New Hydrogen Fuel project online

[bhaas]

I've been working on this for a while. I'm using switchplates. They work good. I have 13 of them for 12 cells. I can make enough to fire my lawn mower for a few seconds but that's about it. I'm using a car battery for power and my Camaro is charging it. Fumes are killing me. I like Chris's design using those big tanks. I might get some of those. I haven't had any backfires on my lawn mower luckily and I think if I had a bit of pressure I could get it to run. It runs nice and smooth for that short period of time. It's sucking all the gas out of my bubbler then it dies then I can hear the bubbler start bubbling again, try to start it and the process repeats itself. So that tells me right there I need more and just a tad of pressure and I should be good to go. One question I had for Chris. How are you gonna tap into your tanks? What kind of fittings you plan on using? Nice site by the way. I have read it all. Word for word. All 70 pages plus your new update. On your other site you said something about having 10 tanks in series. So I can have 13 plates(12 cells) per tank and only use 1.2 volts per 13 pack per tank? And still make a lot of gas? Hmmmmm. I had to reread that. I like that. Hmmmmmmmm. It didn't sink in till the second time. Very nice. This is the third time I've edited this. Just had another idea concerning the fittings I asked you about. It just hit me. Why have fittings at all. Just cut a hole in the top. Put all the containers in a bigger container, and have the bigger container connected to a very good and safe bubbler, and of course have some safety precautions in place for the main container just in case. That sounds kinda dangerous to me right at the moment. Gonna have to give it more thought. That gives me yet another idea. I work in vinyl extrusion and we have these real long water tanks with metal plates in them to keep the shape of the profile. They'd be perfect. I could easily modify one of them to make a series setup. They're made of 1/2" to 3/4" lexan. Very heavy duty and spendy I'm sure but you could have as many cells in this as you wanted and still be able to keep it safe and all the water levels the exact same in each. Hmmmm.

Brad...

[Chris]

[bhaas]

[bhaas]

I've read you new site about a dozen times maybe more. From what I can see so far what difference would it make if you came out of the top or the side. If the flame reaches it the top blows. But if there's no fittings in the top then you don't have those flying around when/if it goes. Your still confusing me when you say I'm getting this confused with pralell/series design. You can't have a bunch of plates in a tank all connected together, that would give you a short circuit. The electrolyte completes the circuit, so the plates in each tank have to be in series. +-+-+- like that then just hook the tanks together in series then your good to go. Right? I also bought 10 gal distilled water and will be using lye for electrolyte instead of salt. Here is a pic of the container I bought. Here's what my switch plate setup looks like. I made the BB a little while ago. These BB's are great.

http://forums.cjb.net/hpnow.html

Brad...

[Chris]

[Chris]

[bhaas]

[bhaas]

Here's a few pics. I just need a few more star washers and more lye and I'm set. I wish I would have put more plates in there. This is starting to get expensive to. Oh well. It's only money.

Brad...

[Chris]

Brad,

Describe for me how you have your plates configured electrically? If you turn your volt meter to register continuity, do you have continuity between plate 1 & 2, or only 1 & 3?

Unless you're doing some serious magic with metal and nylon washers, it looks like you have built 1 large short circuit???

I can touch my continuity tester to any odd plate and all of the other ODD plates are registering continuity. Same with the even plates, they all register continuity between themselves. But if I touch any odd plate and any even plate, I get nothing.

You want to force the current to travel through the water between your plates.

Maybe you can take some more close-up pictures for us? Try the continuity test and please report back.

If I were to guess, I'd say you only register continuity between your front and back plate and the posts coming out. If that's the case you've got things all wrong.

You need ZERO continuity betwen your 2 posts coming out of the cell, when there is no water in there. By putting 1 probe of my continuity tester on probe #1 outside of my cell, I register continuity on each of the odd plates. By touching probe #2 outside, I register continuity only on the EVEN plates inside.

