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.

If you are just using a 12 volt battery you will need to have 5 neutral plate between "a car with an alternator you would want 6 neutral plates.. this gives you a voltage drop across each gap thus drawing less amps and less heat. +- will give you high amp draw and heat. As far as spacing 1/4 is to far apart you want under an 1/8 to 1/16 spacing to give you around abouts. Research a little more on HHO before you build this even look up hho images on google to give you ideas.

HHOMAKER, He is making a unipolar reactor to charge a cannon. Not a reactor to make HHO for use in an ICE. He wants it to build pressure/gas quickly so heat is not an issue. It is not going to run continuously. Unipolar is much more efficient anyway especially for this. The question he is asking is what will happen by over driving the smaller plates. I do not think it will make any difference for use to charge a cannon. The smaller plates will get eaten up much quicker than the bigger ones and of course generate more heat than the bigger one. If you do not run it to long at a time it should just work as you have depicted. I would not use salt by NaOH or KOH. This will make it create a lot of gas quickly. Charge your cannon turn it off, disconnect the reactor from the cannon and fire. Why not post the rest of the design of the cannon itself. You will get a big bang out of it I am sure. LOL Fifty years ago I use to make cannons out of pipe and use acetylene to blow tennis balls that went as far as 2 city blocks. The local powers to be were very unhappy when they found out. LOL

Gottcha my bad. Totally agree

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' ?

First there are no electrons wandering around in either open bath or sealed series cell reactor. I suggest you do just a little more reading because this has been answered at least 100 time. Electrolysis is a chemical reaction that is initiated by electrons. Ions are in the electrolyte and they are the ones that are possibly wondering around as you say. You are right about some ions not going to where they are most effective. With just a little effort I am sure you will be able to figure it out.

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.

Threshie, research current leakage, weldon, holes and plate edges. Dry cells ALWAYS win :)

I suggest you use the search feature and do a search for "current leakage". This will give you lots of reading and answers. Now this might disturb some but I am not sure we have all the answers when it comes to current leakage. Most of them but there are some anomalies that either have been overlooked or just not investigated. In a 2 volt per cell system all electrolyte has 2 volts in it. So there is always some leakage but less in a sealed series flow through reactor (Dry cell name makes no sense) when compared to a open bath reactor (wet cell name also makes not sense).

Electrons move on/in wires, plates, etc. Ions move in electrolyte and are attracted or repelled by the Anode or Cathode charges caused by electrons similar to how magnets attract and repel. Water with no ions, ultra pure water would be close to an insulator. This is why we use NaOH as an electrolyte because we need the ions in order to get current to move and brake the water apart.

Have fun reading. Oh ya, you welcome.