HHO Generator Design...What do yoy think?

[3DUBs]

Hi everyone,

This is my first post so just thought I'd introduce myself (I’m Mark by the way). I'm planning on building my first generator and have been having a look about the forum and trying to soak up as much info as I can before joining in the discussion.

I have come up with a preliminary design based upon some of the info gained here and my cars available unused ampere. I have a 120 A alternator and with almost everything electrical turned on the drain is just short of 70 A. So estimating a possible few other items turned on in the dead of winter I figure a 30 A generator should be OK?

So I have attached a few Jpegs of some screen shots of my design based on a dry cell and constructive criticism is welcome :O)
Assembly http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll236/rustyturret/HHO%20Generator/Assembly.jpg

Exploded View http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll236/rustyturret/HHO%20Generator/ExplodedView.jpg

Electrodes http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll236/rustyturret/HHO%20Generator/Electrodes.jpg

Fluid Pathways http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll236/rustyturret/HHO%20Generator/InletFluidPath.jpg


1) It will be two cells, +NNNNN-NNNNN+ which I believe from threads is quite efficient, or is there a better configuration?

2) Active minimum surface area of electrode will be 151mm/6" DIA (governed by the o-rings I hade kicking around) which equates to 17,779mm^2 /27.4"^2 this is allowing for the water channels. So from a post I read on here I calculate the maximum current for this generator should be 27.5 Amps total at 13.75 amps per cell.

That does bring me to a question, that I can’t find a thread to at the moment. From what I remember from chemistry electrolysis is governed be current density at an optimum voltage. So from experience or experiment with your available current have you guys had better results by running multiple smaller cells with fewer amps per cell or fewer larger cells with more? (I hope that made sense)

What do you think of the plate configuration do I have enough holes to allow for capillary of the inlet water?

Sorry for the lengthy post...any thought or comments would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance....

[Bhakti]

Good design, for 30A use this configuration: +nnnnn-nnnnn+nnnnn-, inlet/outlet on same side, upper hole 7mm, down 4mm, outlet MUST be lower than upper hole for 2-3mm. In that case then there is not current leaking on upper holes. This cell must produce near 3LPM on 30 Amps.

[BioFarmer93]

3DUBS,
Nice looking & well rendered design- worked yourself into a corner there with the outlet location choices (OK, it's a pun) by going with o-rings, but we work with what we have, right?
Given that you have committed to roundness, go ahead and mod your power plates to receive electricity from diagonal corners. Not such a big deal on a small reactor but every little bit of resistance reduction helps. Your reactor has two STACKS of cells, not two cells. A cell is two plates and the electrolyte in between them. Please be sure get your plates media blasted and passivate them before assembly to make best use of available area and current. Make two extra neutral plates and add one to each stack- current density MAX is 1 amp per square in.and I have had excellent production at 1/4 of that density. You need to bring your VpC down to 1.97 to avoid heating issues.

Oh- welcome to the forums!:D

[3DUBs]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. It's not set in stone that I have to follow this design I am more than willing to tweak/re-work my build to increase efficiency as that's what its all about hey! As this is my first attempt at building a generator I am really just trying to find the best route to go down.

I had the o-rings kicking about so thought I'd utilise them, would a square cell be the better option? How many stacks and in what configuration? As I said I have about 30 Amps to play with...what would you recommend?

I'll have to get the CAD machine out again now! Ha

Cheers in advance

[myoldyourgold]

There is always more than one opinion and is usually based on our experience or the experience of some one we know and trust. Now that said this is my experience with O ring reactors. O rings are hard to keep from leaking over time. O rings also because of such a small area involved spacing is not as uniform as a wide flat gasket. Electrolysis tends to pull electrolyte under the gasket and even a flat gasket 1/2 wide over time shows signs of electrolyte creeping in as much as 1/8 of an inch. It does not make any difference how tight it is either.

Because your active area is round this has also an economic waste of surface area that is non productive. You might have made up some of it by the use of O rings but not the best choice.

The more stacks you put together the less efficient the reactor gets. The longer the gas travels in a reactor the bigger chance you will have a problem of the bubbles joining together and forming large bubbles which work as insulators because the current travels on the outside of them. All of this reduces production and increases heat. I have seen where a bubble has gotten stuck and has caused a hot spot in the shape of a ring. You want to get the bubbles out as fast as possible and keep the bubbles small. Media blasting assists in keeping the bubbles small and easier to release. The ideal is to have the exit ports in such a position and shape that no bubble has to bounce off of something to get out. There are trade offs for all of this though. An efficient reactor is one where gas exits fast,and the bubbles have very little chance to cluster and cause hot spots

Your rendition is excellent and makes it very clear what your are working on. Keep up the good work.

[Darrell]

3Dub, nice that you are not stuck on one plate design and really putting some thought into it. With that being said Have you thought about a rectangular shaped plates. Maybe 4x8 (8 being wide)This would allow bubbles to rush off the plate freely and you would be able to spread the inlet holes further apart. Just some thoughts. "D"

[3DUBs]

Hi,

Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate what you all have said about shape of plates and hot spots due to bubbles etc. So would this be a more favorable design? Thoughts appreciated as I'd hate to waste a load of St/St sheet, I plan to start cutting the electrodes on Tuesday.

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll236/rustyturret/HHO%20Generator/RectangleReactor.jpg

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll236/rustyturret/HHO%20Generator/Assembly1.jpg

The outlet hole has a 10 degree incline towards it, maybe this will aided in the escape of gases? The electrode active surface area is 20710mm^2/32"2 so not that great an improvement over the o-ring design. However I cant go any larger as I am struggling for room in my engine bay.

Out of interest can anyone give me some more advice on what other goodies I will need for incorporation on a 2.9 V6 fuel injected engine? PWM and EFIE that I know of, are there any good DIY ones out there that people have successfully built?

