How many neutrals ?

[numberonekiwi]

I have had some interesting results lately that defy some of my earlier theories ,

Cell size 140 mm x 100 mm ( approx ) with 4x 3 mm thread s/s screws spacers are those used for transistor insulators that fit into the 3.5 mm holes in the plate giving about a 1 mm gap between plates

I have built a cell with 8 plates which gave me 6 neutrals but up till yesterday I was only using 5 neutrals for about 1 LPM at 15 to 20 Amps so not that efficient but when I finally decided to try with the 6 neutrals the amperage did drop as expected so I added more KOH and when warmed up was drawing 25 Amps but this is where the strange behavior begins one would think I should expect to see between 1.25 and 1.5 LPM based on my previous results but this was not the case It went down to about 0.5 LPM  so I am thinking to myself WHY WHY this should not happen.

I am going to try removing 2 neutrals from the current setup to give me only 4 neutrals (5 cells) which would net a 2.8 V per cell I expect to get more heat out of it but then again maybe not I got about the same heat build up in both build previous so who knows but if I am lucky then my LPM should increase for a similar current draw - shouldn't it who knows

[Bob]

I agree some times the results seam to defy logic<grin>
I remember back when I had just finished my 3 Randy cells had them all in the same container
and was setting them up to test each cell seperately, so I added enough KOH to reach 20 amps on one cell, and tested it,  it got right near 2LPM, took the leads off and individually tested the next cell, and then the next and the results were the same 2lpm from each, this was good and what I expected....
I then hooked one cell to the next cell in series, according to what I knew then the Amperage would stay the same and the LPM double.... but NOPE didn't happen...
what happened was the Amperage halved and the LPM stayed exactly the same at 2LPM....
I thought what the heck ? but after a few days I realised what had taken place
with the original 20 amps for 11 plates( a single cell) the electrolyte was set for 20 amps
but when I added another 11 plates to the mix the amperage had twice as many plates to disperse to so it devided the amps in half.
so with only half the amps to each cell the output was only 1LPM per cell and with 2 cells that made it 2LPM total...
...
what I did after that only served to confuze me more but now it makes total sense.
I hooked all 3 cells in series and the amp draw dropped to about 8 amps or there abouts
and the LPM dropped to about 1/4LPM... for all 3 cells !
I then tried to get the amp draw up to 20 amps and couldn't because I had reached the saturation point of water/KOH and could only get something like 14 amps max... and the output for all 3 cells was a mear 1.75 to 2LPM.... less than a single cell all by its self!
this threw me for a loop... but slowly it made sense because of the series and parallel hookups I was useing...
 and the MYTH that adding another cell in series will not raise your amp draw needs...
...
Your LPM output is directly effected by Plate area and AMPS available and voltate to it
changing one thing will effect all the others , sometimes for the good some times for worse, but it will effect it !.

for instance in a Randy cell the plates are all hard wired in parallel... if you add more plates the voltage per plate goes down, and the amps per square inch goes down....
if you remove plates the voltage per plate goes up and the amps per square inch goes up as well.    in actual workings the Dry cell with its neutral plates reacts in the same manor.
if you remove neutral plates the voltage rises per plate as does the amps per sqr inch.
...
the weird part is when you get to the point where Plate area starts effecting production
because if you reduce plate area to  the point where it cannot produce any more gas than it can off of that Area then your production will go down....
so you have to maintain enough plate Area AND enough voltage AND enough amps per square inch
or...what will happen is when you remove a few plates the balance you had goes out the window... and any manor of things will happen...
 We choose to remove plates because its easier than changing the voltage or the amperage.
when in reality to do what we are trying to accomplish would take changing the voltage and amperage both !
...
if you start figureing your plate area Voltage per plate and amps per square inch before the change and after the change you will see what caused the drop in output.
in my experience its almost alwayse a drop in amps per square inch ( mainly because most of my experience is on Parallel plate hookups and the voltage stays the same to each plate)
but in neutral plate configurations the voltage can drop below optimum say 2vdc, and that will give you problems as well because you may well have enough amps but the voltage is not there ...
...
For what its worth... Good luck its a puzzel some times but you can figure it out!
...
Bob........

