understand heres how.

Light the stove and load on coal. Which will lower the stove until the coals burn away and as they burn away the stove will gradually get lighter in weight, causing it to rise which will tip the plank up a little allowing just the amount of coal to run out of the bag, run along the gutter to plop down and plummet down the chimney and onto your stoves fire bed and so keeping it fed and happy as the coals gradually burn away the process is repeated.

Obviously a bit of fine tuning will be needed, especially with the fulcrum box position to attain that super fine balance required to plop bits of coal down the chimney in a steady and regular manner and make this contraption work smoothly, faultlessly and trouble free.

I've not made one yet.

I will explain my other automatic stoker tomorrow. PS Nice smoothly shaped round nuts will work more smoothly and reliably than irregularly shaped lumps of coal.

Edited November 26, 2014 by bizzard

[magnetman]

Looking forward to the MK2 version.

My stove has the chimney at the back and the firebox at the front because it has 3 cooking rings on the top so MK1 would not work for me

Perhaps if you could incorporate a solution to this issue into your design ?

I do have a 6 inch removable cast iron round plate for loading fuel directly above the firebox. This needs lifting at least half an inch before it can be slide sideways or removed completely.

Edited November 27, 2014 by magnetman

[bizzard]

Looking forward to the MK2 version.

My stove has the chimney at the back and the firebox at the front because it has 3 cooking rings on the top so MK1 would not work for me

Perhaps if you could incorporate a solution to this issue into your design ?

I do have a 6 inch removable cast iron round plate for loading fuel directly above the firebox. This needs lifting at least half an inch before it can be slide sideways or removed completely.

Splendid magnetman that you are are toying with the idea of installing this unique system. Having the flue outlet at the back should work even better, as the coals headlong plummet down the flue pipe will be stalled momentarily, indeed saving the coals from any severe crack on the nut, possibly causing them concussion and saving their lives. It will also allow them to plop more gently down onto the firebed. Hope this helps.

[RLWP]

 

Wood pellet boiler with automatic stoking

 

http://www.uk-energy-saving.com/wood_pellet_boiler.html

 

Richard

[gaggle]

I am honestly surprised that no one has yet posted they have trained the dog to fetch the coal in and fill the scuttle without making any mess

[Taslim]

Looking forward to the MK2 version.

My stove has the chimney at the back and the firebox at the front because it has 3 cooking rings on the top so MK1 would not work for me

Perhaps if you could incorporate a solution to this issue into your design ?

I do have a 6 inch removable cast iron round plate for loading fuel directly above the firebox. This needs lifting at least half an inch before it can be slide sideways or removed completely.

Bizzard in #3 is onto something about gentle fuel distribution but I would have thought the answer for your stove would have been right your street. Magnets.

 

Assuming your stove lid is iron a simple system of cams and pullies could be made to remove the lid while a second picks up and positions a shoot above the hole. Pull the string and the fueling sequence starts via a modified version of Proff B's device.

 

How to make it a fully automated device is beyond my simple immagination but I'm sure someone will be able to develop this idea.

[magnetman]

thanks for the idea its brilliant and pretty sure i can do something with my collection of linear actuators, winches and solenoids.

 

not joking

 

got to try this out

[bizzard]

So, evening all. Here are the construction instructions for my second stoker, although not quite automatic it should be very appealing due to its most beautiful simplicity of action and quaintness. It's the idea which I think is worthy of description on the TV channel 37 'How its made' program. So here we go.

Clamber once again upon your boat's roof and erect with say Dexion angle a plinth about 4 inches above your chimney orifice. Upon this plinth mount one of those beautiful old large cast iron lavatory flushing cisterns, ''modern plastic rubbish will be no good at all for this particular kind of application'', with its flushing outlet pipe poised over the chimney. Alongside and directly below the end of the flushing lever which protrudes from the side of the cistern punch a hole through your cabins roof for the lavatory chain to pass through, ideally situate it within comfortable reach of your favorite chair, the cistern can be swung about to facilitate this or the flushing lever could be extended if you wish to operate it from further away. It could even be extended as far as your toilet and could be operated in an appropriate environment of that closet whilst your on the throne. The flushing chain should be of the original authentic type with the hard rubber ball type of pull handle on the end. The big old cast iron cistern is chosen, not only for their magnificent and romantic looks, but also for their enormously big cast iron valve bell which releases the deluge when the chain is pulled, big enough to pass coal nuts if the chain is tugged down hard enough. I suggest Phurnacite nuts to be used as fuel as they're smaller than most.

The cisterns, water inlet valve and skin fitting can be blanked off 'redundant out of use' unless you are hopeless at lighting fires, in which case the water inlet fitting valve can be rigged up to inject liberal squirts of petrol to help the fire along.

So having filled the cistern with nuts you can relax, either in front of the Telly or on the bog, in the smug knowledge that a sharp pull on your fire stoking lavatory chain will deliver the nuts down the flue and into your stove in an instant and so keep you nice and warm and cozy.

 

Could also probably be used for firing vertical steam boilers in the same way. Dan's steamboats boiler for instance, if it has a vertical boiler.

Edited November 28, 2014 by bizzard

[Theo]

Could you design one using the power of an Ecofanny, please?

 

N

[bizzard]

Could you design one using the power of an Ecofanny, please?

 

N

Mmm, might be able to work something out for it to operate an automatic poker or grate riddler, but it would have to be seriously geared down as they're not very powerful. Probably best rigged up with a curved length of tubing inserted under the grate as a bellows to get the fire going. Oh no that's no good is it if the fires not got going.

Edited November 28, 2014 by bizzard

[5thHorseman]

http://www.warwickshirerailways.com/lms/mrwo1043.htm

 

I have been considering a rotating conical bunker similar to that shown here, pushed in front of the boat but cannot decide what to use the towed part for, which you would obviously need to keep the boat tooking balanced and aesthetically pleasing. Perhaps the bizzard design and developement company could help me out here?

 

ed. new word "nelp" appeared on posting

Edited November 28, 2014 by 5thHorseman

[bizzard]

http://www.warwickshirerailways.com/lms/mrwo1043.htm

 

I have been considering a rotating conical bunker similar to that shown here, pushed in front of the boat but cannot decide what to use the towed part for, which you would obviously need to keep the boat tooking balanced and aesthetically pleasing. Perhaps the bizzard design and developement company could help me out here?

 

ed. new word "nelp" appeared on posting

Has possibilities 5th Horseman, but I'm not sure if they fed the firebox directly or just rolled coal forward in the tender onto the shovel plate similar to the steam powered tender coal pushers on some loco' like the Duchesses and certain others.

The worm or screw type coal conveyor might make a better automatic stoker with it revolving in a trough which could feed coal directly down the chimney or into a big hole knocked into the top side of the stove. The screw could be made from an enormous auger or redundant oil-rig drilling bit. One of these running on good quality bearings might even be driven by an Eco-fan.