HHO Gas Production Meter

[Philldpapill]

I'm putting the final touches on an electronic gas flow meter. Basically, it measures the pressure differential on two sides of a small obstruction in a tube with gas(HHO) flowing through it. The output of the meter is an analog voltage proportional to the amount of gas flowing through it.

My thinking is, we can use something like this in a feedback loop for an HHO production controller. There's no need in wasting power making MORE HHO than needed while idling. At the same time, you need to make more HHO at higher RPMs. Maybe with this meter, we can tie it into the computer? I'm an EE and can make some magical circuitry if you guys are interested.

[Jager]

That's a great idea, I would love to see it in action..

With your background and expertise in EE, would it be possible to have a circuit built that would reduce the amps into the booster at idle to lets say 5 amps, then at intermediate throttle settings have the booster not go above 10 amps, then at wide open throttle (WOT) have the same circuit disengage the EFIE to dump gas for let's say merging into traffic.

I have a throttle shut off switch that completly shuts down the booster, I understand there is residual production going on for a few seconds but at a light it would be nice to have a maintenance level of HHO being produced to help with emissions at idle..

Your thoughts.........

Jager

[Roland Jacques]

If you can some how tie/coordinate the output of a HHO electrolyzer with the RPM would be very good all by itself. That would be a major benefit IMO. Lots of folks have looked at tying amps output of a PWM too RPM. I dont know that any one has successfully done it.

I dont know that the flow meter part would be that much more helpful. it might be good enough to know The electrolyzer is at max amps at 2000 RPM and maybe 30% at idle.

I Know that Painless has done some work on something similar, he wants his to react to engine load as will as RPM.

http://www.hhoforums.com/showthread.php?t=3880

[Stevo]

Jager,

I noticed that by using a one way check valve right after the gas out hose from the reservoir gas output stops almost immediately after hitting the kill switch (or at most within 1-2 seconds).

[Stevo]

This is an excellent idea and could certainly be more accurate than amp/voltage detection. I would also think that filtering the steam out before entering this meter would help with a more accurate reading. I'm wondering if you would use the typical 0-5V output signal to the microprocessor, which would/could also take an array of other similar input signals from sources such as MAP or MAF.

With this idea, I am reminded of this device:

http://www.hydroxycorp.net/shop/item.aspx?itemid=88

My idea towards getting scaled output is to simply utilize a 5V, low mA car cell phone charger for the extra MAP sensor's reference voltage and ground. Then to simply hook the MAP sensor up to manifold vacuum to get the 0-5V signal according to engine load. After that, it's a simple matter of hooking that sensors output signal wire to PWM that accepts 0-5V input signal like this one:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...ht_1608wt_1167

Of course, the HHO output would be scaled only according to "manifold absolute pressure", but then if you could do the same thing utilizing some actual logic on a chip while considering the actual gas output from the electrolyzer as well... it would be a huge improvement over simply hooking up a generator and expecting it will just magically "do it's thing".

Sorry for the run-ons and please correct me if I am misrepresenting anything here. I'm a web developer, not an EE. :P

[Jager]

I would like a maintenance a level of HHO at Idle simply to keep the F/A mixture burning more completely. It doesn't make sense to me to have the engine only running clean when my foot is in the throttle.

But if I do need full power in an emergency, I would like to be able to have all the power of the gasoline and the HHO when I need it. At that point I don't want my preset EFIE dictating meager amounts of gasoline when I need as much power as I can get. For that reason I wanted an EFIE override circuit.

Make sense?

Jager

[Stevo]

Yes, your explanation make sense. EFIEs in the context of narrow band 02 sensors are another story in my opinion.

Research on narrow band vs. wide band 02 sensors shows the difference in the two types of sensors to be rather drastic. With narrow band capable of detecting 3 settings either lean, stoich or rich and a signal range of ~0.2-0.8V, it's easy to see after hooking up an AFR gauge approximately where the 02 sensor performs well and where it doesn't. In the low to mid RPM range, the narrow band 02 sensor works decently to detect oxygen with accuracy decreasing towards the midrange and mostly represented as "rich" from midrange to redline (vtec engagement zone for my car). So it seems as though an EFIE *might* be unnecessary all together if you could properly tune the HHO output to engine load according to an array of input variables. The extra 02 before being sensed at idle speed now simply wouldn't be.

