mini lowes dry cell

[redrat100]

After having shot my Gas4Free project in the head, I cannibalized the parts I could the build a dry cell. Since my old plates were close to the size of a wall plate, I decided that the easiest approach would be to mimick Painless' Lowes cell, shown here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrovCAzg_kY

Basic construction is 1/2" polycarbonate endplates, 316 SS plates arranged +nnnnn-nnnnn+, spaced with 1/16 cork gasket material, plate active area is 3" x 1.5" per side. I applied platic-dip around the holes but found NaOH peeled it off blocking the holes. Eventually I will 'bear claw' the holes. I removed it just to get some data.

It took 15 teaspoons of NaOH per liter to get some action. With 12.04v, 9a is producted 409ml in 1 minute = 3.79 mmw. Bumping the voltage up to 14.03v, 17a it put out 900ml in a minute = 3.77 mmw. Not sure what the temperature was. I had problems with the gas flowing up the inlet and outlet tubes to the resevoir. Puting a windshield washer pump inline helped that.

At best a Gas4Free wet cell rated 1.46mmw. Using the same plates rearranged into a dry cell yielded 3.77mmw. A 61% increase.

I will post pitctures later.

[Painless]

You can fix the gas flow problem without the pump. Just make sure that your hose runs both to and from the cell to the reservoir are straight with no dips or loops. These cause back pressure which pushes electrolyte backwards out of the cell and HHO up the inlet tube.

Minimising the flow as much as possible will also increase efficiency.

[cully]

Minimising the flow as much as possible will also increase efficiency.


is that right !!!

mine flows well so your saying if i slow the feed line the mmw will increase ?

[Painless]

I found a .5 MMW increase by setting the reservoir and electrolyte level in the reservoir so that it only replaced electrolyte as it was consumed.

[redrat100]

It's been a while since I posted. Been doing a lot of reading on this site and others. I am just about ready to put my Mini Lowes cell in my Jetta. I have had to rebuild it a couple of times. Polycarbonate (lexan) is a bad choice for end plates. The lexan forms cracks at random. I switched to acetal (delrin) and have had no problems. 1/2" thick with no flexing. I decided to leave the pump in place. The cell seems to stay cooler with an even flow. I also built a 'Painless' condenser bubbler/resevoir. It does reduce the steaming some. To eliminate the steam all together I am running the gas through a water trap and then through a desicant filter. No steam at all. Plates are +5n-5n+5n-5n+ with the .04 shower pan pvc for gaskets. It produces 769ml in a minute completely dry. Average MMw is 3.51.

[Painless]

It's been a while since I posted. Been doing a lot of reading on this site and others. I am just about ready to put my Mini Lowes cell in my Jetta. I have had to rebuild it a couple of times. Polycarbonate (lexan) is a bad choice for end plates. The lexan forms cracks at random. I switched to acetal (delrin) and have had no problems. 1/2" thick with no flexing. I decided to leave the pump in place. The cell seems to stay cooler with an even flow. I also built a 'Painless' condenser bubbler/resevoir. It does reduce the steaming some. To eliminate the steam all together I am running the gas through a water trap and then through a desicant filter. No steam at all. Plates are +5n-5n+5n-5n+ with the .04 shower pan pvc for gaskets. It produces 769ml in a minute completely dry. Average MMw is 3.51.

You might want to take another look at the cleansing bubbler, I've successfully completely cleaned HHO of vapour up to 2.33 LPM. Is your coil long enough? Mines a foot tall.... also, is the bubbler getting airflow to keep it cool?

Russ.

[redrat100]

You might want to take another look at the cleansing bubbler, I've successfully completely cleaned HHO of vapour up to 2.33 LPM. Is your coil long enough? Mines a foot tall.... also, is the bubbler getting airflow to keep it cool?

Russ.

Thanks Russ. I made mine from 3" pvc but it is only six inches long. Anything bigger would not fit in my engine compartment. I did notice that it does warm up rather quickly. Next time around I will build a bigger one for bench testing.

