plate conditioning

[binderguy]

Hi guys, Jim Adams here. Haven't posted in a while, been keeping up on my reading though.
So I recently was able to purchase some KOH, 2 bottles which is 4 pounds and before I start using it I want to prepare my plates and have a few questions. When you are conditioning the plates do you need to run current through them or will just having them soaking in the solution do the job? I will again be using the ss condiment cups. Thanks.
Also, I live in Portland and am interested to know how many forum members are in the area who would like to talk on the phone and compare notes. I myself would like to get to know the other folks around who are interested in and playing around with this stuff. That's all for now. Later, Jim.

[H²+O]

I live in Meridian, Idaho. Same goes for me, anyone around here? besides myself that is!
....

I heard bob say something about using Muratic Acid. I think if you use that to clean (by soking) the cells, Rinse, then use whatever electrolight you are going to use and soak it in that for a couple days. all 'conditioning' does is Give you a head start when you start using your generator. (condition it for 2 days or use it for 2 days, same thing)
So I've come to understand....

I'm going to buy KOH and Citric Acid from a big suplier here (minumun order is $200) I think i can get both for $2 a pound if i buy a 55Lb bag of each. I'm going to re-call on monday and get an update.
Going back to the top,,
Who Lives By Me? Want To Buy some of the stuff off me at the same price i buy it at? Because I really don't need 50lb of each!!!!!!!

steve

[Bob]

Some people get absoultly Finatical about plate conditioning !
I have a tennancy not too.... I sand the surface and handle the plates with my bare hands and then wonder why my output suffers ! LOL !
...
I did condidion my 3 "Randy Cells" before I put them in the truck by setting the electrolyte to 5 amps and let it run for 24hrs on my 10 amp charger and battery....the results the next day showed allot of green goo... so I cleaned up the container and did it another 24hrs at 5 amps  and there was only a tiny amount of goo the following day so I figured that was good enough...
...
I cleaned the cells up real good with the garden hose and then rinced off the cells with distilled/deminerilized water... and then put them back in the cell's container set the electrolyte for 20amps and ran it for about 15 min and got lots of green goo again !
so I desided to just install the cell in the truck and clean it once a day for the next week as I needed to be doing other things... after about 4 flushings the cell was running clean as a wistle .... and I was very glad as it was a pain in the butt to clean up!
...I quit flushing the cell out then and ran it for about 3 months stright only adding a bit of Distilled Deminerilized water to top it off every now and then....( at that time I was getting 40~45mpg from it in the truck !)
... on a whim I desided to flush the tank and found the electrilyte had turned to a deep dark COFFEE color , almost like expresso !.... so I used Muratic acid to clean it up and flushed it out good with the garden hose... and it was back to like new condition... I soaked the cells in 100% soulution of Muratic Scid for about 20 min, which was actually a bit too long. 15 min would have been better I think.
...Like a dummy I poured the Muratic acid out on the ground and it started desolving the rocks and leaves on contact.... be very carefull with that stuff it is very mean !
....
Bob....


 

[H²+O]

Don't listen to half of what i say!!!! I don't really know what i'm taking about! (all this stuff it seams is getting jumbled up in my noggin)

steve

[Bob]

Thats not true Steve, your advice on conditioning plates is good as far as ya went...!
the problem with conditioning plates is (as I have found)  if you pump 5 amps into a set of plates untill the green goo stops leaching out of the metal, most people think the plates are conditioned...and that's not true, they are only conditioned for 5 amps is all.
if you then put them in a cell as I did and pump 20 amps at them you get green goo all over the place.... because its the LEVEL OF AMPERAGE that pushes out the impurities in the metal...
so in order to condition your plates you need to run them at the operateing amperage untill you stop getting the garbage out of the metal...
...
 Now this isn't really "Conditioning" the plates either... to properly condition a plate you need to sand it, and make the surface scratched and rough....soaking in a soulution of your electrolyte for a few days is also a good idea  and then run it at the operateing Power you will be useing it at for at least 24hrs... to as much as 3 days
....
You can use chemicals to PRE clean the plates and get the oil off that has seaped into its pores durring manifacturing.... but that is mainly just cleaning the metal.... conditioning is different, the idea with conditoning the plates is to have them "READY to USE".... and that means you must leach out all the crap in the metal that you can, that the movement of the electrons will bring to the surface and turn to GOO in the electrolyte !
...in all truthfullness you can never get it fully conditioned as long as it is a metal!
it will continue to leach a small amount of goo into the water all its life...We only do this to get the majority of the GOO out before we start'er up for the first time "FOR REAL"
...
if you want a challenge try to condition normal Mild steel.... its vurtually impossable to get enough of the GOO out of the steel to use the metal !, you have to change the electrolyte every day  and every day there is at least 1" of green snot on the surface of the water....
...
 that is the MAJOR reason we use Stainless steel in our cells, not because of the electrolyte that will eat the plates up... but to reduce the GOO in the cell that electrolisys makes!
...
if we leave the Goo in the cell, and run it anyway the Goo will coat the plates and insulate the electrolyte/water from reaching the plates...this takes a long time to render the cell non productive, but it will render it NON PRODUCTIVE eventually !
... that is where the Muratic acid comes in at ...it will eat through the goo and the surface of the metal and everything else in the cell and loosen it.... but its still on the cell so you have to blast it off with a high pressure nozzle on the garden hose and then  you have a clean cell !