[Philldpapill]

Funny you should mention Painless... He and I had talked about working together on a large "Brain" unit that would allow for ultimate control over everything. My expertise is geared more towards measurement and gathering data, while it seems Painless' is geared more toward "under the hood" type stuff. Funny enough, we both got into using the same microcontroller - completely independently and before we met on here.

In a previous thread, months ago, I had talked about making a unit that would gather a huge load of data from all kinds of sources. I've been really busy lately so it's been on hold. However, if you guys can keep the suggestions coming(e.g. RPMs feedback for gas production), I just might pick this back up. The flow sensor was just one small part of this whole device. It would probably be more useful for expirementing, than in the vehicle. Regardless, in my little lab, it sure beats the coke bottle upside down in water method...

[Roland Jacques]

I have yet to hear of a good reason that can show that the bottle method of measuring HHO is not accurate or good. I would like to hear the case against them.

I can tell you that differential pressure orifice measuring requires MUCH more back pressure on your HHO system to work. (some say that back pressure reduces output )

Here's my case for the bottle method. All types of measuring of HHO flow have their down sides. The bottle method (actual Volume) is probably the easiest to correct for.
It's a good standard,
(cheap, easy to build, fairly accurate, more than many other types, Just a good reference point. When we all are using it, we can compare apples to apples fairly easy).
IMO The biggest con with the bottle starting and stopping Timing.
(but a half of second here and there is normally not more than 1% in most cases. The higher output cells become more affected by this. That can be compensated by using a bigger bottle. The bigger bottle you use the accurate timing becomes.)
The bottle method is affected by temperature & steam, but so are most flow meters, including differential pressure orifices.

I think that velocity type flow meters should be calibrated against bottle type flow meters, not the other way around. If a gas pump(a velocity type flow meter) says it gave you 5 gallons of gas, yet your gas can (actual volume )only reads 4.5 gallons which one will you think is right?

[Philldpapill]

Don't get me wrong, Roland - I totally agree. If you are doing an expiriment and your data is very important, then by all means, use the tried and true method(which I agree is more exact). I agree that the bottle method is generally MORE accurate.

However, the downside to the inverted bottle method, is that it is a discrete measurement(which is good for accuracy). The differential back pressure method, on the other hand, is a running measurement meaning you can immediately see any changes in the flow rate when you change a variable. With the inverted bottle method, you have to change the variable, make a measurement, then tweak the variable a little more, measure, etc. etc.

Now, as far as the back pressure reducing output... It's negligible at the pressures I'm talking about(<5psia). The reasoning is thermodynamics, first of all. The amount of energy stored in the H2 when you do electrolysis(per volume) is a couple orders of magnitude MORE than the energy needed to overcome the pressure in the device. Again, we are talking about pressures less than 5psia. That's about the pressure in a balloon.

Remember, I'm not advocating the switch to a digital transducer solution. I'm just saying that something like this can be used as a "ballpark" estimate for a control loop. Another thing that this can be used for is safety. Imagine - a hose comes loose inside your engine compartment, and HHO is venting... A small spark can easily destroy your entire unit and cause damage to the car. The solution - an integrated flow meter and a microprocessor monitoring the flow, vs. how much it thinks SHOULD be flowing(based on current consumption, tables, etc.). If the flow is MUCH lower than the predicted flow, the device either warns you of a problem(possible an electrical problem like a short between plates?), or shuts down.

I'm just pushing the feedback angle of this. All the systems people seem to be using are totally open loop with virtually NO way of knowing what is going on under the hood. - I take it back - I found 1 that gives SOME info of whats going on, but it's like $400. The controller I'm talking about would be in the $100 range with all the gadgets included.