Wireing in series vs voltage drop problem

[KF-Puffin1]

ok here my question of the day.....We have a gentleman at work who is just getting into building a electrolizer...he showed me a youtube video of a wallplate design that has 2 wallplates mounted together with beveled edges touching one another..(like a clam shell design)..and inside this clamshell design is another plate.(outside plates +)...(inside single plate -)....now we were wanting to run these clamshell cells in series with about 6 cells total..problem i see is since there will be a voltage drop across the plates and there are 2 plates mounted together on the outside of a single ground plate..how an we wire this in a true series circuit?

here are the 2 videos he showed me and i got to say i was impressed with them .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xam5-_ZU0h4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDI4zQCCepo

[randy]

He never said how many amps it was pulling, never tried the clamshell but have a lot of trials with the switchplates, I've got a pile of them, there's got to be a configuration that works great with them, he might just have it.

[Bob]

I hate to be a wet blanket...BUT...I will be <grin>
...
 First off... te whole IDEA of his INTENSIFY the bubbles by concentrateing the stream of bubbles or restricting the water to the plates is in my view Silly !...
the plate idea itself seams to work ok but so would normal plates of the same size so thats not saying anything...
 You do not want to concentrate he bubbles into one opening if you can get away from it unless you are useing the opening to pump water Into the cell then its a good idea , but you will need to add another stage to your bubbler if the bubbles are too concentrated... if you get my meaning.
a concentrated stream of bubbles is a dangerous thing as a flash back can travel through a concentrated stream of bubbles...the bubble stream should be defuzed ...not concentrated....
and what good is makeing the bubbles rub togather ? its not going to make any more gas, RIGHT???
...and restricting the flow of water to the plates is just as bad as having the plates in the path of other bubbles... you want MORE water on the plates not less... less water equils less production
weather its a bunch of bubbles hainging onto the plates or the plate sticking out of the water inside of the clamshell because the hole is down a bit from the top... it all means LESS PRODUCTION!
...
Yah the little cell looked neet but he never said a thing about the inner plate and thats the important one....I get about 5 times that production from a single Randy cell at 20 amps...
that Looks impressive in the video but it is not there were NO larger bubbles present at all and those are the ones you look for in VOLUME Production
...
if your going to mess around with 3 switch plates just hook them in the same orentation so the water can get in to every part of the plate... you can make the plate spaceing closer too by doing that and the production will be higher because of the closer spaceing.
with the clam shell Cell the closest your spaceing could be is the distance between both halves devided by 2 or approximately 1/8" spaceing...  not the best!
3 switch plate covers all faceing the same way Pos,neg,Pos  with a plate seperation of 1/32" would preform better than his cell I am sure of it....
and its easier to do ...
...
in short its a neet little cell but I don't see it out preforming anything made with 3 switch plate covers ! ...
   Concentrateing the bubbles will not give you more gas guys, sorry that's just not going to happen
and certainly restricting the water to the plates is a Big no-no... so we're left with a funny looking cell thats hard to build with marginal proformance....
stick with the Randy cells guys !
....
Bob......

[KF-Puffin1]

OK well i had several plates laying around and decided to build one today just for the fun of it.
hardest part of it was getting the center plate to actually be centered.just about a hour worth of searhing through my drawers for nylon washers of all sizes. finaly got it pretty centered. drilled the top hole to 3/4 inch,with no holes at all at bottom side of plates.maybe only a 0.0010 gap around edges of outside plates.ruined one plate by cutting the bevel edge off the plate for use as center plate.
ran 2 1/4"-20 2"inch long bolts through plate.

i ran this cell in a 13 inch tall 3 inch round pvc chamber, for about 15 minutes before testing and this single cell really did surprise me .....alot, i was getting 1 litrer/@54 seconds/@15 amps...straight DC(12.34v) no pwm, koolaid as electrolyte(8 packets per roughly 3/4 gal)premixed in large glass jar.

with only a slight amount of small bubbles coming out of it, allmost all large bubbles,and coming out quite fast i must say...almost looked like boiling water.
fishtank test looked real good also,(5 gal fish tank) can actually see whats happening.there is a small pocket (1/4in at most) right above the large hole at top that collects all the small bubles and in a since,combines them into a large bubble that overflows out the large hole.

i was impressed enough with this single cell that i plan on buying 18 more plates tommorow and really trying to create a large cell with em.......maybe 6 of these signle cells running in series would do a good job,,,who knows?.

actually since there are 3 plates per cell would i need to drop this down to say 4 total cells? to equal 2 volts each....or since 2 of the plates are actually touching each other would it even mater if i ran 6 of these together....

ohh and bob i have 2 of randy's cells built allready and i like em alot.


was thinking of useing the randy cell in a different fashion also with maybe 101 washers running AC voltage through a inverter....has anyone here tried this yet?i dont have the paperwork i did on that idea so.......ill have to wait to discuss this better in a new thread.

