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Manta
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« on: July 01, 2011, 01:54:01 pm » |
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My own 'big cell' is now finished and is just awaiting the fish tank silicon to set on the temporary container and then I can do some tests.
It will be a two part test as I have two similar set-ups.
The first is a simple cell of two 5" x 5" square plates at 1 mm (0.040") spacing.
The main cell is six plates connected +nnnn-. Also 5" square.
So the way I look at it is the first cell has 1 gap and it will have 13 volt across it. I reckon it as 25 sqr" as I only count one face of the gap.
The other has (6 plate cell)5 gaps each of 1mm. so I see this as 125 sqr". With 13/5 = 2.6 Volt across each gap.
I'm aiming to adjust the electrolyte to get 20 Amp through each cell.
I'll post some pictures over the weekend, and results as they come in.
Dave
(Manta)
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« Last Edit: July 01, 2011, 01:59:17 pm by Manta »
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Good questions have a sting in the tail.
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Bob
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« Reply #1 on: July 01, 2011, 09:08:48 pm » |
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Ahhh should be very interesting Dave...wish I was there to join in the fun! HAHAHAH
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the thing you didn't mention is your Wire size for your experiments
and the power source
these are important parts and should not be over looked!
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Bob...
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"Mother always told me "Son the Imposable is only a little bit harder"...and You know ... She WAS RIGHT!"
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randy
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« Reply #2 on: July 02, 2011, 12:33:46 am » |
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Yeah; I think the best power supply is a running vehicle with jumper cables, at least you'll know what you have if you install it.
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Manta
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« Reply #3 on: July 02, 2011, 05:08:02 am » |
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Wire size will initially be jumper leads. I can measure the voltage at both ends of the leads to check for voltage drop. But I don't expect that to be an issue.
And after a first test with just a charged battery, the rest will be carried out using a running engine on a car I have sitting in the drive way.
So plenty of current available.
Here are a few quick pictures.
Not much to see. The plates are 1 mm thick and 5"square. The other bits are the four 1.25" lenghts of 5mm nylon allthread, the nylon nuts and the 1mm thick by 6mm id nylon washers that give me the 1mm spacing.
Dave
(Manta)
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« Last Edit: July 02, 2011, 06:31:06 am by Manta »
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Good questions have a sting in the tail.
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Bob
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« Reply #4 on: July 02, 2011, 07:06:01 am » |
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Don't let me side tract ya , but I just remembered a funny.... when I was a kid in highschool
My sister lived about 15 minutes away from school on the Honda 90cc so I occasionally went to her place after school to hurrass her and see how she was doing...
I arived there one afternoon and she was really glad to see me... she said Robert I can't get the T-Bird to start! can you help me jump it from Lonnies truck? I gott'a go take him his lunch and pick him up after work and I got no wheels!
I said sure and said where are your jumper cables? she said behind the drivers seat on the floor, I'll move the truck closer ( it had no liscnses only the t-bird did)...
I looked behind the seat to find these chincy pieces of crap that she had bought from K-mart on sale and they wern't worth 10Cents yet alone what she paid for them.... I thought oh boy this could be FUN !... I hit the starter and it just Clicked, didn't even try to turn over
the battery was bad and we knew it , just didn't have the funds to get one ... so I told sis to leave the truck running...which she protested saying it would use up gas it didn't have to give but did it anyway... I hooked up the jumper cables... they were ALUMINUM ! and about the size of a pincle...the plastic coating was thick but there wasn't much wire there... and it was NOT COPPER... just aluminum... which is a lousy electrical conductor!
... anyway I hooked them up and walked around and hit the starter and no change just the clack of the starter sylinoid... the truck slowed a bit when I hooked up the cables so I figured it was trying to charge the battery... so I let it set and charge the battery a bit
tried it again and it finally turned over, and she said that's all I could get from it too!
so we let it charge a bit more and I told her to try starting the T-Bird (she had a nack of starting that car!).... she ground it for a few seconds and it almost fired up.... but the battery was just too dead... so I said we're going to have to let it charge up, the cables are just too small they were getting quite warm..... time went by and I had her try it again and it fired up ! but as I took the jumper cables off I noticed the plastic from the wires was laying on the ground and not on the wire! it melted it off! sis yells to me WHATS THAT SMOKE? and I started laughing! ....
with the engine running and the truck parked again I threw the jumper cables in the back of the pickup and said buy some GOOD ONES SIS ! she looked kind'a sheepishly and said no good uh ? I said their shit! no good at all ! don't bother taking them with you!
