Hydrogen Cannon Electrode Design Help Needed
http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/1739/electrodes.jpg
Hey guys,
This is my first time posting on this site so I'll try and keep it to the point.
I'm creating a hydrogen cannon for a engineering project at my university and figured I'd get some help with my electrode configuration.
The design is a simple Stainless steel parallel plate set up. However, I am worried that the different sizes of the plates within the acrylic tube will mess things up. (24 plates in total) The plates are all 1' tall and they vary from 7" to 2' in width.
So there's a whole heck of a lot of surface area here.
The goal is to run this thing for pretty much 8 hours straight for one day with a few minute breaks once in a while. So just raw hydrogen production.
Im looking for advice such as:
-do i need to worry about heat for just one day?
-what plate set-up do i use (+-+-+-+-+ or nuetrals) for a good balance of heat reduction and raw HHO production?
-what is the best way to connect the plates to a power source for whichever plate set-up is used?
-is 1/4" spacing too much for a basic distilled water and salt electrolyte solution?
Also, since these are so large, I need a way to maintain the seperation of the plates. I was thinking a 7" (ID of tube is 7.5") threaded nylon rod through the center of the plates at the top and bottom with 1/4" wide nylon spacers between each plate.
Thanks in advance for the assistance. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Dry Cell/Wet Cell Electron Containment
So please help me out with the principles of relative efficiency of a dry cell compared with a wet cell HHO generator and the variations in between. As I understand it, the proponents of a dry cell gen say that the electrons on the plates are contained in the electrolysis ‘area’ that is defined by the rubber gaskets, true? How is that? The electrons don’t care that there is a gasket there, they will travel to the points of least resistance, which I presume is the ends of the plates or wherever.
How is that different than an open bath wet cell? If you have an open bath design where the electrons are free to wander off the plates and do no further electrolysis, yes of course that seems wasteful. If you define the area of electrolysis, as Darol Mason has apparently done with a tightly confined wet cell wherein the plates will still have an effect on the electrolyte and create HHO after the electrons jump off into an area of ‘influence’, isn’t that a very effective way to contain electron ‘loss’ and still make it productive? That is an assumption, I do not have any knowledge of his design other than looking at the photos on ebay and surmising what at least that part of his concept is. I don’t see how a dry cell is any better with it’s open edge plates.
I don’t have a dog in this fight, I am looking for the most efficient generator design to build. It doesn’t seem to me like the arguments for a dry cell are better defined than the open air that the plate extremities are exposed to, which is also a short circuit waiting to happen.
Is there an electron flow principle that I don't know about (easily possible) that causes them to flow back into the 'electrolysis zone' ?
Dry Cell/Wet Cell Electron Containment
Ok, thank you for the reply. I don't know the history of answers on the site as you obviously do, I am new to it and just asking questions. I have done quite a bit of reading on here to find out about how electrical losses and inefficiences happen and what defines electron travel and have not found those answers. Any help is appreciated, I will continue to look.