[numberonekiwi]

Bob I think I know what you are saying it doesn't make sense I recall my self questioning your results and saying that defies logic but I am now finding that out myself I believe Faraday said about 1.5 ish Volts per cell but I dont see this happening the Randy cell is 12 - 14 V per cell but seems efficient @ 20 amps for 2 LPM better than what I am getting if 4 neutrals do not produce better results I may try my cell configuration as + - + - + - + -  and see what that does but I will make variations of that by reducing plates ( I cant add any more than that as I drilled 8 plates at a time by hand and holes dont line up on each batch )

[Bob]

Believe me, I know well what you are saying.... its something you need to see for your self
because it does go against all the teachings I was given in school...or at the very least the way I understood it, which may or may not be what was taught ! HAHAHAHHAHA
....
the lights came on for me when I realised that we are not dealing with a cell that is NON reactive... it is very reactive to the power given it... and therefore reacts like a reactive load, not a load like a carbon resister... How that reactiveness changes everything we know about electronics and the way things work, to me is a Mistery!
some times I get my string of lights confuzed and explain them all wrong so I will refrain from doing it all over again,as I know you understand how it is supposed to work all too well<GRIN>
but... when it Don't work that way, is when it sets us back on our heals and we say "WHAT the heck is going on here !?!?!?"hehehhe
......
I am completely convinced that Neutral plates are a total waste of time ... REALLY !
it is far better to hard wire each plate to power rather to rely on the electromotive force to energize the netural plates because there is a large LOSS in doing it that way...
anytime you use electromotive force to do work you LOOSE power in the proccess... this is true in electrical motors and is nothing new... so why would you build in that loss to your cell if you didn't absoultly have to have it that way?... defeet that loss by having every plate wired in some manor or another, its not that much harder and you will go around the LOSS due to resistance of the electrolyte, and the resistance in the metal trying to be excited "the HARD WAY" when you can just as easily excite it with a wire and be done with it
with Minimal losses.
that way the only resistance in the water that is felt is through the Hydroxy generation,not hydroxy generation and exciteing the plates too...
Yes I realise that the plates are excited by a magnetic field and not the electrons going through the electrolyte.... well, in theory, but you can rest asured that if the magnetic field falls short of supplying the needed power to make the chain of netural plates "Sing their tune" it will rob the power from another source to get it. simply because things Want to balance out...
so to me I see no way for a Neutral plate configuration to be the most effecient it seams to me that a neutral plate cell will alwayse be running UNDER what it could be if it were hard wired.... I don't see any way around it !
...so... I don't try, I hard wire all my plates to the power and go about it in Parallel
...
however that makes the cell work great, it then throws you a curve ball when you hook the parallel cells in series! (as I explained before) although I admit if I had each of those cells in a seperate container 90% of the problems I incountered would go away...ALL but the AMP draw one... 3 cells requireing 20 amps each will need 60 amps.... no matter how you wire them... this is very hard for people to get , but its true... I know because I ran into the problem, so did Randy... feeding 3 cells in series with 20 amps will get you about 1/4LPM
Not the 6LPM that some tell you, you will get! to get that 6LPM it takes 60amps !
....so series is Not going to help your heat problem in that respect,because you have to raise the amps,the only way it will help your heat problem is if you feed the cells LESS than the original amount, which is what Randy does because he doesn't like hot cells!
...
FWIW
...
Bob........

[numberonekiwi]

Yes Bob I am now finding that series may not be the way to go as I said I would try 4 neutral plates ( needed to dilute solution slightly ) but at 20 and 22 amps per cell cold ( 2 cells slightly different current draw same solution ) cold would give 750 ml in about 45 to 50 seconds with just either cell connected with 2 cells paralleled ( 4 neutrals each ) the current draw was only just under 30 amps ( limitation of PSU over that it drops into protection mode )but that would give me 750 ml in 35 ish seconds so will try taking out a another neutral to see what happens I properly will end up going + - + _ + but will need to get some more 3 mm nuts and have some sort of larger insulator between the nuts and insulated part of the plate if I dont I think the cell will only conduct between the nut and its closed part of the plate and not the entire plate but I could again be wrong there as well.
This stuff really does throw a steel toed shoe up your teachers B/side it seems all wrong and I am sure if this were a science exam it would mean FAIL HAHAHAHA

[randy]

I know what you mean, every time I try something it never does what I expected it to, but something entirely different, altough sometimes beneficial. hahahahha

[numberonekiwi]

well I tried a + n - setup on 12 ~ 14 Vdc and production was very very low but the Amps were still there ( 20 ~ 30 ) and the production of gas ( white cloud of bubbles ) was also visibly low this idea I got from Randy cell MK2 but only 3 plates I figured that the larger plate area was similar to several plates on the Randy washer cell but then again who knows WTF happens ( or does not happen ) so I tried putting the cell back to a 5N2 arrangement and measured each plate with an ohm meter to discover that some neutral plate were 0 ohm to the outside plates meaning my insulators were failing.