... as it sat there charging the battery I said when was the last time you checked the water in the battery ? she looked at me with a blank expression as if to say You gott'a do that ? so I unscrewed the caps and sure enough every cell was low...so I said I need some water... distilled water if you have it... she brought me the garden hose and said thats the best I got! I laughed and filled each cell and waited till she got her kids all bundled up and headed to see her hubby...I left and went home ... a week later she informed me she got a real good pair of jumper cables ...come lookie! and she did indeed get Copper ones with good strong clamps!.... she still has them too !the NEXT WINTER she finally had to buy a battery for the car! LOL !
the next time I saw her Hubby I told him about those jumper cables and he said What ?
come to find out she had hid it from him thinking he'ed think she was stupid... we all got a good laugh out of it and she went and fished the jumpercables out from behind the garagde
and showed them to Lonnie he about died he laughed so hard he said where did yo find these ?
she said at K-MART....they were on sale for $7.00 so I bought them just incase I needed them, knowing the battery was getting weak. he said well can't say you didn't TRY! HAHAHAHAH
... sense then I have learned that 90% of the trailer house fires in California for the year
1971 I think were because of faulty wires being used in the manufactureing of Mobil homes...other states were smart enough to out law aluminum wires on houses of any kind but not California ! ...about 10 to 12 years later I bought a used trailer house in Reno, NV. moved it to Vinton ,CA. and moved into it.... I replaced a plug in the wall and found Aluminum wires! I was Hart broken ! I took off the fuse pannel cover to find every wire in that house was aluminum. told the fella in radio-shack about it and he said we have a greese you can put on those connections to stop the corrosion ... I bought some ... on every plug I replaced I put that greese on the wires......
I did burn up about 3 plug in plugs in that house using electric heaters but never burnt the house down ! not that it didn't try ! found the wall too hot to touch one time ... that scared me bad ! it had a corroded plug and a union of wires stuffed behind the plug box
and it has got so hot that it melted the wires (I pulled the panneling off!)
never again.... I'll never buy a trailer with aluminum wiring!
...hehehehe
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the moral of the story is...
if your Wire is Hot chances are, its aluminum !
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hehehe
Bob......
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"Mother always told me "Son the Imposable is only a little bit harder"...and You know ... She WAS RIGHT!"
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Bob
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« Reply #5 on: July 02, 2011, 07:14:45 am » |
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Oh HAY ! good pictures Manta thanks !
I LOVE IT! great build !
I do think you could go smaller plate spacing however....
like .5mm half of what ya got!
....take some Stainless steel scrap and make you some long extensions to reach the tabs on the charged plates that way they will extend above the water where you can connect to the power easier... use Stainless steel star washers and a stainless steel bolt to attach them and your good to go !
can't wait to hear that you get from that cell ! it should do good ! just the way it is !
... guessing 1.5LPM at 20amps ? (if you rough up the plates with 80 grit sandpaper!) LOL
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WELL DONE !
Bob.......
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"Mother always told me "Son the Imposable is only a little bit harder"...and You know ... She WAS RIGHT!"
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Manta
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« Reply #6 on: July 02, 2011, 02:20:01 pm » |
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Bob,
Ref the tabs. That is my second line of attack. My first is to use 6 mm stainless steel rod with the ends threaded. maybe I can get SS allthread to save me running dies down the bar.
I already roughed up the surfaces of the plates, but no the outside surfaces as they don't do anything.
Dave
(Manta)
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Good questions have a sting in the tail.
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Bob
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« Reply #7 on: July 02, 2011, 08:12:32 pm » |
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yah there ya go ...that's using your Noggin ! s.s. all thread! quick easy answer ! good thinking!
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If you have a grinder with a wire wheel you can brush up the surface with that... that's what I do
it probably makes it TOO shinnie,or slick but its fast and it works on for me !
... the idea is to make the surface ROUGH, as well as clean off the oil from the finger prints...
