thanks for the link.i understand now how to get th voltage per plate,but does the restance of your electrode leads and your jumper connectors depending on their length and size figure in to that also.are is to minamal of a figure to matter.should you take a resistance reading of the completed cell and use that figure to caculate the voltage drop across each plate.
marvin
Super Moderator
Resistance will occur in your complete wiring system, yes, especially if you use stainless steel nuts and bolts as connections. However, the amount of resistance in some properly gauged wire will be almost negligible.Originally Posted by mmickey
You could, as you stated, take a multimeter and measure the resistance across your wiring.
hope im not being a pest on this.but i was just wondering if your using wire with crimp connecters if the chemical corrosion between disemaliar metals would come into play and if using dielectric grease or nolox like you would use when connecting aluminum and copper wiring together.not tring to second guess anyone just wondering if anyone has had the problem and what the solution was.
marvin
Super Moderator
I'm using 10 gauge wire with crimp connectors, for the first test in my youtube videos I didn't perform any kind of sealing to keep the metals away from electrolysis.
In my next setup, the 36 plate job, I will be soldering the connections and using heat shrink tubing and some very effective rubber splicing tape I found at Lowes to ensure that current travels well and the differing metals are not exposed to electrolysis.
Super Moderator
Earlier this week I switched my truck over to running on synthetic oil, my main reason behind doing this was the longer service interval (15,000 miles) to save money (doing my own changes as well) and the reduced engine wear that a good synthetic oil provides. I used Mobil 1 Extended Performance oil along with their oil filter of the same name.
I've been running this for about 200 miles now and have noticed a small rise in my MPG from my normal reading of low 17's to low 18's. This is from the trucks trip computer. I don't consider 200 miles to be a thorough proof yet, I want to run through the majority of the tank before I decide that I'm definitely getting this much more MPG from reduced friction.
I also reset my trip mileage meter at my last fill up, along with the trip computers average MPG gauge. I want to compare the numbers both from mileage divided by gallons consumed and from the trip computer to see how accurate it is.
I'm working all weekend (two 12 hour shifts) but will have Monday and Tuesday to finish building my new cell, hopefully, by Tuesday evening I will have some more results, pictures and videos to share.
Super Moderator
I have the results for the synthetic oil switch now after filling up at the pump:
Total miles: 320.1
Gallons used: 18.285
320.1 / 18.285 = 17.5 mpg
This is a small increase over standard oil, about .4 of a mpg. Not enough of a difference to me for a definite "It was the oil!" exclamation.
Coincidentally, I also wanted to compare the average mpg reading from my trucks trip computer. The computer said 17.9 mpg compared to the math saying the above 17.5. Not too bad, at least I know I can use the trip computer for some base HHO measurements.
Two days off, Monday and Tuesday, I've also been working on my connector welds and sealing during downtime at my job (I work alone and get lots of downtime!), should hopefully have my Pelican case 36 plate cell finished and some initial numbers by end of Tuesday.
Super Moderator
I finished my new plate assembly today, would of been ready yesterday if I hadn't run out of solder
Had a semi successful test, the Pelican case took exactly 2 gallons of distilled water to cover the plates, I added four teaspoons of KOH flake to this and brought the unit up to about 42 amps. At this ampage, I was only making half a litre of HHO in about 22 seconds, not very impressive for that kind of current. The cell got up to about 105 F internal electrolyte temperature.
After running a few time trials, I got into my truck to check the gauges and noticed that the voltmeter was showing under normal, reading at about 10 volts. Running the engine up to about 1500 rpm brought the volts up to the normal 14 odd level, but this is telling me that despite my earlier amp usage tests my alternator isn't keeping up with the load at idle.
Definitely need to look closer at my design here, I think that despite my plexiglas sandwich some of the electrolyte was spilling over the tops of the plexiglas to the adjacent plates. The more I think about it, the more I want to try and get away from an open bath design.
One other thing worthy of note is that my 36 plate setup consisted of 30 lowes switch plate covers and 6 from home depot (lowes had run out). The home depot plates didn't produce anywhere near as much gas as the lowes plates.
Super Moderator
I've put up two videos on youtube of my experiments yesterday:
This first video is running at 15 amps (2 gallons + 2 teaspoons KOH flake):
This second video shows the production difference I was getting between the Lowes and Home Depot switch plate covers:
I've been thinking about my choice to go with 36 plates. I'm wondering if 12 plates, which were three times the width, would be a better choice? In other words, the same surface area but 2 cells of 6 plates instead of 6 cells.
Super Moderator
I had some time this morning before I head off to work, so I decided to run another experiment:
I re-wired my setup so that I was only running half of the plates, 18 plates divided into 3 parallel cells, each cell having 6 plates +NNNN-. I left the remaining 18 plates in the water, but unconnected to power.
After switch on it was pulling just over 15 amps and generating 500ml of HHO in 30 seconds (1 LPM). After an hour of running, I measured one last time, the amp draw was about 37 amps and the electrolyte temp was up to 131F, at these parameters I was getting 500ml of HHO in 20 seconds (1.5 LPM).
This is only about 3 MMW which still sucks, in my opinion, but it's interesting that I could surpass my previous tests by using half as many plates!
Need to think a lot about where I'm going to go next.
Super Moderator
I've been deep in thought over the past week as to where to go with my cell design next, I've been wanting to get away from the open bath approach and am also very interested in circulating the electrolyte to keep things cool and maybe even increase production.
I've come up with a design, which I'm piecing together at the moment, for a dry cell that is similar to the sid type of design. I'm using the switch plate covers from lowes along with some 'plumbers pack' (that's what it says on it!). The plumbers pack is basically a sheet of thick rubber which I'm using to cut out some gaskets to go between my cell plates. Basically, I am creating a sandwich of 6 plates, seperated by the rubber gaskets, and held together tightly to prevent leakage. I'm going to be pumping electrolyte from a reservoir into the lower hole and running a tube from the upper hole on the opposite side of the cell back to the reservoir. From there, I'm going to run to a bubbler.
The outer holes that aren't used for electrolyte input or output (on opposing sides) will be used to attach the electrodes. The cell will be a +NNNN- configuration.
The main component I'm missing at the moment is a pump. I've been looking at some promising units such as the Shurflo 8000, but don't have the cash to spare at the moment. I'll also need a reservoir, but think that a radiator expansion / overflow tank will be ideal for this.
So far, I've cut enough gaskets to allow me to build one six plate cell pack. I'm satisfied that the gaskets have given me an air tight seal (with enough compression).
Here is a close-up of the assembled plates (the SS bolts are just to keep them together at the moment).
Here's some pics of the plates and gaskets I cut from the plumbers pack, to give you more of an idea of what I'm doing.
Looking forward to seeing how this performs in contrast to an open bath with the same plate setup.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