Cheers

[myoldyourgold]

I would suggest a narrow slot starting 1 inch from each side and a bar in the center for strength.
_______|_______

I would also not run the bolts through the plates. Bolts on the outside have less problems with leaking. Leakage around the holes in the plates, where the gasket is very thin is a problem. There has been lots of reports of leaking in that area. Excellent job!!

[BioFarmer93]

Yes, I'm with myoldyourgold on the compression bolts being outside the plate perimeter for exactly that reason. Here is a sketch of how I would do it if I built bipolar- of course the neutral plates have no connection ears...

[myoldyourgold]

Bio, I prefer the slots on the top as long as they are not to wide. If the reactor is efficient, it need not be run in a flooded state and so leakage from the exit port is not a problem. If you are running it in a flooded state, which most are, then weldon 16 limits the leakage and then with the right back pressure there will still not be that much electrolyte that is being pumped out. At least that is what I recommend but the holes also work, the difference being small, and it is easier to poke holes than slots. That might be the deciding factor.

[Darrell]

Also make sure you offset your inlet holes. I believe that it should be 1/2" above the bottom gasket and at lease that from the side of the gasket as well. In most reactors the current likes to run around the inside edge of the gaskets.

I like how you gave just a little lift to the middle top of the plate.

Nice Job!

"D"

[3DUBs]

Thanks,

I really apprecitae your input guys, I like the idea of having the gasket inside the retaining bolts now you have pointed it out. It certainly helps for easier gasket making to! And thanks for the sketch a picture speaks a thousand words hey :D

On the subject of media blasting the electrodes, what grade of media is the norm? I have access to a media blaster but it has quite fine glass beads so not very harsh. It does leave a slightly mottled texture but to all intense purposes it is quite smooth.

[BioFarmer93]

A while back there was some pretty in-depth research done here about that, and I seem to recall that the ultimate job was accomplished with a coarse and then a fine media afterwards. Most folks don't really care to put that much time into it and just use a medium grit like 120-150 and say done with it.

[lhazleton]

A while back there was some pretty in-depth research done here about that, and I seem to recall that the ultimate job was accomplished with a coarse and then a fine media afterwards. Most folks don't really care to put that much time into it and just use a medium grit like 120-150 and say done with it.

Gus,
I believe Larry went into detail in his videos. I think he started with 80 grit and finished with 120. This would put additional peaks & valleys on the already peaked surface. As for me, you know I'm way too lazy to do all that.:rolleyes: Mine are just 70 grit.

[BioFarmer93]

Gus,
I believe Larry went into detail in his videos. I think he started with 80 grit and finished with 120. This would put additional peaks & valleys on the already peaked surface. As for me, you know I'm way too lazy to do all that.:rolleyes: Mine are just 70 grit.

LOL! Yes, whatever Black Beauty from Northern Tool is grit-wise, is what they got buddy.. I recall it looked to be just about 60-70 grit. But after a while there was just as much fine stuff in there from powdering on impact that I imagine there were multi-size peaks and valleys happening anyway... I'm just glad they're finished!

[myoldyourgold]

Here is my two cents. I have tried finishing with a finer grade and finally found some one with a microscope and had a look. I did this to confirm what I could tell by trying to wipe one of my plates with a paper towel. I would not recommend doing that though. On the one grit blasted plate the paper towel just stuck and you could not move it without tearing it. On the two grit plate doing the same test the paper towel did not stick or tear. I looked at both plates with the microscope and found that the one grit blast had much sharper peeks and more of them. The one that had been blasted a second time with a finer grit had very fewer sharp points and actually was smoother. The finer grit took off most of the sharp points. I have stuck to one grit which like Bio said ends up I am sure with enough fine stuff in it. I now test the blast job by just placing a paper towel on the plate with very little pressure and holding the plate on edge to see if the the towel falls of or not. I doubt you can get this kind of a blast job when doing it at home. I tried and couldn't. I do not know if it was because I was limited in pressure and volume of air or the crude setup. I gave up and only blast spots for various tests at home and have the plates blasted commercially. If you are going to have them blasted you will have to tell them to first cut an X pattern corner to corner on both sides before blasting the whole plate and still expect to have some plates that get slightly warped. You can straighten them if you know what you are doing with out damaging the surface if the warp is not to much. If the warp is to much then the plate will have grown and the only way to straighten it is by shrinking the high spots with heat and ice. This changes the temper of the material and the surface making is worthless. Re blasting it does no good because the area that was shrunk is now harder so will have a different surface even when reblasted.

[3DUBs]

Cool, well I'll try the glass bead media to start with and see how that goes. I'm lucky in the fact that where I work I have a well equipped engineering work shop at my disposal so the media blasting cabinet is a professional unit.

So I had my KOH delivered today and am looking forward to having my first experiment with a little test reactor I have constructed over the past few days. I'm sure it wont produce huge quantities of gas but it should be interesting. I'm really doing it to test currents and electrolyte concentrations. I know it is a pretty well documented scientific principle but it will be interesting to try a few different variables and see what the outcomes are.

Then hopefully I will start my full scale generator when the CNC mill is free next week :D Mind you a little more measuring is in order before I start as I really am struggling for room in the engine bay!

Just out of interest does anyone know of any academic research that has been carried out on intergrating HHO to motor vehicles and its effects?

Cheers

[lhazleton]

Cool, well I'll try the glass bead media to start with

Don't use glass bead! This will smooth the surface, where it needs to be rough. Using 70 or 80 grit aluminum oxide will do the trick.

[ultra_efficient]

it would be nice to see someone else design a cell with the electrolyte touching no edge and no holes in the plates. :rolleyes: tired of seeing people building the same dry cell over and over