Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Frustration

I noticed my car was running quite erratically (almost stalling every time I stopped) so I went to check the cell last night and to show my neighbor. What do you know the middle node is unscrewed again. After removing the unit and reattaching it I hit the switch and .... Nothing. The 30AMP fuse is blown going directly to the cell. 
I don't really know if it happened because of the negative coming disconnected or my electrolite is too strong or what. I will have to get more fuses tonight. I already need to replace a bunch of them that I toasted trying to find out the short problem before. SO this unit that I thought looked very solid and well built is turning out to be a bit more maintenance than it should be. All results to this point are pretty much shot. I will attribute the very low idle of my engine to the EFIE. At least I think its working. Making the engine think it is running rich will lean it out even more and make the idle low. If any mileage gains exist, you could attribute them to that. Can you say NO POWER. 
I think the unit in the trunk would be a good idea.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4744220927707821186&q=h2go&ei=3qRXSMqOGoO8rwLd0-neDg

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Faulty results

It turns out that when I installed the cell I happened to drill a screw into a bunch of important wires under my dash. This was causing blown fuses and my right side marker lights and high beams to not work. I fixed this problem and also refilled the cell with fresh water.(It was completely brown and filled with floaties Idon't know why). while filling the cell I noticed that the lid was leaking again and also the negative node was barely touching. This pretty much voids all results I have to this point. I will be working to patch the lid and have reattached the negative.
I am begining to think that the cell design I have is not the best and am considering building my own. The fact that I could barely get one liter/min really makes me want to work on a new unit that will put out some real results. Will post more results later.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Some first results

I couldn't really wait any longer to find out what kind of mileage I was getting. I started the week with a full tank and drove to and from work and all stop and go city driving. Before I made any highway driving, I stopped and filled up. My average was 23.5 MPG. I don't know if that is too good as I have never before taken JUST city driving readings.
Then I took a full tank on a highway journey of 90 miles (Exactly) and filled up to find I reached 31.6 MPG. This seemed good for my car, but once again i have never taken a highway only reading before. So the average between the two would be somewhere around 27MPG which could be considered a 10 percent gain, but not considered enough of a gain to me. I will be running through for a week to see what I get on a mix of highway/city.
I do think that my cell is not really a high production model like i have seen and I could use some sealing on the hose going into my intake. Stay tuned. Feel free to leave comments!(Please no names, places, or occurrences)

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Installation

I know I said i wanted to wait to put the unit in until i reached a certain production (1 liter/min.) but this weekend I got tired of watching the cell make hydrogen and decided to see if this thing really works. I decided to put the Cell under the hood. I started with the relay mounted close to that battery, hooked up all the wiring, then mounted the cell. Hooking up the EFIE was tricky, because I had to find the signal wire coming from my O2 censor and splice the EFIE in. After that I made a makeshift mount for the Cell and ran the tube into my intake. Below is a video of what the cell looks like starting up in the car.



I ran about 110 miles this weekend that were mostly highway. 50 miles were with the cell running. My results were 28.6 mpg. I will be running all city this week and get a reading before any highway driving. I will keep an eye on the unit to make sure it is still there and running every few days. So far, my check engine light has not come on; meaning my engine must be running lean and the EFIE must be working. Time will tell

Sunday, June 8, 2008

Second test day

I began testing today where I left off last week. The lid to my unit was a bit more beat up than I thought. The gas leak was so bad that i couldn't even get gas to come out of the tube. After tightening all the bolts on top it created a short and fried my seals. I thought I would have to wait for the hardware store to reopen to try and get a new lid, but after scavengering around I managed to find the parts to redo my seals and get the lid tight on top. When the unit was finally up and running, I produced a liter in few minutes. I didn't time it, but it didn't take too long. I think that having a tight seal may have helped compared to the last time I had a good test. I am looking to put the unit in my car this week and see if it produces enough for mileage gains. If not, I may try a different cell configuration or just scrap this idea all together.(sorry no pics or vids)

Thursday, June 5, 2008

First Production HHO Hybrid

I have been very surprised to see so many different instances of people using HHO units in their vehicals THIS WEEK. The media is once again in a frenzy about this technology. There have been multiple claims across the country of great mileage gains using HHO systems, including one in local news. I say once again because it has been around for decades. Everyone gets all excited about it and then, once they are used to gas prices, it fades away. HOPEFULLY it will not be that way this time around. This morning I have come across a "Car Company" who claims that they will be producing a car that comes with a Hydrogen-From-Water hybrid engine. Not only that, it looks like this
Ronn Motor CO (http://www.ronnmotors.com/) out of Texas claims 0-60 in 3.5 sec and over 200mph while getting 40mpg out of a hho hybrid ACURA 3.5 liter Type S engine. I would really like to see a REAL Manufacturer put some time and money in this process. However, this is exciting and every little bit helps.

Sunday, June 1, 2008

First Tests

First I would like to confirm that I am averaging 25 mpg in my car. I ran 230 miles with roughly half highway and half city for a combined avg of 25mpg. I will continue to monitor my mileage even before I attach the cell to my car.
This weekend I was able to hook the unit up to power on a bench at the house. The directions specify using distilled water and a teaspoon of baking soda as an electrolyte in the solution.
I filled the unit first with regular tap water to see if it would make a difference. I attached a car battery charger that has 10, 20, and 50 amp settings running at 12 volts to the unit. It is stated in the directions that it should draw 30 amps from your vehicle. Running tap water did not give good results at all. There were few to no bubble coming from the unit and the water turned brownish after just a few minutes.
Second test- I measured out the baking soda (I have read that NaOH is better, but have none) and used the recommended distilled water. The second test yielded better results. I was quite surprised to see the difference that different water and a little baking soda can do. I started with the low amperage setting of 10 and not a whole lot happened. Switching it up to the higher amps produced much more gas, but it still did not seem like much.
In this picture you can see the bubbles of gas starting to rise off the plates.

The best results were with the charger set to 50 Amps.
Here is the cell after a few minutes of running at 50. The cloudiness is small gas bubbles that rise to the top and build pressure.
This picture actually looks like it is doing pretty well, but I wasn't too pumped at what I was seeing. This unit is supposed to be putting out 1liter/minute of gas and this is not near that amount. I decide to measure by using a liter jar underwater and pumping the gas into it while measuring time. While running at 50 Amps it took 4 minutes to produce 250ml. 16minutes /liter. This is not good for water full cell standards. I have seen units from 4-16 liters/minute on Youtube.
After letting it run, I decided to see how powerful this gas actually is. I started by lighting bubbles of gas as they came to the top of my test tank. They pop like firecrackers leaving a little flame. Then I was lighting the end of my tube that hooks directly into the cell. Getting a little haphazard, I thought the check valve was there for a reason! the flame went back through the tube and turned my cell into an H bomb. The Lid and cell flew out 5 feet in the air with a shot louder than a 9mm.
This is what my lid looked like after the explosion.

Luckily it didn't explode the glass and nothing was really wrecked. I will need to check the lid later for leaks.
You would think that higher voltage and higher amperage would give best results and they are better, but the best units put off huge amounts of gas at low amperage and adjusted voltage. The trick is to optimize the signal going into the cell for best results. I will need to do alot more research to find that setting and the equipment to produce it. I will also be researching different cells, as this one has a different setup than I have seen and did not do so well in first tests.