.... I know this because I screwed up my 3 Randy cells by letting them go too long before I cleaned them good and replaced the KOH....and every plate in that container looked like it was bronzed ! .... I believe that is because I cooked the KOH in the cell by running 30 amps to 2 cells and disconnected the other one...
...after that fiasco, I switched to lemonaid and discovered I could not attain 30 amps with lemonaid... even with my Closely spaced Randy cells... so I desided to change my configuration to 3 single cells and try that...but then I had to Move to the Ranch here and havn't gotten back to it yet...

there may be differing opinions on "Conditioning Cells" and I'm sure there are, so don't take my words as the "end of all" on the subject , by any means! I still have allot to learn too ya know ! HAHAHHAHA
...
Bob......
 

[Bob]

Steve: let me know if ya do get that 50lb bag of citric acid and KOH as I may well releave you of some of each <GRIN>
....
I am hoping that Citric Acid will make a better electrolyte than Koolaid ! it should ! but what I really need to know is, at what amp draw will it reach saturation point in my cells.
as far as I am concerned, I really think that the higher amp you can run the more Hydroxy gas you will get...( and of corse the more heat too !)
....
I seriously doubt enough people put enough enphisis on the Heat ishue as it is a serious problem
indeed. useing Ohms law and convert amps and volts into watts of heat and it will supprize you how fast the heat adds up !
 for instance: P=ixe or Power in watts equils amps times volts.
lets take the Randy cell sense I know it best, 2LPM at 20amps at 14volts.or 280 watts of power.
I was running 3 cells so the total Heat I could get would have been 3x280=840watts
unfortionately I didn't have the 60 amps to do that with so my output suffered
but that is very close to 1000watts or even the low setting on an electric heater (at 950watts)
... I have a hot plate with a low med and High setting on it and 800watts is the medium setting and 1200 is on High   with it on HIGH it will boil a quart of water in about 15 to 20 min
although I havn't tried boiling water on the medium setting I expect it would take about 30 min
....
what I am getting at is unless you take steps to keep the cell COOL you will be boiling the water/electrolyte in the cell after 20~30minutes....
and if you run higher amps as I plan to do the time duration is even shorter so a cooling system is a MUST !
....
what we need is a Plastic Radiator that can handle KOH or a stack of cooling towers and a conventional pump...
   I have a few regular radiators and heater cores here at the Ranch from years gone by,... but they are copper and I know KOH will eat them up, but maybe citric acid won't ?
I even have a Aluminum radiator.... and KOH with that will make hydrogen out the Kazoo ! for a short time ...HEHEHE  like the Hydrogen generators of old.... KOH in a CAN in a paint pressure pot and drop in a few pieces of aluminum and bolt the lid down and fill balloons !
...
but needless to say KOH and alum Radiators don't mix.... so something else is needed
the best thing I have came up with so far is a recirculating tank with alum flashing cooling fins on it.... and in all honesty I don't think it will cool down a hot running cell worth a darn !...at best it will keep a Mild cell Mild in temp....<grin>
...
any ideas guys ? we need a better cooling system for our cells !

...
Bob.......