[redrat100]

I installed my 'Mini Lowes' cell a couple of weeks ago. The cell and the bubbler actually fit under the hood. After 175 miles or so the current suddenly dropped. I discovered that the polycarbonate bowl on my water trap had cracked and allowed all the electrolyte to be pumped out. Now it works fine with the feed tube going straight into a dessicant filter before going into the intake. This filters out any water vapor with suspended NaOH particles.

So far I have gone through two fill ups. MPG increase is 2.2%, mostly highway. That is a little skewed low because of the failed water trap. But that low of a percentage could be from weather or a number of other factors. Average MMW is 3.43. Producing 1 lpm dry hho.

My Jetta has a 2.0 liter displacement engine. At 950 idle rpm air flow is about 71,250 lpm. That equates to 1/1,000% hho to fuel/air mixture by volume.

It is worse at freeway speeds. 3000 rpm = 225,000 lpm air flow. 4/10,000% hho to fuel/air mixture by volume.

I understand that hho behaves like a catalyst during the fuel burn. But, it seems to me that I would need A LOT more than this to make a noticable difference. I would like to see H2OPWR's numbers since it seems that he is having succes with his installation without any gizmos to fool the computer.

[mytoyotasucks]

I installed my 'Mini Lowes' cell a couple of weeks ago. The cell and the bubbler actually fit under the hood. After 175 miles or so the current suddenly dropped. I discovered that the polycarbonate bowl on my water trap had cracked and allowed all the electrolyte to be pumped out. Now it works fine with the feed tube going straight into a dessicant filter before going into the intake. This filters out any water vapor with suspended NaOH particles.

So far I have gone through two fill ups. MPG increase is 2.2%, mostly highway. That is a little skewed low because of the failed water trap. But that low of a percentage could be from weather or a number of other factors. Average MMW is 3.43. Producing 1 lpm dry hho.

My Jetta has a 2.0 liter displacement engine. At 950 idle rpm air flow is about 71,250 lpm. That equates to 1/1,000% hho to fuel/air mixture by volume.

It is worse at freeway speeds. 3000 rpm = 225,000 lpm air flow. 4/10,000% hho to fuel/air mixture by volume.

I understand that hho behaves like a catalyst during the fuel burn. But, it seems to me that I would need A LOT more than this to make a noticable difference. I would like to see H2OPWR's numbers since it seems that he is having succes with his installation without any gizmos to fool the computer.

not sure where ur getting ur #'s, but ur looking at it the wrong way, that volume would be at full throttle.

u need to recalculate using actuall throttle position.

[redrat100]

not sure where ur getting ur #'s, but ur looking at it the wrong way, that volume would be at full throttle.

u need to recalculate using actuall throttle position.

My apologies, the above was calculated at 750% VE, not 75%. I dropped a decimal point somewhere, still looking... That is one thing I like about this site: we keep each other honest, thank you.

Solving for engine airflow rate, where:
CFM = cubic feet per minute
CID = cubic inch displacement
RPM = revs per minute
VE = volumetric efficiency, assumed to be 75% (not to be confused with thermal efficiency which is around 25% at best)

CFM = (CID x RPM x VE)/3456
CFM = (122.047 {2 liters} x 950 x .75)/3456
CFM = 25.161 = 712.5 LPM So, my HHO percentage is really .14%.

Substituting 3000 rpm in the above equation gives 79.46 CFM = 2250 LPM. My HHO at freeway speeds is closer to .04%.

Still, nothing to get excited and write home about...

[redrat100]

I've gone through four tanks to get some mpg numbers. No HHO = average 29.0 mpg. With HHO = 29.6 average = 2.07%. YAWN, what's on TV... Ooo, X Files.

With this and other forums, you tube and other places rife with testimonials about how well this technology works, beyond all of the hype there must be some truth to this. All of these independent sources cannot be lying. I really do feel like Mulder on X Files. "I want to believe". But, my own empirical testing is telling me otherwise.

To re-cap: 2.0 liter 4 cyl Jetta. My dry cell puts out 1 lpm dry HHO. The HHO is filtered through a dessicant filter before going into the intake just before the throttle body.

Someone let me know what I'm not doing right please.

[Painless]

To quote Rob (higherpoweredh2o) and his findings, if your HHO is completely dry you are going to need between 1 and 2 LPM of HHO per litre of engine size in order to see gains.

