Sunday, January 27, 2008

Re-Installed Electrolyzer with WWF

The weather warmed up a bit to 2 C so it was quite comfortable working outdoors. Shortly after noon today I put in 1 teaspoon of baking soda and filled the jar with windshield washer fluid. Switched on the unit and immediately saw the gas forming in the jar and shortly thereafter the idle speed went up by 200 RPM. I guess the hydrogen is working. Noted that the unit is only drawing about 2 amps, but will see what happens when I start taking longer drives.

Friday, January 25, 2008

ScanGauge ll for checking out results of HOD

Not much new to report as the weather has not got any warmer. Have decided to try windshield washer fluid in the electrolyzer as another experimenter from Sudbury says it works fine. Will wait until it gets a little warmer.



Ordered a ScanGauge ll last Saturday and received it on Tuesday morning from Tom Gifford at

http://www.giffordautomotive.com/ in Ottawa Ontario. It only took several minutes to install, no tools required. It is a 3 in one Automotive Computer...

1. Scan Tool for retrieving diagnostic trouble codes.

2. Trip Computer with 3 built in trip computers to display trip data.

3. Digital Gauges to display the current operating conditions of your vehilce in real-time.

Displays 4 gauges of your choice at one time. Great for checking to see if you have made improvements to your miles per gallon or liters/100km with your hydrogen experiments.



Update shortly....

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Finished and installed the electrolyzer..




Installed the unit in my van as shown on the left. I have to be half crazy to be out in -5 C and windy weather to do things like this. Switched the unit on and within seconds saw the bubbling and the gas starting to form. Went back indoors to get warm and then the better half and I went for a 23 km drive to see how things worked. The unit drew about 2.5 amps which I was surprised at due to the old one drawing much more.
There was a noticeable difference in the engine as it sounded very quiet and had way more response when the gas pedal was pressed down. So far I was pleased with the results of my experimenting. When I got back to our apartment parking lot, I opened the hood and saw the foamy water ( see above photo) in the jar. As the weather was still cold and getting colder I decided to see if the distilled water and baking soda (electrolyte) would freeze. I had read in the instructions that if there was about an inch of space at the top,the jar would not break if it froze up.
The following morning I checked under the hood with the temperature at -6 C and was surprised to see the liquid having turned yellow with a dark yellow ring around the top. I shook the jar to see if it was indeed liquid and it was. The forecast for that night and the next morning was for -11 C, so I was anxious to see if things would be any different as far as freezing was concerned.......
January 20, 2008

Weather as predicted and I opened the hood to see if the unit survived the cold weather and saw that the jar had cracked due to the liquid having frozen and expanded. Man! was it ever cold out there this morning, the wind was really blowing and my face and hands were numb by the time I got the leads disconnected... My wife says I am getting more crazy as I age. She says wait for the warm weather! Perhaps I should listen to her. Removed the unit and brought it indoors to thaw out. So much for leaving space in the jar.... don't think the person that wrote that has experienced cold weather. Have not decided whether to try windshield washer fluid next so it won't freeze in our climate here. Have to read up about it to see if there are other problems to contend with by using windshield washer fluid or some of the other things suggested to prevent freezing. Will update shortly again.
Any comments or suggestions ? Please email rebel@safe-mail.net

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Making a new electrolyser...




January 8, 2008




Started buying the parts needed for the new Hodrogen on Demand device and ordered the Plexiglass "tower" on which the electrodes are wound. Had 6 of them made in case someone else may want one.




January 16, 2008

Picked up the Plexiglas "towers" and started winding the electrodes on it and have nearly completed the project this afternoon. I have made 2 of them and they are curing for 24 hours at the moment...... tomorow (if the weather is half decent) I will see how I can mount it under the hood or in the space in front of the radiator. Once it is mounted it should only be a few minutes to wire it to the exising wire I had for the other Hydrogen Generator.


The photo above left shows electrodes wound on the Plexiglas. The photo above right shows the top of the device...... Still have to add some tubing and the outlet elbows to the cap. I am really looking forward to get it mounted in the vehicle and to give it a try... More shortly....

Sunday, January 06, 2008

Dismantled the Hydrogen Generator...


The photo above shows what was left of the hydrogen generator. The stainless steel 1/4 " threaded rod 7 " long that is attached to the circular SS piece 2 13/16" in diameter was the cathode and is electrically connected to the circular piece.
The anode is missing 1 1/4 " of material due to corrosion, etc. Checking with an ohmeter, there is about 1.6 megs resistance between the circular plate and what remains of the bottom portion of the threaded rod. Have not figured out how this really worked, but it did create lots of gas.



Curious to see what the Hydrogen generator looked like on the inside, I sawed it in half after I had flushed out about 4 cups of brown sludge and was shocked to see a coating of the same sludge about an inch thick all over the inside of the unit. The positive electrode had corroded and disintegrated so that there was a gap of 1 1/4 inches betwween the top and bottom. The electrodes appear to be just ordinary 1/4 inch stainless steel threaded rod.


As you can see on the left, there is not much in the device to demand a price of nearly 3 C notes! I understand that the positive electrode will take a beating, but no way was I prepared to see things corroded this badly in the short while I used it. Whether this was due to the lye solution I was using and possibly excessive current being drawn by the device, I can't tell.


Another thing that I have noticed is that anytime I have used a gas with ethanol, my mileage takes a beating. I gassed up one day on cheap ethanol and was really surprised at the poor mileage I got. Now I see that there is varying amounts of ethanol in most gasolines and that really tees me off because we are getting screwed on the price of gas in more ways than one. There are the do gooders that praise the use of ethanol, but I do not see the benefits due to having to use more fuel to get to where you are going. My overall records for gas purchases show that my mileage is decreasing constantly and it is not because of my vehicle not being kept tuned up, etc.


I am going to give hydrogen another go, hopefully by building my own unit in the next month or so. Sort of hard to do when living in an apartment. Cheers for now......


For info on Hydrogen generation , etc check out http://tinyurl.com/33kt57




What Happened?

It has been awhile since I last posted so thought I should bring things up to date. The Supplemental Hydrogen does make a difference and here are some figures from my records in 2007. Lost my 2006 records due to computer crash but I had noted an increase back in 06 as well.

I ran my vehicle without the Hydrogen running from January to May 2007 due to the cold weather and problems with freezing the water. My average MPG was 16.61 during that period.

From June to September, I ran the Hydrogen Generator and my average MPG was 25.84.

From October to December, I ran without the Hydrogen generator and my average MPG was 16.11

All the above driving for the year was majority of city driving and some highway, so I got roughly 57% increase as a result of the Hydrogen Generator running.

I ran into problems on a trip to Niagara Falls in September when the engine started to act up, by stalling and finally quitting completely. After about half an hour I managed to get the engine running by disconnecting the Hydrogen generator. The trip back to Hamilton was a bit on the iffy side as the engine was not running normally and I made an appointment to get the vehilce in for service the following day.

Putting the vehicle through diagnostics we learned that one of the sensors was not functioning correctly and after inspecting it and the throat of the throttle body it was noted that there was a fairly heavy residue, yellowish brown in colour covering both. There were indications of corrosion as well in the throttle body. Not a good sign... After cleaning everything, the engine ran like it should with no problems.

Will update this shortly. In the mean time check out http://tinyurl.com/33kt57 for interesting information on hydrogen.....