My First Build

[danser75]

Well guys, I have received my plates finally (at the cost of an arm). They are 6x6 with 1x1 tabs on opposite corners. They are 316L SS.

So I went and bought the other stuff I needed.

Then I spent 1.5 hours cutting rubber mat. It was easy at first but after a while that job really sucks. But now I have 18 6x6 rubber gaskets, 1/2 inch wide. some aren't so perfect, but I did what I could.

This weekend I am going to use a friend of mines cnc machine to drill the cutting boards. I want them to come out right and don't feel like using the drill press for the 108 holes and trying to get them perfect.

I have some pics But they are over the limits of the forum. Sorry guys. The pics are about 100 kb each. I will take more later at lowered resolution if you want to see it. I know this is not a big amazing unit but I quite proud of it.

[lhazleton]

Good to see you're making progress!
For your endplates, why in Gods name do you need 108 holes? 54 bolts?
And yes, cutting the gaskets really does suck. Seems like you keep cutting and it never ends.
To post pictures, merely open them in "paint" or a similar program and reduce them to a size that is usable here. Photos are the most important of the build!

[madman]

Well guys, I have received my plates finally (at the cost of an arm). They are 6x6 with 1x1 tabs on opposite corners. They are 316L SS.

So I went and bought the other stuff I needed.

Then I spent 1.5 hours cutting rubber mat. It was easy at first but after a while that job really sucks. But now I have 18 6x6 rubber gaskets, 1/2 inch wide. some aren't so perfect, but I did what I could.

This weekend I am going to use a friend of mines cnc machine to drill the cutting boards. I want them to come out right and don't feel like using the drill press for the 108 holes and trying to get them perfect.

I have some pics But they are over the limits of the forum. Sorry guys. The pics are about 100 kb each. I will take more later at lowered resolution if you want to see it. I know this is not a big amazing unit but I quite proud of it.

108 holes??? If you are still going with 6 seperate reactors with 2 endplates that is 12. If you are porting on both sides 1 in and 1 out that is only 48 holes.

[danser75]

I was wrong about the hole count. Its actually going to be 120 holes in 9 plates. I am using 12 bolts per cell and then there will be 2 cells with a solid cutting board between them. So they will be back to back. The rest the holes are for the hose connections. I have decided to go ahead and build the multicell and see what happens. I am excited to play around and see what works best. Of coarse first I have to get the plates conditioned. Oh joy. Its like when I got a new r/c car at christmas but my parents didn't charge the battery. I want to play with it but its not ready yet.

But in the long run i know its for the best. Otherwise I wont produce nearly what I could.

Also I am wondering what happens if you go less than a half inch on the gaskets? I know they would have to be perfectly lined up, But could I go with say a 1/4 in.? Just curious.

[lhazleton]

First off, you mentioned cutting holes in the plates. You're planing on the bolts going through the plates? If it's not too late, change the design so that the endplates are 2" larger than the plates an put all of the bolts outside of the plates. This will help any leakage problem.
Also, you don't need cutting board in between the 2 cell stacks. Just use a solid (no holes at all) plate with positive connectors. For example, mine is set up (cutting board -NNNNNN+NNNNNN- cutting board).
If you go with less than half an inch gaskets, you'll be kicking yourself in the a$$ when you have to tear it all apart and cut all new ones.

[danser75]

I am cutting holes in the cutting boards. We need a technical name for them so we can avoid confusion and extra typing.

I would love to use the same plate in the middle between the cells, Except I ordered all but 2 SS plates with 2 holes each in the middle. I did that so that I can build both a normal dry cell and the multicell out of the same SS plates. I want to be able to play with and test their outputs and power usage.

And the cutting boards will be 8x8 but the SS plates are made with tabs which transfer power to the rest the SS plate and along the line those fall on is the line I am bolting with. The SS plates are square with a square in each opposite corner x2.

I am going to work on getting my pics scaled down so I will try to have pics up today so you can see it.

But keep in mind the setup I am using for the multicell is: (+,N/N,N) (N,N/N,N) (N,N/N,-) The neutrals with a slash between then are going to be back to back and bolted together through the cutting board to allow the power to transition from one to the next but not the electrolyte.

Then the normal cell for test will be +nnnnn-

[danser75]

Well I have gone 2 tanks of fuel in my car and come up with the beginning base line for my car with no modifications just a normal tune up.

beginning mileage was 140537
Gasoline added 12.657
Ending mileage 140850
MPG (this was all mainly highway driving around 65 mph) 24.6 mpg

gasoline added 13.761
ending mileage 141127
MPG (City mainly, errands and to and from work) 20.1

This is BEFORE the setup is added to my car. I have not yet cut the plastic plates. I did passivate the plates yesterday. I couldn't afford to have them media blasted. But I did use an extra coarse wire brush attachment for the drill on them. I know its about the same as sanding but I will media blast in the future just running tight on money.