So I decided on a rebuild ( just ordered parts ) and while remembering the Randy cell O-Rings thought I would go the same path I went to a shop here in NZ called para rubber and price up 200 4 mm ID 6 mm OD O-Rings @ 35c each ouch thats NZ$70 ( US$35 ) so I went to ebay and got 200 units for US$8 plus US$2.50 shipping thats nearly 1/4 the price excluding shipping  ( this seller has an online store on ebay called O-Ring city ) goes to prove shopping around is better than driving around getting prices

I have also been to another local supplier that I believe is reasonably priced for the insulating washer they have 4 mm ID 7 mm OD and about 1 mm thick @ NZ$10 ~ 11 for 100 so I am happy with that price may find cheaper again

I figured the spaces / insulators I was using had a to tighter tolerance TO220 mica washers they would normally work fine but because my plates were drilled by hand there are slight variations between each batch of 8 plates where the drill was not exactly straight or a plate slip a fraction of a mm these washers had an ID of 3 mm and OD of 3.5 mm leaves only a 1/4 mm of tolerance ( or 1/8 mm in any direction )

So hopefully the rebuild will give me better results because for all the previous testing done could be wasted because there may of been shorted neutrals ( note to Shaun : check each neutral B4 testing )

[Bob]

Yup,YUP !
 definately do a continuity test when your done assembling a cell...... in a stack of neutrals if one is grounded that will realy screw up the operation of the others, so all your old test results are suspect!
...
its good that you discovered it !....bound to make a Hudge diference in output !
...
keep us informed on yur progress please !
...
Bob.............

[numberonekiwi]

Update on new build parts arrived today ( 7 days to NZ USPS not bad ) so I went to local supplier for the rest seems to be very knowledge ppl ( not fully explaining HHO ) but asked for a drill for SS got a colbolt bit 6 mm NZ$8.96 nylon washers M4x8x(0. x 200 =NZ$21, M4x40 304 SS screws x16 NZ$12 (ouch ) M4 nuts x 200 NZ$11 and M$x9x(0. washers x 200 NZ$9 Plus tax on total = about NZ$70 I still need a drill but that is only around NZ$20 so I am hoping after over a hundred spend I can get better results but with washers @ 0.8mm may be to close but then again I can use 2 per spacing of plates which I think is 0.064 inch or 1 washer being 0.032 need some testing here to find the best many rebuilds to come
I am going away this weekend ( waitangi day = New Zealand Day ) so proberly wont start on project until following weekend ( weekend for me is FRI/SAT )
I am hoping to see more accurate results and less plate shorts from tight tolerances

I will keep you posted

Another Idea I have been looking at and posted at the other side was pure water injection with a plasma ignition = your standard coil with low voltage high current ( i.e 100 VDC and 3 ~ 5 A ) across the spark plug and replace the petrol with normal water but there are other problems associated here - but this would be be grand ( whatever ) pull up to the local servo and use their water for your radiator to fill your gas tank go into to say to CSR  2 just filled up my tank with water how much they look at you and laugh as you leave they say to workmate dumb bugger just put water in petrol tank but it is not far off either it will either be HHO or water/plasma

my finances cant support both at the moment but if HHO does not work out I may just try the other method

[Bob]

Number1kiwi:
when you get a drill remember that you need a SLOW turning drill...most drills that go for 20 bucks are quite fast ! and if you run them very long with the veriable speed that some have they will quit on ya.... (save your reciept!) drilling with a hand drill will be hard and you'll probly burn up the bit because your going too fast.... automatic transmition oil makes a fairly good cutting oil, but stinks to high heck !... but you need to keep the bit below the smokeing stage...so you need oil on it to tell !.
once you drill one plate you can stack them up and use the one already made as a template to drill the rest... and they will all line up then... mark top and botton on each plate otherwize the holes probly won't line up !...
good luck and Hang in there.... YOU CAN DO IT !
...
Bob...

[hg2]

  NO1kiwi  If you know someone with a drill press that's the ideal way to drill SS.