Small (Micro) Biomass Fuel Briquette Presses made from Wood

A low cost, easy to build alternative to the large biomass fuel briquette press. Made completely from wood with hand tools the presses can produce briquettes at a rate of about 12 in 10 minutes. Measured drawing are available at http://home.fuse.net/engineering/ewb_project.htm Also see the EWBGCP Chapter http://www.ewbgcp.org/

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• Small
• Micro
• Biomass
• Fuel
• Briquette
• Press
• from
• the
• Easy
• BioPress
• Series

[sdjlyt2012]

Could you go into a little more detail on the jack and finishing plane. I had the same question. I believe the hole can be bored well enough with hand tools, my parents had a hand drill and I used it to drill many a hole myself that diameter when I was a boy, but the only way I got a round plunger was to go to a friend of mine who had a lathe. Other than that, I gave up and went to the square briquette earlier in the video with hand tools.

[LeeHiteVideo]

@sdjlyt2012

Sure, no problem. Space is limited here so send me an email to leland.hite@gmail.com and I'll add the details. Thanks for the question

[MsPancha2010]

Hi Lee, thanks so much for sharing your knowledge. I am about to build one press for our school. how did you do the mold plunger? how about the base plate? Again thanks for your help.

[LeeHiteVideo]

@MsPancha2010

I cut a 3 inch square to the proper length and shaved to a circle, first using a jack plain and then with a small finishing plain. It goes rather quickly. Sand to finish.

The groves in the base plate can be done using a hand gouge or with a V-Grove router and bit. Best to use a router table for that. Email me at leland.hite@gmail.com if you have additional questions. Good luck with the project

[AppledoreInstowFerry]

I made one from your excellent document. Brilliant, so easy to make paper logs, effortless to apply pressure. I'm surprised these are not for sale as I have now made 3 for friends and they wanted to pay me for materials and labour.

[LeeHiteVideo]

Nice to hear they have found a good home. I have heard bits and pieces about the press being for sale in developing countries but I do not have any specific info on that. I believe they are used to provide income for small villages.

[sdjlyt2012]

@MsPancha2010 Word of caution when building this, if you are not experienced, you may run into a few snags that will catch an amateur. Dimensions on the plans are EXACT. Especially the length of the bolts, With mine, I ran into a snag where my cuts weren't exactly as needed and I had to buy longer bolts. WARNING the longer bolt is a 3/8x8 in. It was the LONGEST I could find at my local hardware store. Measure and cut CAREFULLY. Leave a tiny room to spare in the slots. Works great! Have Fun.

[LeeHiteVideo]

Good question. I should have provided more explanation about the bottom support plate. The press can generate 12-14,000 pounds of force and the 2x6 is deliberately sized to provide a spring to prevent other parts from failing. The original design used a much stronger plate. The 2x6 must be good quality and void of cracks or failure can occur. If you want a less flexible plate just screw another 2x6 to the bottom of the existing plate and position it length-wise between the legs on the bottom.

[sdjlyt2012]

I loved the video, excellent tutorial and plans. Tried it and built one myself. It worked very well, however I did build a second one changing the size of the lower board from a 2x6 to a 4x6 to increase strength. both yours and mine appeared to crack the lower board and several other of your videos mentioned that you broke the board. I don't know if it actually helped, but the thicker 4x6 seems to bend much less than the 2x6.

[enticed2zeitgeist]

What is the advantage of burning these bricks versus burning regular firewood?