waste?

[Jake]

I'm wondering about the smacks booster design. why are there 16 plates used to make 8 cells? I threw out the ss nuts in the middle and half the plates. I'm just using the nuts on the end to squeeze the thing together and its working decent. getting just over 1 lpm @ 30 amps. this ellimenates the space problem. no more grinding nuts to get it to fit in a 4" tube. so is there an advantage in using twice as many plates and connecting them with ss nuts? what gives?

[Bob]

Howdy Jake !
Well, the Smack booster is supposed to put out right at 1.75LPM at 20 ~25 amps....
so sounds like you've dropped a bit of production...
....
there is no magic number or reason that I know of to use the nuts they are just for proper spacing
and conductivity between the plate pairs...  the way he designed it works good, I know because I built one like it and got 1.7LPM at 20 amps or there abouts...  but they do not hook in series worth a darn!
there is something about the smack booster that if you use more than one unit you just about have to run them in parallel.
...
believe me when I say this... the nuts being the right width is important ! I tried it with standard nuts and the output was horrable !... I ground my nuts down( ouch!) and the output almost doubled!
 the 7/32" with of the jam nuts is very important in the spacing of the plates...
however finding them in stainless steel is like looking for frog hair ! ,<grin.>
...I never did find s.s. Half nuts or Jam nuts ! in 3/8" or in 1/4x20
...
... anyway it does fit a 4" pipe (barely) if the right width nuts are used.
can you do better than a smack booster ? probably ! just stack them in altenerateing polarity as many plates as you have and give it a try !  stack them like the Randy cell with each bolt being the power source Neg, and Pos  you will have to insulate the bolt from the plate on one side of each plate but thats not that hard to do ... a stack of 20 to 24 of the switch plate covers used this way and fed about 40 amps will get you around 5LPM if memory serves correctly...
...
Good luck to ya !
...
Bob.....

[Jake]

5 lpm? that sounds great!  
I know my production is low for the amps I'm using but I just can't wrap my mind around the reason for using 2 plates connected with a nut in the middle. electricly that gives us 1 plate right? must be something simple that I ain't seein
I had been wondering about making a Randy/Smacks hybrid a few days ago. sounds like you've done it before though. at 5 lpm I could make 3 or 4 and go total hho.

[Bob]

I havn't done that yet, someone else did here even if you only get 3LPM your better off !
...
Now the theory behind the Nuts between the plates in the smack booster is something like this....
 electrically the 2 plates are connected as you surmised, but the electrons will gather on oppisit plates, making the one positive and the other negative, and in practice it does indeed seam to work this way... however with ANY Neutral Plate cell the distance between the driving plates needs to be as short as possible... thats where the Smack booster is messed up (in my opinion)  if I remember correctly there are 4 of the sets of 2 plates on each side, and simply removing one set of 2 per side should get the driving plates closer together and allow better operation (in other words...plate, nut, plate. removal)
...
However you can take the 15 plates that you have and stack them like so.. +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
(positive plate on each end)
you can do this by useing Vinal gasline cut into 1/16" donuts as insulators and a bunch of
thin S.S. 1/4" washers and use Nilon 2 pocket folders as insulators under the washers.
you should try very hard to keep the plate spaceing to 1/16"  so you'll probly only have 4 nuts on the entire cell on the ends to squeeze it togather...
be sure to check continuity ! and if the connections give you truble ( they did me ) you may have to use SS shimstock with holes just big enough to thred onto the bolts/thredded rod... these pieces of shimstock would replace the washer on the connecting side because they will actually TOUCH the threds
other wize the plate will not make good contact. ( been there done that!)( think of the shim stock as super thin nuts...use them on the side you are trying to make contact, then enough nilon insulators
to keep the plate level . the other side will have a piece of gasline around the bolt/thredded rod as an insulator and nilon insulators next to the plate so it makes no electrical contact at all with that bolt.... the next layer/plate is the same but reversed to the oppisit polarity bolt.
...
I assembled a cell like this one time but never did test it... it looked too small at the time to do what I wanted ( how little I knew!<GRIN>) but these cells can be ran in series to reduce heat
and put out close to 3LPM with 15plates at 25~30amps
you may find like Randy and I did that 11 plates is the right number of plates for you
but it totally depends on your power you are useing
if you have only 10 Amps use 11 plates and try it and see what you get !
adding another cell in series will produce more LPM but you will need to double the amprage.
  You will need to apply power to the bolt/thredded rod ends, so leave them long enough to go through the container wall and use washers and gasline there to seal the holes...
...
I've been wanting to build 3 cells like this as a "BIGGER Randy cell"... but have never got around to it yet !
...

Hope that helps !
Bob.........