[Bob]

Cool glad your trying it !
I do think you'ed get slightly better results with the switch plates all pointed the same way though
.... you should try it and see if I'm right <GRIN>
....
as far as the Randy cell in a 101 plate form I doubt it very seriously that it would work worth a darn... BECAUSE the plates are hooked up in a Parallel fashon...even though many of us (includeing myself ) have called the +-+-+-+- hookup to be series... its not unless you have netural plates... if you have every plate connected to power it will be in Parallel and therefore every plate will see the same voltage and the amprage will be devided among the number of plates evenly....
ao if you have 101 plates and feed it with a 120vac inverter you'll have 120vac on every plate !
not the idea you are after.... you have to make a Bob Boyce cell to arange the plates in the fashon you are thinking ..... I don't think there is any other way to do it !
......
thats how I understand it anyway !
hehehehe
Bob..........

[hydrotinkerer]

I like the switch plates they make a great dry cell. I used just 7 plates. I did flatten them in a press. The very first one I built put out .6lpm at 5.5amps. I plan on adding to it to make 1.5lpm. I'm shooting for an amp draw of 15-18amps. Might be dreaming, But I'll never know till I try.

[Bob]

Hay thats good LPM ! good work Hydrotinkier !
but WHY mess it up by adding more plates ?, just add more amprage ! if your getting .6LPM from 5 amps then 10 amps should get you 1.2LPM and 20 amps should get you 2.4LPM...a very decent output !
...
its up to you ofcorse...
...
I'ed like to see a pic of that 7 plate sell if ya got it ! ...and why do you call it a DRY CELL ?
...
Bob.......

[hydrotinkerer]

The main reason for more plates is when it gets to 12amps it stops. Doesn't stop producing, it just won't go over 12 amps no matter how much catalyst I put to it. I thought a little more surface area might help. By the time you take into account the gaskets, The producing surface area measures 3.75x2

Its just a tero, Someone called it dry cell and it stuck. I'll dig up the camera and get a pic.

[randy]

Ya might try different spacing, not sure how well it'd work on a "dry" cell but I can bury amps with just two plates closely spaced.

[Bob]

thats not an electrolite problem or a spaceing problem its a POWER PROBLEM
all electrolite does is make the water conduct better... if you put a bunch of KOH in there it will be a SHORT CURCUIT .... and if the amps don't go any higher then its the power being LIMITED.
...Though Randy is Correct closer spaceing makes it much easier to get higher amp draw  but you can get High amp draw with 2 plates 2" appart if you use enough KOH or in this case SALT <GRIN>
enough to over heat the charger and kick it off ! at over 10 amps
...so its not the electrolite , water or spaceing.... it HAS TO BE the "Powersupply"
seriously.... think about it...its very logical !
if you have a small charger on a car battery and are testing with it and it can't get over 16 amps them your battery is bad, and your charger cannot keep up with the load !
the battery I was useing ( was , its in the tractor now!) was not showing too much promice as even after chargeing all night at just over 12.5vdc the test runs with the cell at 20 amps lasted only about 5 minutes and the battery was Kapoot !....
thats because of the LOW charge voltage... it should be chargeing at 13.5 not 12.5 and it makes a big diference to a 12vdc battery...
so I put my Dads big charger on it... and tested the voltage... with the charger on the battery I would get the same 12.5 VDC... I thought thats strange! so I took one lead off and tested the voltage from the charger and got 11.25 vdc ! I switched modes and it came up to 12vdc and put it on boost and FINALLY got 13.5 vdc.... so I charged the battery on boost for a while and the circuit breaker in the charger poped !
...
thinking something else is going on here I checked my Charger without a battery connected and got 8vdc... in the 12vdc mode not the 6vdc ! ... by this time I'm totally Pissed ! both chargers not working ! what is causeing that... I checked the line voltage 113vac....
a day or two later I checked the line voltage again and it was right on 120vac Plugged in the charger and Whatt'a ya know 13.5 vdc from the old charger like it alwayse has been...
... these buzz box chargers need a full 120vac to operate on... and you guessed it I was useing a 200ft extension cord....  I moved the charger to the bench and it charges fine there ...so far !
...but the bench is on a extension cord too so.......
...
so check your line voltage before you throw away the charger ! HAHAHAHAH
if its the slightest bit low it will not charge a 12vdc battery to its fullest, it will charge it SOME, but not all the way no matter how long you leave it on !
...
...I am not sure but I discovered something while playing with the chargers that still has me confuzed.... with good line voltage ( I double checked the voltage !) the charger put out something like 9vdc on 12vdc charge...but when I hooked it to the battery it showed the battery at 13.5vdc when I checked the voiltage being charged ( accross the terminals).... but when the charger is disconnected (no load) the voltage was low.... WHY ? I HAVE NO IDEA ! but it charged the battery to 13.5 vdc great ...left it on all night and it cut back to trickel charge like it is supposed to and I tested the voltage before I disconnected it and it was at a bit over 14vdc ! ...
diconnected the charger and 12.5vdc was the battery's voltage !... I took the battery down to the ranch and its been working great even though I had to crank the fire out of Furggy to get her runnin one time... ( flooded it!)...
...I certainly do NOT understand all I know about these chargers thats for sure <GRIN>
in the near future I hope to get a Very large Shop charger capable of 200 amp boost !
...
anyway... check your power I think you'll find it lacking !
...
Bob.......