Russ.

[H2OPWR]

I've gone through four tanks to get some mpg numbers. No HHO = average 29.0 mpg. With HHO = 29.6 average = 2.07%. YAWN, what's on TV... Ooo, X Files.

With this and other forums, you tube and other places rife with testimonials about how well this technology works, beyond all of the hype there must be some truth to this. All of these independent sources cannot be lying. I really do feel like Mulder on X Files. "I want to believe". But, my own empirical testing is telling me otherwise.

To re-cap: 2.0 liter 4 cyl Jetta. My dry cell puts out 1 lpm dry HHO. The HHO is filtered through a dessicant filter before going into the intake just before the throttle body.

Someone let me know what I'm not doing right please.

I agree with Painless. I think you need more HHO although with no enhancers I have seen improvements close to the same as yours. I haven proven to myself that I am using 20% or so less fuel at idle. That means I am still using more fuel than normal elsewhere. The problem is finding out just where. Are you esing an EFIE or MAP enhancer yet? If not your ECU will stop the gains.

Larry

[redrat100]

Thank you Larry & Russ, (Thanks also for the You Tube posts by the way)

As I had suspected, my unit simply isn't producing enough HHO for a 2.0 liter engine. It looks like I need between 2 and 4 lpm output. Mine only gives 1 lpm.

And, no. I am not using any enhancers yet. I was hoping that I would not need to but it seems unavoidable. Instead of enhancers it looks like the best way to fool the ECU is "just" to reprogram it like Mr. Smith did with his Jetta. I have a lot to learn before I even think about monkeying around with ECU settings with the hopes of passing a California smog test.

[redrat100]

I had to pull my electrolizer out last week. Everything was working normally but after a few hundered miles I saw the amps drop off suddenly. I found that all of the electrolyte had leaked out directly onto parts of the engine. Yes, it's aluminum and yes there is now an area that has been eaten away on the transaxle. A post mortem revealed that all of the bolts had come loose. This was because showerpan liner gaskets had deformed under heat and pressure. The hottest the cell ever got was 140 F to 160 F which is enough to cause PVE sheeting to flow. (similar to what happened to Painless' a while back)

Lesson learned: Do not use PVC shower pan liner as a gasket material. Ever! PVC does not have the elastomeric properties that rubber has to make a good gasket material.

The timing for this event is about right since the consensus here is that I need to build a higher output cell anyway. I got some .06 neoprene sheets to rebuild the Mini Lowes Cell. It will see a new life as a welder. I have been wanting to build one for a while. I also got new plate material to build a 6 x 6 cell. I am shooting for a 3 to 4 lpm unit. Hopefully that will give me some meaningful mileage gains.

[H2OPWR]

I had to pull my electrolizer out last week. Everything was working normally but after a few hundered miles I saw the amps drop off suddenly. I found that all of the electrolyte had leaked out directly onto parts of the engine. Yes, it's aluminum and yes there is now an area that has been eaten away on the transaxle. A post mortem revealed that all of the bolts had come loose. This was because showerpan liner gaskets had deformed under heat and pressure. The hottest the cell ever got was 140 F to 160 F which is enough to cause PVE sheeting to flow. (similar to what happened to Painless' a while back)

Lesson learned: Do not use PVC shower pan liner as a gasket material. Ever! PVC does not have the elastomeric properties that rubber has to make a good gasket material.

The timing for this event is about right since the consensus here is that I need to build a higher output cell anyway. I got some .06 neoprene sheets to rebuild the Mini Lowes Cell. It will see a new life as a welder. I have been wanting to build one for a while. I also got new plate material to build a 6 x 6 cell. I am shooting for a 3 to 4 lpm unit. Hopefully that will give me some meaningful mileage gains.

If I were you I would spend just a few extra bucks and get some Nitrile. It is much better than neoprene. It costs about double but will take 180 degrees. Neoprene will degrade at about 160 degrees. Much more slowly than PVC but it will degrade anyway. You will end up with the same thing happening again. It will take more time but will happen again if you run the same temps as before. If you can keep your cell at 140 or lower the neoprene will be just fine at a lower cost.

Larry