I have used sandpaper (80 grit) as well as the wire wheel , and I haven't seen any difference in output.
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Bob...
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"Mother always told me "Son the Imposable is only a little bit harder"...and You know ... She WAS RIGHT!"
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Bob
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« Reply #8 on: July 02, 2011, 08:13:44 pm » |
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so have ya done any testing yet ?
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Bob...
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"Mother always told me "Son the Imposable is only a little bit harder"...and You know ... She WAS RIGHT!"
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Manta
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« Reply #9 on: July 11, 2011, 02:30:43 pm » |
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Bob,
No testing done yet. I'm waiting for the lab to get my citric acid. Should be here this week.
I settled for making some long tabs to connect the cell to the outside world. I had the material to hand and it seemed easy enough.
Below are three pictures of the finished cell. You'll note that it has the two plate set-up connected. When I've exhausted my tests on this basic set I'll fit the six plate (+nnnn-) and run some more.
Dave
(Manta)
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Good questions have a sting in the tail.
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randy
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« Reply #10 on: July 11, 2011, 03:33:09 pm » |
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You may have a problem using the citric acid with neutral plates, I had a hard time pulling amps with neutrals.
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Bob
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« Reply #11 on: July 11, 2011, 04:16:21 pm » |
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Manta:
Really nice work there Guy ! man I wish my stuff looked that clean and neet! LOL
what is the material you have used to make your container ?
it looks to be a great container !
Looks like your making allot of progress toward giving us some actual Numbers to work with !
that Data should prove invaluable !
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I just came back from the hardware store (OSH) Orchards hardware... they had a single stick of 1/4-20 all thread in stainless steel 12"long but what was surprising they has 1/2"x2" stainless fender washers... I bought all they had ...heheheh came away with 12 washers ! at like a 1.29 each...
...they also had some plate stainless steel.... but it was outrageous in price !
I looked at length for insulating Nylon washers but never found any in 1/4" internal diam that was thin... they had a few of 1/8" thickness though.
I'll stick with the 4 pocket folder insulators as they have served me well in the past....
... but No 1/4x20 half nuts in stainless... and I need more of those.
..
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My side/chest hurt so bad last night I couldn't sleep, my Kid gave me some Ibuprofen capsules that finally made it lighten up and I got some sleep.... I'm fairly sure I cracked a rib now hehehehe
OOOPS ! I'll definitely get a ladder next time ! LOL
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Anyway, My battery is all charged so I'll probably get to the cell test today and see if adding the battery in line makes any diference in output
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Speaking of that... Manta what are you going to use to power your cell in the test ?
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Bob......
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"Mother always told me "Son the Imposable is only a little bit harder"...and You know ... She WAS RIGHT!"
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Manta
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« Reply #12 on: July 12, 2011, 01:03:07 pm » |
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Bob,
First test will be using a charged battery. If there are no problems then I will connect to the car via jumper leads.
I was lucky with the material. I've got enough for another four 5" square 6 plate cells from an old stainless steel knife washing trough that I salvaged from the food factory where I worked about 6 year ago. The white material for the box came from the same place. It is ten millimeter plastic sheet that was used to clad the inside of the factory.
Randy,
Yes, I was wondering about the current with neutral plates. I'll try it and see how it goes. Then maybe try NaOH or KOH . I don't really want to use caustic.
I can still make a Randy as I have enough 0.5mm SS sheet. Just need to see what I can get out of the big cell first.
It's really just a big test cell as it wouldn't fit in the engine bay of the bMW. That's why I would need the smaller Randy cell.
Dave
(Manta)
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Good questions have a sting in the tail.
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randy
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« Reply #13 on: July 12, 2011, 01:33:59 pm » |
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Manta; check around behind the grille and inside the bumper, usually there's room there to mount a cell, you might have better luck with the neutral plates then I did, I tried the k-aid with a smack type configuration but couldn't get it to pull the needed amps.
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crb
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« Reply #14 on: July 13, 2011, 07:40:13 am » |
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Manta, when you do your testing, could you put a second power tap to your plates,
(kitty cornor) to see if that increases your lpm? Just a thought, My plates are
6" long and when I get it back together I will be trying 2 power taps.
crb
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