I think you need to really go back and study my electrolysis project. READ what I'm saying about stagering and how the welds are only on the plates sticking up. Every other plate is welded on one end. Flip it over and all of the other plates are now welded.

It looks like you've got nothing but 1 big short circuit there

[bhaas]

Hi Chris. I got it right. No continuity between the posts. Every other one. I just tested it. I filled the 3 containers 1/2 full of distilled water and added 1/8 cup lye and got 60 amps on my gauge and the voltage across each cell was 2.92 - 2.99 - and 3.00. I wanted 60 amps and no more. I got lucky on the first try. When I'm using lye, it bubbles differently than when I use salt and my solution stays clean. I had what looked like steam/mist comming out of the tanks and the bubbles were extremely small. Much different then what I'm use to seeing with salt. Maybe you can tell me why it's misty and so small since you use lye. My tanks were cool to the touch to so I know it couldn't be steam. Here is a of the center tank. I'm definately gonna have to expand on this. Awesome. And if I can find that magic frequency I'll be really really happy. That was my original plan but I had to play with the brute force just for fun.
Brad...

PS.

I think the confusion on my plate setup might be due to me thinking the way I have them setup I called that a series setup and you call it a parallel setup. I get those mixed up obviously. So my setup is parallel. If I could seperate them I'd have 7 plates on one rod and 6 on the other then slide them together so they're inbetween each other not touching of course. That's what I'm using the rubber magnet tapet for. I drilled out one of the holes to 5/8" so it wouldn't touch the nut on the other plate. I just keep flipping them around. Look up and you'll see a pic of how I'm doing it. Kinda hard to see in that pic though. The flash killed the top hole and you can't see it. I do know what I'm doing. Just a bit of confusion. So for clarity. My plates are PARALLEL.

[Chris]

OK that's good to know. So many times I get goof-balls on here that don't know their head from a hold in the ground and they're filling up 2 gallon containers with highly explosive gas?!?!?!?

I'm glad that you're finally clarifying things so I'm not as worried now. Parallel design is definitely what you have in each cell. The cells are then in series with each other.

One more thing. If you are using a 12v battery source you usually have a working voltage of 13.4 or something close to that. This means that with 3 cells you should have 13.4 / 3 = 4.47v per cell. We get a distorted measurement when trying to measure the voltage in series with the connection.

You should be able to add several more cells to increase your output still further, and still maintain your 60amp target. You may need more lye to do it, so just experiment with things

Was my description of the snorkle something that you could easily understand? -I know I need to get more pics up but have not had the time to do it lately.

[bhaas]

[Simon]

[bhaas]

I modified my lids. I cut some lexan I had laying around, drilled a hole for a fitting and glued it to the lid. As I sat down to write this I saw a CD and the hole was perfect. So Instead of fighting with the hacksaw and lexan I could have just used these coasters. Damn it.

[bhaas]

Thanks for the reply Bob. So basically I need more tanks to get rid of the water vapor? It didn't do that with salt and just the one tank. I can make more tanks if need be, no prob. I'm not sure if it's lexan or plexiglass now. I thought they were the same. But these tanks are temp tanks anyway. Once I silicone the lids on that's it. Disposable as far as I'm concerned. Just in the experimenting stages right now. But I want to get that mower running. I'm sorry to hear that about your situation. If it were me in that spot, there's no telling what I'd do. That's just shamefull what happened. Infuiates me to know end I gotta say. So with the water vapor your saying I'd need more gas production? Isn't the water somewhat helpfull, or is it impeding the process? So is it the more plates I have the better or more tanks or both? There's definately room for more plates that's for sure. I was thinking maybe 30 or 60 double stacked in each tank. Or have bigger plates made which is what I was gonna do in the first place till I saw someone using switch plates and that was quick easy and cheaper than having them made so I went that route. But now that I'm moving forward it's time to give up the switch plates I think. I sure love wasting money Thanks again.

Brad...