[LTCFISHER]

Hello, everyone.

I have built a switch plate like designed cell and tested it extensively, (30 plates) yields 15 to 20 amps straight water, KOH added will bring amps up accordingly. I tried 20 amps and production was good, 30 amps was a lot better.
Voltage Supplied 13.8 DC., Plate spacing .125" (1/8") max., all postive plates are tied together and all negative plates as well, termination to the input is 2 rods one at each end of the cell. I have yet to take gas production reading in L.P.M., as it yeilds 130 octane gas and currently running in my truck, and at 93 MPG in town (35-45mph),  63mpg highway (65mph), 43mpg highway (75-80mph). Just not quit enough production of gas at higher speeds.
I think the cell design is great for lower speeds and I will most likely make some changes to it to boost production for higher speed driving. With this design No PWM or O2 controller is requirred, O2 voltage reading remained the same at .5 to .7. Engine tested 2.3L, 4cyl, 8-spark plugs four fire on intake and four fire on exhaust, no distributor.

[hydrotinkerer]

My plate spacing is just a 1/8". I don't think its a power problem because on the bench it didn't go over 12amps so I stuck it in the car and it still didn't. I put my 7.5x10.5 gen in the car and it will go well over 20amps with no problem. But You guys both(randy, bob)touched on something in another post about cleaning plates. I took all these plates out of another gen. I didn't do anything with the plates and I just put them in another gen and went. I think I'll take your advice and clean them in muratic acid and see what that does.

[Bob]

Hydrotinkier:...
Dirty plates will act like not enough power getting to it because part of each plate is insulated from the water and only a portion of each plate is exposed to water... so yah ! dirty plates could cause that too ! good thinking !
...
LTCFISHER:
 OOOOH now you went and done it ! 30 switch plate covers on 2 SS thredded rods spaced 1/8" appart
I can build that puppy !  thank you for the info !!!!!
I take it you had to build a plexyglass box to house it in ?
...
that engine configuration sounds funny... you say the spark plugs fire on intake and its not giveing you any back fireing at all with the Hydroxy gas ?  HOW DID YOU MANAGE THAT ? it should burp back through the intake on every revoultion !  hehehehe no distribiture...aurgh !  I hate these NEW Inovations !  ...
It sounds like you got it down pat !  and at 30 amps or so it sounds like its working very good for you...  makes me wonder if 60 plates at 60 amps would give you the extra volume you need.
...or just push 60 amps into the 30 plates you have now, maybe even less ...
as 30amps sounds kind'a low for all that plate area.... your probly running it on the bottom edge of the production curve.... even 10 amps more should give you a large return !
...
Definately sounds like you need more volume for going fast !
thank you for shareing that with us...
got any pictures for us ?
Bob........

 

[hydrotinkerer]

Thats a Ford for ya, Needs 8 plugs to fire a four cyl. Model for efficiency. HAHA! Just kidding no offence.

[LTCFISHER]

Here you go Bob.

[LTCFISHER]

1st picture is bottom pin on tube cell for you Bob.

[LTCFISHER]

Here you can see it in the truck.

[LTCFISHER]

I really can't go much higher on the amps for this design, I built it to run at 30 amps max. I would have to modify it to go higher.
OH NO!!!!!!
A revision change, just like a electrical engineer to do it after it built. LOL.
I might just do that to see how far I can push this cell.

[Manta]

LtCFisher,
re,
...Voltage Supplied 13.8 DC., Plate spacing .125" (1/8") max., all postive plates are tied together and all negative plates as well, termination to the input is 2 rods one at each end of the cell. I have yet to take gas production reading in L.P.M....

Sooo,  It can be regarded as two large plates. One to the pos and one to the neg. And from this the amp per sqr inch can be worked out.  And from this,  when you get a volume measurement, we can get some really meaningfull data.
Thanks for that.

Manta

[KF-Puffin1]

LTCFisher
have you tried decreasing/or increasing the gaps of those plates? what was the difference if you did.
i have tried several diff configs similar to yours,...no where near as cool looking as yours though....looks great.

[Bob]

Very Nice Fisher ! Well done !
looks like each group is in parallel and the cells are in series ... I calculated that you should get 13LPM out of that cell at 120amps....
I wonder if I am anywhere close eh
....

Bob...