Painless experiment in HHO

[Painless]

I've been doing some thinking around ideal voltage and other factors whilst I wait for my pelican case to arrive, looks like I should be getting it on the 20th.

I've decided to put together something pretty ambitious for my new setup, a total of 36 plates in three rows of 12, each row will contain 2 parallel sets as follows:

+NNNN- -NNNN+
+NNNN- -NNNN+
+NNNN- -NNNN+

The pelican case I ordered is pretty big inside, therefore, I should be able to still have my preferred 1" space between each plate pair, I'll be sticking with the zip tie thickness (thin side of the strap) as my pair spacing. I'm also retaining packing each row in plexiglas to reduce the current leakage as this seems to work very well.

After some research, it seems that I have about 60 amps to safely play with from my alternator, I'm going to go shy of this and go for a maximum of 50 amps for my setup. I was looking around for relays and breakers that would handle this kind of load, but decided to split the load instead through two sets of breakers and relays rated at 30 amps using the same 10 gauge wire. I'm going to need one run of 8 gauge wire to my ammeter before the split, but that's it.

On another subject, I switched my ram over to full synthetic oil yesterday, mobil 1 extended performance (15,000 mile) and an appropriate filter. It will be interesting to see if this makes any difference to MPG or not.

I've also been thinking about a better air filter, something along the lines of a K&N setup. I can't decide if this is a good thing for MPG or not. The way I see it, a more efficient filter will allow more air in which will allow the computer to apply more fuel under wide throttle openings, this is surely a recipe for reduced MPG? But then, I also notice that my vehicles MPG is always slightly better when the weather is cooler (as in a cooler summer day, that is) cooler air is more dense, which will effectively have the same effect. Any thoughts on this?

[JojoJaro]

Well, according to these folks' experience, voltage should be a little higher than 2V.

http://hhoforums.com/showthread.php?t=936

These guys used 7 cells for 1.93V per cell. Very little production. When they jumpered one cell they ended up with 6 cells for 2.3V per cell. Production went up.

So, it seems, 6 cells is the best compromise between heat and production. Your configuration should be +nnnnn-nnnnn+ for best production, I think.

[JojoJaro]

I've been doing some thinking around ideal voltage and other factors whilst I wait for my pelican case to arrive, looks like I should be getting it on the 20th.

I've decided to put together something pretty ambitious for my new setup, a total of 36 plates in three rows of 12, each row will contain 2 parallel sets as follows:

+NNNN- -NNNN+
+NNNN- -NNNN+
+NNNN- -NNNN+

The pelican case I ordered is pretty big inside, therefore, I should be able to still have my preferred 1" space between each plate pair, I'll be sticking with the zip tie thickness (thin side of the strap) as my pair spacing. I'm also retaining packing each row in plexiglas to reduce the current leakage as this seems to work very well.

After some research, it seems that I have about 60 amps to safely play with from my alternator, I'm going to go shy of this and go for a maximum of 50 amps for my setup. I was looking around for relays and breakers that would handle this kind of load, but decided to split the load instead through two sets of breakers and relays rated at 30 amps using the same 10 gauge wire. I'm going to need one run of 8 gauge wire to my ammeter before the split, but that's it.

On another subject, I switched my ram over to full synthetic oil yesterday, mobil 1 extended performance (15,000 mile) and an appropriate filter. It will be interesting to see if this makes any difference to MPG or not.

I've also been thinking about a better air filter, something along the lines of a K&N setup. I can't decide if this is a good thing for MPG or not. The way I see it, a more efficient filter will allow more air in which will allow the computer to apply more fuel under wide throttle openings, this is surely a recipe for reduced MPG? But then, I also notice that my vehicles MPG is always slightly better when the weather is cooler (as in a cooler summer day, that is) cooler air is more dense, which will effectively have the same effect. Any thoughts on this?

Do you have a gas or diesel? On diesels, a good air filter does not really help because the turbo is already pumping more air that what is needed. Diesels already run lean so more air does not have any effect. On gas, air filter will help.

I would also like to see your experience with

+nnnnn-nnnnn+ vs +nnnn-nnnn+ configuration. I believe 6 n plates will lower heat. Please try it.

[Painless]

Do you have a gas or diesel? On diesels, a good air filter does not really help because the turbo is already pumping more air that what is needed. Diesels already run lean so more air does not have any effect. On gas, air filter will help.

My ram is a 4.7 gas model, when you say that it will help do you mean with just power or mpg or both?

I would also like to see your experience with

+nnnnn-nnnnn+ vs +nnnn-nnnn+ configuration. I believe 6 n plates will lower heat. Please try it.

I'm planning on trying the 6 plate setup first as this will equal 2 volts per plate (with a little over as you can never get exactly 12v from a vehicle). The way I am wiring my cells makes it relatively quick to try new configurations, so I'll be glad to test a few different setups and measure the LPM when my case arrives.

[Painless]

My Pelican 1450 case finally arrived this morning so I can start building my new generator! As luck would have it, it's my turn to work the weekend so I'm unlikely to get this done before Monday/Tuesday. I'm going to take time to solder every joint and water tight seal every connector that isn't stainless steel.

You might be interested to know that I left my old configuration sitting in the electrolyte (1.75 gallons distilled water and two teaspoons KOH flake) for about 3 days, I drained it out and dismantled it and was surprised to find severe oxidation on the non-stainless metals already! Other than the 3 days sitting in the bath, the unit had only been run for no more than a few hours in total.

[mmickey]

hi,new here.would like to ask how you figure the voltage across the plates.what is the formula.how does it apple to the plates.i understand ohms law as it apples to series and parallecircuits just not clear on how it apples to the plate setups.

[countryboy18]

so lets say that you have a 12V supply how many plates can you have to have the best production? if you have 12V supply does the amps that the cell is pulling affect the number of plates?

[countryboy18]

if some one can make a chart with the number of plates on a 12V supply with the amps that work for each cell. some thing like this maby
Constant 12V supply
# of plates volt across plates amps drawing
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20

[Painless]

Take a look at this document on my wiki site, it goes into calculating cell / plate voltage and the ideals from information I've collected:

http://www.hhoknowhow.info/wiki/design:cell_voltage

[JojoJaro]

Guys, you need to use the value 13.8V when making calculations. 13.8V is what a running alternator will produce and what your gen will see during use.

If you use 12V, your cell might perform good and not heat up on the bench. But once, you put it on your vehicle, the voltage will increase and you could end up with a thermal runaway and not realize it.

For example.

+nnnnn- will give you 2 volts for a 12V system. However, that is 2.3V in a running vehicle.

+nnnn- will give you 2.4 V per cell for a 12 V system, which seems not too unreasonable. But that is 2.76V in a running vehicle, which could be enough to initiate a thermal runaway condition, especially inside your car engine bay.


I think +nnnnn- is still the best compromise between production and heat.