[Jake]

I'll have to try that if I can ever get the time and money. I usually have to choose between the two. 
speaking of gasline Gastite is a ss corrogated tubing with a yellow plastic coating and works great for a radiator. peel the plastic off and the ribs of the corrugation work as cooling fins. thought about this cause with every cell wired and no floating plates, thats bound to generate some heat. only trouble is the expense. u need and adapter at each end to hook up to the booster and they run 8 or 9 buck apiece. ouch!

[Bob]

Jake :
Don't be fooled by "the Floating Plate is a cool plate scheem"...
A cell with Floating plates is supposed to be cooler running  , I have hurd that sense day one, but if you give the floating plate cell the same amount of power per plate as the other type cells they will make the same amount of heat....  but that is the KEY !
if you run into a heat ishue just back off the power and it will run cooler
 most of the floating plate cell designs are running less amprage per sqr inch than the other type cells... what we used to call a series cell +-+-+-+-+ which is actually a Parallel cell in its Hookup is usually running almost double that of a Dry cell type per sqr.inch of plate area.... therefore  you have more heat generated, if you ran the dry cell at the same amps per sqr inch as we do the Randy cell for instance, it would cease to be a cool running cell
.... so you can take that information and turn it around and use it to your advantage... just lower the amps per sqr inch and your parallel cell will run much cooler too !
...
but this is a Liter per minute game that we play... and we want as much output as we can get... and to get that it takes the amps....
so you have to experiment and find how much amprage you can run without boiling or getting too hot ! ...
FWIW
...
Bob........

 

[Jake]

makes sense to me I was reading on another forum that pushing a ton of volts through a cell with very little amps will result in good production and possibly vice versa. ever heard of that sorta thing?

[Bob]

Actually No... I have discussed the possability before but never hurd of anyone actually doing it...
 You see it defies logic first off... Higher voltage low amps is actually the same as High amps low voltage as far as POWER goes,... but with one large difference, High voltage will Arc fairly easily... that is why the coil in your car uses 150,000 vdc to make the spark plugs Spark... it takes that kind of voltage to cross a gap ...
 so using High voltage like that will likely Arc between the plates unless the amprage is sufficently low enough as to not allow it to happen......
 and its my view eather will work fine, it doesn't realy matter because its the WORK being done that is the key factor... the Watts consumed so to speak...
...
I'ed rather have Low voltage and High amps myself its a bit safer than High voltage low amps... but eather can be safe if done correctly...
 ...
Personally I seriously doubt the output will be any different than normal output
if you take say a randy cell and test it on low voltage high amps and then test it on high voltage low amps...  but we need to have a guage here to make sure we are talking the same POWER... because thats whats going on... a fella desides to use high voltage low amps but in reality he is pumping 3 times as much power over all through the cell and Obviously the output is much improved !
the formula P=IxE  is what we can use to guage it by... Power in watts is equil to Amprage times voltage....
 if you have 2000watts by having 1500volts x 1.3amps 
you have the same as 2000watts by having 12volts x 166amps  (if I did my math correctly)
they both come out to 2000watts but by useing diferent means and  the Watt is the measurement of POWER that does the work...
so you can see that eather setup will have the same OUTPUT.
.... if by chance  useing the same watts in eather case , that one produces MORE output than the other, I would be very supprized... but it COULD happen ! I just think it very unlikely is all.
...
more output seams to take more power.... however you want go get it...
weather its high voltage or high amps or both and contend with the problems that occurs as a result.... higher power seams to be the only way for higher output !
....
Bob.....

[Jake]

so could we say that there is no amperage or voltage threshold to cross to get our hho? I've always heard the rule of thumb is being between 1.5 to 2 volts per cell for production but if we can get cells running with high amps low volts or vice versa it would disprove the volt threshold theory. that tells me that watts is what I should be looking at. If this is the case floating plates should be wired directly giving each cell 12-14v and much less electrolyte will be needed to draw the desired amps. amp draw would go down also because of the higher voltage. with roughly 6 times the voltage in each cell our hho output could be expected to be as good at 1/6 of the amp draw since it will be the same wattage. I'm just typing as I think here so if this is gettin carried away you'll have to excuse my train of thought 

[Bob]

No problem at all Jake I like the train of thought !
and I'll hop abord here  and see what I can add...
...
Yes 1.24 volts is aupposed to be a minimum plate voltate for a cell to operate....
supposedly , raising the voltage above that mark just goes into making heat (I dissagree)
there is also a Minimum amprage threshold per sqr. inch... somewhere around .2amps to .5amps
as a minimum... anything less the output falls off steeply...
I prefure 1amp per sqr inch.... that is a HUDGE amount...and something I have yet to attain even still.... but it is one of those  HIGHER IS BETTER things when it comes to amps per sqr inch...
...
although I read where one of our group ages ago was getting good production from 12v and 800MA.... you do not have to have a great deal of amprage to make electrolisys work
its just easier that way.... as you say Wattage is where it counts.... the ability to do the work
....
I too agree with you on the netural plate idea... they shouldn't exhist, your wasteing pressious plate area for less production than you could have hooked up directly !
....
My 2 coppers !
Bob.......

