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[markonsite]

Has anyone used their boiler to make eelectricity?  Is it even possible?

[slimjim]

yes it is but at this point not feasible, stay tuned

[NaturallyAspirated]

Like a sterling engine setup?  That would be kinda cool!   

Neal

[juddspaintballs]

Stirling engine would make it work, however it would be so incredibly inefficient that it's not even worth it.  You might as well run a steam system and use a steam engine to turn a crank if you want to make electricity with your wood. 

[slimjim]

I have looked into it a bit and know how to accomplish the task on the 250, the prototype would be expensive but once the tooling up is done it should be able to do about 5000 watts at a retail cost of around $10,000, I'm not sure it would be marketable.

[12valve]

How does it work slim?  I would think it would use a lot of wood,  Also it seems like you would need a OWB just for electric generation and one for heating the house etc.  Or could you do it all with one unit?

[slimjim]

All with one unit using a stainless coil around the nozzle exhaust to create steam

[LittleJohn]

Not to sound like a Debbi Downer, but for me personally I do not like STEAM.  Pressures can climb very quickly/dangerously

...not saying your unit will not work, but I read this very interesting artilce a few years, apparently like 6.  Interesting how they used basically run an airconditioning unit backwards to get power, and eventually I think they planned to use excess power to crack h20 -> for hydrogen powered vehicle.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/4245896

[slimjim]

That sounds very interesting, What could go wrong???

[jcc273]

Thermoelectricity is a very interesting thought here, no moving parts and simply needs a temperature differential.  Unfortunately i just don't think the temp differential is high enough to get the kind of power you would want : /.  This guy has something interesting going on though:

http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/presto-alaska-inventor-turns-wood-stove-heat-electricity

I would like to see him achieve his goal that would be amazing.  Can you imagine how great it would be to be able to both heat and power your whole house by simply burning wood!  Not to mention the catalytic converter makes the output cleaner!  So it's a win win for all groups involved [minus tree-huggers ; ) ]

[coolidge]

Its been done with pellets.

[mlappin]

I seen a european company has something similar to a stiring engine to produce electricity. but they use a magnet moving up and down in a cylinder to produce their juice, think like a shake up flashlight. They seem really impressed with it, I wasn't, obscenely expensive to get a max of one kilowatt at 50 hertz.

[Sprinter]

With open system stoves it would be a futile effort just feeding it. Have to build it to ASME standards to pressurize it. And roll the coal

[slimjim]

I think that it would not be hard to do with any gasifier by using a steam coil that is pressurized, the non pressurized water tank on the boiler is the perfect condensing tank so no heat loss would be seen.