My cell is not like yours.

[Jaxom]

I've been on this forum for about 2 weeks now and I have yet to see anyone using a cell built like mine, so I figured it was time to throw it out there for comments/suggestions/etc. Here you go, tell me what you think.

Pics are not an option right this minute...my digicam has issues. I can try to explain my cell design but it's a little unorthodox. It uses 24 SS switch covers, cut in half long ways to make 48 plates that are approx. 5"x1.5" in size. The plates are arranged in two layers of 24. I've come to realize that I have far more surface area in this cell than I can effectively make use of....the plates will handle much more current than heat buildup will allow. You could probably use 12 covers (24 electrodes) and do just as well with a smaller cell. The plates are laid out in a radial pattern, which is probably a big surprise to some of you guys. There is a piece of 3/4" PVC for a support core run straight down the center, with the plates radiating out from it like spokes on a wheel. The plates lay with the long cut edge against the core. 3/4" PVC unions with slots in the ends hold the plates in place, the unions are secured to the core with regular PVC cement. Friction holds the plates in the slots during assembly, once the cell is in it's housing there is simply not enough clearance for them to fall out of place.

The top outer corners of the plates have 1/8" holes drilled in them, and short SS bolts and nuts are used to hold the supply wiring against the plates. The electrical configuration uses 3+, 3-, and 18n plates per layer. The config is essentially 6 +nnn- cells in parallel, per layer. Both sides of all the electrodes are productive surfaces (720 square inches in my 2-layer cell,) which is why I chose to try this layout, and the whole assembly slides into a 4" PVC tube 15" long with about 2" to spare. A single layer cell this style would be around 10" and provide 360sq.in. of productive surface area.

My electrolyte is NaOH (lye crystals) at about 7.5mL/gal.

Edit: To clarify on the electrical layout, the + and - plates are shared, so the layout is
+nnn-nnn+nnn-nnn+nnn-nnn+, with the first and last + being two sides of the same plate. It's hard to illustrate a circular layout in text format.

[spob]

Sounds interesting. What is the gas production like? How many amps are you drawing?

[Jaxom]

The first test run showed 2.5lpm at 12.5v and 18A after a 15-minute warmup. The measurement was taken using an airflow gauge (which I don't entirely trust the accuracy of) so don't quote me on it just yet. I still need to verify the gauge's accuracy using the "water displacement" method. Regardless of the gauge, production LOOKS very good, with a 1/4" output tube bubbling too fast to count the bubbles.

[HomeGrown]

Extremely interesting design concept! How did you index the unions to cut the 12 slots, and what did you use to cut it? I gotta believe that was a real chore cutting those plate covers in half.

Assuming a 4" o.d. of your plate assembly:

12.50 (circumference) divided by 24 plates = pretty close to a 1/2" plate gap towards the outer perimiter of the cell, while having the more traditional .06 gap @ the hub. You may have a lot of surface area, but I bet less than 30% of it is being utilized for gas production, unless you're running a really potent electrolyte. Have you watched it running open-top to see how far out the plates you're producing bubbles?

[Omega]

A picture is worth a thousand words. I hope you can post a picture of your masterpiece. It sounds really wild.

[BAD MEDICINE]

I would be very interested in a picture too

[Jaxom]

Homegrown - you're dead on about the plate spacing. It's right at 1/8" at the core and a hair under 1/2" at the outer edges. I've run the cell both open and closed, and the production pattern is a little odd. The 6 charged plates start producing immediately on startup, even all the way to the outer edges. After a half second or so, the N plates start to produce also, and within 2-3 seconds the water is so clouded with bubbles that I can't actually see the top edge of the plates (which are approx. 3/4" submerged.) I'd really like to get it into a clear-sided container so I can get a better look at the production....it's currently in a PVC housing so I literally have a tunnel-view of the end of the cell.

As far as slotting the unions goes, I just made marks 15 degrees apart, then cut the notches 1/2" deep with a hacksaw blade. It worked out nicely as the hacksaw blade was just a hair thinner than the plates, which makes for a nice tight friction fit during assembly. Since it was done more-or-less by eyeball the spacing is not perfectly even, but it's close enough for my purposes. I forgot to mention in the first post that I also have an "alignment ring" in between the two layers of the cell. It's just a 3" PVC union trimmed a little in length and slotted so that it engages both layers of plates. It's sole purpose is to keep the plates directly radial (i.e. equally spaced along the circumference.)

I'll try to get my hands on a camera that actually works this weekend so I can get some pics up.

[HomeGrown]

Very sweet setup! Did you loiter in the plumbing & electrical departments for like an hour coming up with that concept? LOL, that's what I would have done!

Working on these cells makes you look at every aisle in every store differently... suddenly everything is evaluated as "cell-worthy".

[dennyk159]

Very sweet setup! Did you loiter in the plumbing & electrical departments for like an hour coming up with that concept? LOL, that's what I would have done!

Working on these cells makes you look at every aisle in every store differently... suddenly everything is evaluated as "cell-worthy".

LOL... spent about an hour and a half just last night at Lowe's trying to come up with materials to make a small generator that would fit in what's left of the space under my hood...

[Jaxom]

OK so I got a few pics over the weekend but the board tells me they're too big to upload. Does anybody have webspace available to host them or am I gonna have to take some lower-res pics?

The concept just sort of struck me out of the blue one day when I was doing some research on YouTube. I was looking at a Joe cell and thinking of all the wasted surface area on the outside of the outermost tube and it occured to me that a radial design would use both sides of all the plates. Then it was just a matter of working out the dimensions to make it easy to build, and finding a way to keep the plates stable. I did spend a lot of time in Home Depot, but it was mainly because their fasteners aren't organized well and it took forever to find SS nuts and bolts. I actually put together a 12-plate cell as a first prototype but quickly realized the plates were too far apart. I also found out the hard way that salt is corrosive, and baking soda is better but still not good. Then I stumbled across this forum.