[H²+O]

 I've been busy with work so i haven't gotten very far on the getting of the KOH an Citric acid, but you bet BOB! (Kind of wanted to take a look at someones' generators up close anyway!!!) and seeing as how you're the one with all the other 'experiments'. Man would I love to deliver! once I have my 'randy' cell going!
Speaking of that my brother wants me to drive him over to portland, or. in the morning so i was going to finish building the cell and the bubblier tonight so we could see how much it improves the MPG from the 38 i get now from about 1/4city 3/4highway driving!  !!! (i was just going to buy kool-aid from Winco only $.05 a packet there). I have a 100gph fishtank pump that i can rig up to circulate the water hopefully keeping the temperature down. will the Citric acid eat away soft plastic? like the plastic around wires? because i am going to put a out door thermometer in it so I can keep track of the heat when i am driving (seeing as how i don't have an amp gauge yet...) and add more water to the solution if it gets hotter than 115* or some such..
Question, BOB,, What is the saturation level for the lemonade kool-ade in the distilled water that you have found to work the best? and what did the amps peak at? I am using a 8" long piece of 3"ABS pipe with a screw on top with a fitting and hose running to the bottom of ??" tall (first for flash back (how much water) and second, how about 'scrubbing' how much empty space for the water/electrolyte to separate from the HHO? (If that is even how one works)  2"ABS bubblier with a rubber blow off cap with a fitting and hose coming out from it going just above my carb intake with a ?? flash arrester (what are you guys using for that?

Steve out...

[Bob]

hehehe Well my cells are scattered out right now and this place is a total mess,still trying to get orginized from moving down the mountian... Randy lives near portland somewhere I THINK ! on the washington side of the river!
... I have posted pics of my cells already ...their not much to look at ! LOL
...
on the Koolaide... I can't remember right now how many packs of Koolaid it took to reach 20 amp draw in a 1 gallon container but it was a bunch. and reaching 30 amps took almost the same amount again so the saturation point of the water for Koolaid is somewhere around 75packs to the gallon I think....
incidently, the "Saturation" point is the point where adding more stuff doesn't change the reading anymore... it happens at lower amp raits for most things and KOH seams to be the highest amp draw of all the Chemicals out there that I have tested so far.
I have tried  Vinegar,Koolaid,and KOH as well as Vinegar/Koh... and KOH draws the highest amperage by almost double at the Point of Saturation.  (Vinegar only drew something like 10~15 amps at 100% striength.)   KOH on the other hand drew 35~40amps somewhere in that area
I seriously doubt I can get 50 amp draw useing KOH but it may be possable, my amp guage was pegged so I really couldn't tell at that point !
....
on the Koolaid , I started out at 24 packs and then tested it after sturring it up good (in the Distilled /Deminerilized water.)  If I remember right... its been a long time ago now and allot of water has gone under the bridge sense then ! LOL
I just cept an eye on the amp guage and kept adding packets untill I aproached 20 amps at 17 amps or so I stopped adding and let it cook a while and it came up almost 5 amps after that!
....
on your bubbler its best to keep the water below the gas outlet by about 1" or so and have the outlet as High on the pipe as possable so the Pop off cap doesn't cover it.
 its best not to use a screw on cap on the cell , or have a pop off cap on a fitting on it as well so you can inspect the cell's interrior without taking it apart.
...I have a Pop off cap on the bubbler and the cell BOTH... and no other flame aresters are needed... but DO tie the pop off caps down !  I bailing wired mine to a engine hose so I wouldn't loose them should it pop off ! , one time I forgot and found the cap in the frame rail.... seams I forgot to tighten it down ! OOPS !
...they have never POPPED off while in use...but they make easy inspection holes as long as you remember to tighten them back down.... however they don't like to get hot... I have melted 3 pop off caps so far !.....
which tells me my cells were running way too hot...Randy doesn't have that problem!hehehehe
 ....
I inject the Hydroxy gas in between the air intake and the intake manifold and think it would be better to inject it between the air filter and the Air volume Sensor or throttle position sensor
that way the amount of stuff that goes into the engine is accounted for by the computer, and the computer may not try to Counter act the Hydroxy gas near as much ! ... this is a theory and not proven yet but I am going to move my injection point  on my truck that is how sure I am that its a better point to inject the gas into the engine!
(between the air filter and the Mas air flow sensor/throttle thingy!) heheheheh
....
notice if your Car PINGS ! Knocks or is making funny noises on acceleration if so you may have to retard your ignition timeing closer to Top dead center .... i.e. of its at 10Deg BTDC change it to 5Deg BTDC and try that  and see if it runs better...
 with 1 cell you shouldn't have to worry about that though !
....
Bob.....

[Bob]

Steve!
 I just thought of something... if your going to use Lemonaid Koolaid (which I sujest you do)
put about 10 packs in luke warm/room temp. water and mix it with the water good ahead of time...
so your not dumping the koolAID right on top the cell in the container...and leave yourself some room in the container fo adding a few cups more of water... test the amp draw, if you need more Koolaid add say 2 or 3 packs to a cup of water and then pour it in the container....
I didn't do this and I think it would have helped prevent some of the problems I had later on
(like rust on my shim stock! which IS STAINLESS STEEL!)
 I think in the proccess of adding the Packs of Koolaid it drifts right down on the cell and makes it super concentrated at some points... to prevent that pre mix the Koolaid in a weak soulution, and then add a strong soulution to bring up the amps.  
if you find that your full of water and the amps arn't high enough yet just pour out some in a jar and add more Koolaid to it and put it back in after its mixed good !
....
I seriously think its worth the Hassel to do it this way.
Hope you can get that cell togather and in the car in one day , it took me 3 days to get it in my truck as I had to custom fit everything ! LOL !
( not much room under the hood of my pickup !)
...
remember the Relay hooked to the Ignition as a safty TURN OFF ...AND an on off switch to operate the relay.... (in otherwords power the ON OFF switch from the ignition circuit,and the relay from the switch) that way you can turn it off if problems arise and still drive ! (a lighted Switch is a great idea !)
...
Pop off caps on the bubbler and cell are a must ! (because although it is rare a flash back can go through a bubbler on occasion!... thats why longer bubblers are better!)
...
wrap a piece of wire around the wing nuts on the pop off caps after their tight...so if they do pop off you won't loose them!
...
put a 10 to 20 amp Higher than your running amps, "self resetting circuit breaker" in line with the cell... this is incase of internal shorts and will keep you from burning up the car !
...
Shoot for 17~18amps in the electrolyte adjustment it will raise as it gets warmer!
....
start the engine and then turn on the cell... not the other way around !
turn off the cell before you park... I turn mine off about 1 mile away from home so it uses up all the Hydroxy gas before I park... in town I try to do it a few minutes before I park.
... I've never had a explosion or POOF under the hood but it can happen! if it does , stop and put back on all the vacume lines ! LOL !
...
if by chance you start sucking water into the intake and the car runs like Sxxt ! you can take the pop off top off the bubbler and stick a hammer handle down there and displace some water out over the top to lower the level of the water !.... had to do that once ! LOL

good luck to ya !
Bob.....

[H²+O]

well i'm not going because the car by bro was going to buy a 73 or something mini cooper austin. (don't know if that is the name). the guy sold it last night... bummer for my bro.
Thanks Bob! i am waiting for an digital 100AMP meter to come in the mail along with a temprature sensor. should help me in my tests 

[Bob]

OOOH ! a 100amp didgital amp meter ?  sounds like a nice one ! where did ya get it ? got a URL for me ? I may have to get one of those things... as the  old 60amp auto guage I have now just ain't enough !... I plan on running 200amps if I can ever get that far along but will probably do it in 4 seperate containers...  as I am HOPING to get 5LPM at 50~55 amps from each of 4 seperate cells to run my truck on 20LPM and HOPEFULLY that will make it 100% hydroxy gas or at least 99.9%
as I will still Idle on gasoline....
 but its complicated as All Heck, when you try to switch from a liquid gasoline to a gasious Hydroxy gas and STILL KEEP everything in the right amount!...  that just AIN't EASY!
...
first things on the list to accomplish toward this goal is a cell that will produce 5LPM at50~55 amps.... and a power supply to test it with!
...I wish Randy would check in so I could ask him if he ever ran a "Randy cell" at 55 amps or not!  heheheheheheh
...if not I have a bunch of switch plate covers to try a close spaced stack and that should do the trick.
...only experimentation will tell I guess !
...
the rest of the list is long and not completely figured out as of yet, but I am planning on crossing that bridge when I come to it.
...
Aurgh... I have to run to town and do some shopping... ICK! rather stay on the Ranch and get something done ! LOL !
...
Bob..........