[Jake]

what I would like to see is a set of updated rules and theories of hydrogen generators.

ideal watts per square inch
correct plate wiring
ideal plate spacing
good and bad chemicals for electrolyte
good and bad antifreeze solutions
correct formula to determine the production needed to run total hho
ideal amp to volt ratio (if there is one)
safety devises (what works and what don't)
etc. . .

and maybe a myth buster section to dispel disproved theories and stuff
this would be a great page to direct the newbies to. when I first got into this stuff I bought into all the old thinking: neutral plates, baking soda, amp and volt thresholds.
guess I'm just gullible 

[Bob]

I agree totally that that needs to be done, problem is most of that stuff you mentioned is constantly being debated as weather it IS correct or not ! ...so sticking your neck out and
saying ...this is the CORRECT WAY will more than Likely have you eating Crow in a few months or so ! <GRIN>
... I like your idea of the "myths Busters" section... I think I'll add one like you said
I think it would help to inform the newbies much better than the past methods !
thank you for the idea Jake !
...
Bob.....

[Jake]

guess your right about the debate thing. sure would be nice though 

I've got an idea for a system I want to start workin on:

container:
6" by 1' pvc with pvc cap on bottom and fernco (rubber cap with ss band) on top

radiator:
ss corrugated gasline S-looped in between grill and radiator
w/inline pump

plates:
wall switch covers
as many as space will allow (don't know yet)

wiring:
every plate wired direct
battery cables for booster wires
ammeter on dash

electrolyte:
koolaid

gonna remove the a/c compressor (don't work anyway) and put another alternator in its place so the booster has a dedicated power source.
theres plenty of room for the 6" pipe in the ol' chevy, my only problem is the throttle body injection. I'd like a carb retrofitted if it don't get to complicated to do that but thats probably wishful thinkin
    haven't got all the details of this worked out but I think I can hammer em out as I go.
main idea is to build an oversized smacks and put a lot of power to it. I want to make a huge amount of gas before I start trying to go total hho

[Bob]

Jake:
Nuttin wrong with your plan except perhaps being able to power it ....
when you start going with "as many plates as will fit" your power requirements may well go way over available altenator power !
so try this first... 11 wall switch plates... but leave the connecting bolts where you apply the power to them extra long so you can add more plates as time goes on if you need to
... 11 plates should take 30 to 40 amps to produce good , but that depends upon the plate spaceing... I sujest 1/16" spaceing ( buy 1/16" nilon thrust washers from Lowes hardware)
...
You'll probly wind up useing closer to 22 plates in the end if you can get the right amprage going to it... (totally guessing here)
 but do begin and end the stack in a positive plate as the Randy cell MKI does!
... by doing it this way you can feed the cell the amprage that you have available
each time you test it... and then Add or subtract plates until you get the most production for that given amperage ...
for example... start with 11 plates feed it 75 amps and see what your production is in LPM
stop pull it appart and add 4 plates and re assemble then re test after re setting the amp draw once again to 75 amps... so the only thing that has changed is the number of plates... give it a LPM test and compair if the LPM went up or down if the LPM went up add 4 more plates if it went down take off 2 plates and re test... do this till you can get the most LPM output for the plates and amps used....
you will FINE tune the cell to the amperage and probly have one of the better cells out there for your efforts....
...
However don't try to do this at 10 amps and expect it to work fantastic at 75 amps... it won't... do it at the full amperage that you will be running it at all the time... and your Output will be assured ! and your heat will be as low as possable for that given LPM
....
thats what I would do if I were you...
Yes use large #4 wire/cables  the bigger the better!
especially all the way to the amp guage on the dash... running a longer distance than 3ft go the next size bigger in wire/cable.... and use the solder on connectors on the end!
....
good luck
...don't forget the safty devices !
...
Bob.......

[Jake]

well I'm gonna do my homework on this one cuz the parts ain't cheap
I have an old alternator I can install and have it dedicated to the cell and if possible I may also pull 40 or 50 amps from the trucks alternator to give me around 150 amps to work with.
If I use 150 amp for my math (to keep it simple) and want .4 amps/sq. inch I'll need 375 sq. inches of ss plate. I forget the exact dimensions of a wall switch cover maybe 2.5"x4.5"? ?  thats 11.25 sq. inches so 375/11.25 gives me just over 33 plates.
I'm wonderin though, do ya'll count both sides of the plate as surface area or just one? I read somewhere but can't remember or find the post

did hit a snag with my gasline for the radiator idea. it just dawned on me that the fittings are brass. might be ok with koolaid but I'll have to find out :-)