Charcoal Flamer

We've always been fans of cooking outdoors, with charcoal. Who isn't?

One thing I've never liked is using some sort of lighting-fluid to get things going. I ended up going the route of a charcoal-chimney. It definitely works, but man it takes awhile.

Anyone who's spent time around firepits, knows how important your lungs are; in getting a fire going.

I figured add more air and we're good.

Here's my solution to the waiting-for-the-charcoal-to-get-hot problem.

The entire contraption was built from HVAC-piping that I had laying around.

I made it tall to simply capture any ash that's generated as the coal is heating up.

I'm using a 12VDC-Axial Fan to drive the thing.

The speed-controller is built around a 555 timer.

The voltmeter gave me a rough-estimate of speed, via the usage of a LM331 - Frequency to voltage converter.

Sadly the schematics are lost to history. I suspect something can easily be whipped up using an arduino.

Enjoy the pics: