it's Sure quiet around here lately!

[Bob]

Man the Silence here is deafening! LOL
hasn't anyone done anything lately in the HHO field ?
 I haven't .... but I have a good excuse... I have 3 projects going all at once ! LOL
...
and I'm making good progress on my Wood gasifier !
is anyone making new cells ?
...
Bob

[Manta]

Maybe it's too cold for people to go in their workshops,  -10 C here last night.
Or maybe people are finding that hydroxy isn't living up to expectations. Too much trouble for the gain in mpg.
What do you all think ?

Manta

[Manta]

Bob, are you using the heat from your gasifier ?

Maybe you could set up a big old single cylinder engine and run some kind of CHP system to run the ranch.

I just checked my utility bills,  and here is what I found.

We pay for our gas and electric in two stages every three month.

electric     First 118 Kw/hr is at £0.26.77 ($0.4276)  the rest at £0.1157 ($0.1785) Kw/hr

Gas          First 587 Kw/hr is at £0.075 ($0.12)        the rest at £0.358 ($0.057)  Kw/hr

Now last Sunday,  a typical week end day with the family at home all day,  I used

gas  82.2 Kw/hr  =  £5.79  =  $9.27

Elec 33.1 Kw/hr  =  £8.85  =  $14.16

     115.3 Kw/hr  =  £14.64 = $23.47


At that rate I would spend £102.48 = $163.9  per week just to keep warm .

Even when I get onto the cheaper rate it is still very bad news. And I have everything turned as low as is practical.

I understand from another guy in the US that you pay around $0.11 per Kw/Hr So you would get away with $12.68 for the same amount of power.  Bet your glad you don't live in the UK.

So I intend to get a Lister Diesel and brew my own power. Running,  naturally,  on old veg oil.

Got to beat the system somehow.

Manta

[janmarsh]

Hi Dave & Bob,
                      If I am any example of a member,  we are still here looking in every now & again.  I will be posting my work hopefully in the near future.

I,m working on a close proximity edge production cell.  What I mean by that is plate spacing down to less than .005" ( plates are ground dead flat against float glass)  with lots of holes in the plates.

It,s a variation of cell based on Randy's Mk. 1.   Each cell is contained in it's own jacket, comprises of 21 plates of 0.9mm X 90mm X 90mm 316SS, 1/4" copper posts with power supply fed from both ends.

No shim is used for plate/post contact. Instead, for contact,  the plate is reamed 1/4" & a tiny indentation made on the edge of the reamed hole to make it a slight interference fit.

Power supply  will be 1.2 volt DC

New Year Wishes to you all & lets hope we get closer to our goal in the coming year.


 

[Bob]

Manta:
 I was paying over $250.00 a month for pellets for heat alone
and almost $400 a month for electricity !... (that's with a low income discount!)
... that was on the Mountian in Shingletown.CA...
....now Down in the valley a mear 50miles away but at only 1000'asl instead of 5000'asl
I pay around $125 for electric and about $75.00 a month for pellet heat...
....
 the house quality here is far better than the cheap trailers I was in even though the house if falling apart ...LITERALLY!...
...
so I have paid my dues to the Electric companies and Heat GODS !its worse than silly around these parts.... they act as if you have $1000 bucks to pay your electricity bill in California
and in some places that would be a low bill !
....
 House insulation is the Key .... for heating and cooling... if you want lower bills.. invest in MORE insulation!
...
and NO..I am not running my gasification unit for the house heat, just a commercial pellet stove.  I am planning on putting in my home made woodstove but I havn't done it yet... it should cut my heat bill by at least Half.... its very very efficient its an air tight
stove that has 21 1.5" tubes going through its height as a massive heat exchanger...
at a wild guess I would estimate at least 500,000 btu's per hour from it on High... because I have a huge fan behind those tubes forcing the hot air out... it works better than any wood stove I've ever seen.... just burning paper in it will run you out at times! but on those cold days in the low teens and the 3ft of snow on the ground that puppy cept us warm for years!...even in a drafty house ! HAHAHAHAHA


Janmarsh:
 sounds like an interesting idea ! I hope it works out for you... remember copper degrades very fast in electrolyte.... or when exposed to electrolysis in any way.(it eats it up)
...
 if you plan on running this cell in tap water alone and no electrolyte at all  you will more than likely wind up with allot of green goo , so if so ya might switch to distilled demineralized  water in stead. personally I don't think you can draw enough amps through the plates no matter how close they are.... but I hope you prove me wrong! <GRIN>
..........
I think I will build a Bob Boyce style cell as soon as I can get these winter bills off my back... probably spring time... but I hope to get a large amount of Hydroxy gas from a single unit... if I do I will try very hard to make the truck run solely on it!
...
Bob....

[janmarsh]

Bob,  No copper makes contact with the electrolyte. Distilled water will be used  with the minimum of pure citric acid or Koolaid. An extremely weak solution may be all that is needed.

[Manta]

Bob,

Your right about the insulation.  Right now, nearly 1 pm,  The sun is blazing through the south facing window.  I really should get that solar collector finished.

Janmarsh,

It will be interesting to see if running your new cell with both ends of the plate connected is any more productive than connecting only one end.  I would expect it to be so.

I find that attaining my goals is rather like charging up a capacitor;  I never quite get to the end.

A prosperous new year to all.

Manta

[hydrotinkerer]

Been kind of quiet here. Trying to close on a house so everything I own is in storage right now. Soon as I get moved I'll start my experiments again.

[Bob]

Ahhh Good for you Hydrotinkerer ! Moving is He**  I hate it ! glad its you and not me ! LOL
...
Janmarsh:
 dunno what 90mmx90mm is but I hope its more than 3" hehehehe I agree with Manta on the powering each plate in 2 places... I Hope it makes a big difference in the output I expect the change will be small but in this game every bit counts!
  Yah Koolaid should do the trick when the plates are that close...
 what is your total surface area (counting one side of each plate) and how many amps are you planning on running on it ? sounds like a large dry cell if the copper isn't touching the electrolyte....
 I have been wondering about current leakage on dry cells because of the holes... and One guys design had 2 solid plates with the neg plate being a preferated plate in his dry cell design
I dunno how well it worked for him though... but I have a feeling that the dry cell can be cohersed into making allot more HHO than most people think... I wish you success!
...
 Manta:
 A Hot box would do wonders on that window ! ... I made one out of a 4'x8' piece of 3/4" plywood, put sides on it 6" high and then nailed in trailer house skirting strips that were about 8" wide , I just bent them in half and made a corigation out of them and painted it flat black with 2 cans of sprey paint... I topped it with hog wire and put clear plastic over the top... then put 2- 4" stove pipe holes through the wall in the back bedroom
 it worked so well in the winter time that it was scary ! I no longer had to have a fire going 24/7  I measured the heat coming out of the hot box at 125deg on a somewhat cloudy day!  ... the 2- 4" stove pipes that went through the back wall one High and one low, put out a good flow of air too... so much that I had to cap them at night !  the low one fed the bottom of the box... the top one put heat into the room....
 I did NOT restrict the flow between the bends of aluminum in any way, I was going to try and make it serpentine from the bottom up so it would get hotter... but that proved unnecessary in the end.(to do it now I'd use wide aluminum flashing from the hardware store.)
  I also made a wood burning hot water heater there... worked good and I added a coil of black PVC pipe on the flat roof as a solar water heater  that just took the chill off the water...on sunny days though you had to be careful not to burn your hands! LOL
...all that was done really cheaply and it cut the monthly gas bill to almost nothing ...
I also added a free standing fireplace, but we still used the gas furnace to maintain the temperature.... the fireplace was just added heat.... I didn't have enough wood to run it all the time !
...
 those Hot boxes really do work really WELL... even though they are quite small... they are definitely worth the effort. I will make some for this place when I can get a-round-to-it!
...
I knew a guy that made one for every room on the south side of his house.... and the below freezing to below zero temps didn't bother him at all in the winter time during the day
...they do need tight seals on the stove pipe though and a plastic coffee can lid works perfect for that.... but ya can't find them any more ! maybe a 4"PVC cap would work I dunno!
 that was in Vinton,CA. near Reno  on the "high plato" as I called it hehehehehe
...
FWIW
Bob......
 

[janmarsh]

Bob,  My idea is a 21 plate Randy Mk.1 contained in it's own jacket to keep electrolyte volume to a minimum. plates are 3 1/2" square & I have 8 different hole patterns giving 8 different plate areas. One of these areas will finally be chosen.   I am making my own moulds & casting the end covers in polyester resin.  system is going to be pumped.

Because plate edges are still open to electrolyte, it can still be considered a wet cell.  I have experimented with this plate size & have actually got plate spacing down to .0015" without shorting in a dry state. What would happen in electrolyte could be a totally different thing.

The crude sketch may give you some idea of what I mean.

[Bob]

WOW... allot of work is going into that cell indeed !
I hope it works out for ya !
I really like the big inlet and outlet holes...smart thinkin!  something you may not be aware of , Randy and I experimented on the orientation of the Randy cell and we both came up with the same conclusion that mounting the cell so the plates were vertical had the best output.
I think for very close spaced plates this is necessary.... but sense your using preferated plates, it shouldn't make any difference at all.... still i'ed like to see them mounted vertically with the inlet and outlet holes top and bottom too... but I don't know how that could be done ! hehehehehhe
  I predict a 2.5LPM at 20~25 amps.... what do I get if I'm right ? COOKIE LOL !
best of luck to ya ! should work good its hard to say...
but if the output is low try removing some plates and watch and see if the LPM comes up ...if so, keep removing plates till the output drops then put one or 2 back on.... doing this will tune the cell to the Amperage. I watched one of my test cells go from 1/4LPM output to over 1.25LPM... doing "timed bottle in the bucket tests" just by doing the plate changing.
...
 with that many plates I'd like to see 30amps or more, perhaps 40amps...but that may be hard to get!....
..
Keep after it you'll get it !
...
Bob.....

[Bob]

Janmarsh:
 I got to looking at the drawing and it might be a good idea to make the plastic around the  inlet and outlet fittings a bit thicker... to keep them from splitting when the fittings are put in... a fitting like that makes a great deal of force, and will split the plastic if its not thick enough....
just a thought.
...
Bob...

[janmarsh]

Good point Bob.  It does look reduced in the sketch.  I'm trying to figure  out how many of these I could find myself able to power & coupling them by inserting a rubber O-Ring  in each inlet & outlet............. Even more reason to make them more sturdy.

[Bob]

First things first.... make sure the cell is a viable working unit FIRST... then make more
I made that mistake before and wound up with something like 50 or 60 plates I can't use ! its aggravating! to say the least ! LOL
...
 I'm mad at myself today.... I slept to 5PM sun was going DOWN when I got up ! GRRRR !
I hate it when I do that !...that's what ya get when you go around the clock with your snoozing schedule
I've been this way all my life and its a pain in the butt most of the time! no set time can be kept to be awake.... so I try to tire myself out so I can sleep and go to bed and usually wake up in a few hours and all that does is screw up the schedule my body wants more ! LOL
 add to that chronic fatigue and you have a basket case ! LOL !
 oh well... that's what yard lights were invented for Right ? LOL
...
I'll get to that woodgas burner sometime in the next week anyway ....sigh !
too cold out there to do anything now...hehehehehe
....
maybe I'll take a few shots of whiskey and go back to bed.... that usually does the trick ! LOL !
just cancel today in the hopes of a better tomorrow eh ?
....one of those ,,,Gulp, Gulp, Gulp.... plop...  Kind of things! HAHAHAHAHA
good thing I am a light weight when it comes to booze.... 1 is usually enough to get me flying, 2 or more and I'm out of it ! LOL my wife says I'm a cheep drunk... and I tell here well thats a good thing right ? hehehehehehe
....
get that cell working good before you make a bunch of them that way you don't waste pressious time and money on a cell that Don't work.... prove it FIRST.... even if your sure its a good design... which I am.... still ya need to KNOW for sure !
good luck to ya !
....
Bob.......

[janmarsh]

Bob, The dimensions of the end cap I am producing allows a fair deal of variation in plate size.......  by design, the cell can have any number of plates while still using the same end caps so it is not all that much commitment.  The only thing the cap has determined is position of the posts to eachother.