I passivated my plates first by cleaning then with degreaser and then with 70% isopropal alcohol then put gloves on and used 1/4 inch bolts through the power tabs and after sliding each plate on I fed a nut between them to keep an even spacing between the plates. I used the oven to keep it between 150-160 f. in a 10% by weight citric acid/ water mix. I used the oven to heat it up and keep it heated. I got everything up to temp. then started the timer for 45 minutes. After that I took them out and rinsed with gloves on and disassembled the bolts and nuts separating them.

I listed the steps for passivation I used for both suggestions of another way to do it and to give others an idea of the processes.

[myoldyourgold]

CLEANING PROCESS

Here is what I am doing now. I no longer use a passivation process even though this process does some similar things it is nowhere near the same. I run my plates through the dishwasher before media blasting or sanding. After media blasting I then run them through the dishwasher again, rinsing them twice after the final wash. I have an old dishwasher setup just for this to keep the wife happy. It is important to magnetically align the plates now and keep them in the exact orientation and order from now on. I now apply Weld-on 1802, which I like better than 16, on the ports. They are basically the same product but the 1802 flows better. When that process is done I wipe them down with acetone and back into the dishwasher with a double rinse. After the last run through the dishwasher I soak the plates in a 10% NaOH solution for 5 minutes and then wash them by hand in the same solution. Make absolutely sure they are absolutely clean of any oil. Use rubber gloves for all of this and never touch them with your fingers. Any oil will cause you lots of problems and cause foaming. You then rinse them in distilled water to remove any NaOH. Even though the D9 PDF uses KOH even Bob Boyce® now recommends only using NaOH which works much better than KOH for this purpose even if you use KOH later. Assemble the reactor and now run it at what ever amperage it takes to get the reactor up to a maximum of 130º F (54.4ºC). Run it like this changing or filtering the electrolyte as often as needed until there is no magnetic junk coming off the plates. Takes 3 or 4 days. Sorry about that but some take longer and need the electrolyte changed more often if there is floaters or other junk being formed. I use ring magnets on the input line to the reactor to determine when to stop. You might be over .5 amps per square inch during this process to get the temperature up but don't let that bother you. Just do not let it get over 135ºF. If the temperature wants to go over the 130ºF dilute the electrolyte to keep it at 130ºF. Do not use a PWM! You might need to increase the electrolyte concentration on some multi-stack large reactors to get them hot enough. When there is no more junk or metal you now need to drain and rinse out the reactor thoroughly with distilled water. I use a cheap Harbor Freight stainless steel 12 volt pump to run distilled water through the reactor and then through a 10 micron filter and back to the reactor. I let it run for about 5 minutes. You should do this also anytime you change or filter the electrolyte during the cleaning process. Next the conditioning.

Conditioning the Cells/Reactor

The conditioning phase starts with you running the reactor at not more than .5 amps per active area for at least 72 hours. Never allow the reactor to go over the max amperage. Better stay under it to be safe. This is important. The electrolyte concentration depends on your reactor size. Just make sure it stays within the .5 amps per active area. Flush out the reactor one more time after the 72 hours and if you had no junk being formed and no metal trapped by the magnets you are good to go. If you still have metal or floaters or brown junk still being formed you will need to go back and start all over by running the cleaning procedure again. Start by running the reactor at the 130º for another 72 hours or until it cleans its self up changing or filtering the electrolyte and flushing as needed. You will then need to start the conditioning again. When the reactor is will conditioned there is still a very small amount of metal that comes off but takes much longer than 72 hours to be visible. I use the magnets as a filter and clean that part of the input line whenever I see a metal build up. It ends up to be as little as 300 hours of run time and over 500 hours the longer the reactor is run, finally coming to an end. I suspect this is mainly because in the flushing out of my reactor some metal is still trapped in the bottom and finally works it way out over time and stopping almost completely needing very little attention after that.

This is very similar to the D9 PDF but not exactly the same and I thank any and all developers for there contributions to my procedure. I have found this to work the best at least for me after trying everything I have read about and a few other things that I dreamt up which I thought worked pretty good at the time but not as good as this does now.

[danser75]

Thank you for the info, you guys are all really helpful.

I did go out and cut and drill the cutting boards today. That was alot of fun. We used a cnc machine (ok I was happy I had never been around one) and we had to program it then discovered it was only big enough to do half the plate at a time. then it somehow went out of calibration. OOPS!!! After we got the bugs worked out though it was great just load the plate then once it stopped flip it, stop, change plates and repeat.

So I now have all these amazing parts and pieces That just have to wait till I have time to deal with magnetically aligning the plates. What kind of wire do you use for that BTW?

[myoldyourgold]

Dancer75, I still use a drill press but have had an accurate template made on a cnc machine and just clamp it on the material and drill away. I have pins that fit in the holes nice and tight so after two holes are drilled and pins installed, there is no way the two pieces can shift.