Wanting info on Hydrogen engine conversion

Adamal · Post by **Adamal** » Thu Jun 19, 2008 7:55 pm

How did you make it?

Trls250s · Post by **Trls250s** » Thu Jun 19, 2008 9:44 pm

Just made up some plates and spaced them apart so it goes anode cathode anode cathode etc.

They are spaced with plastic washers and work on the hydrogen principle.

Ive tested it using a car battery with ampmeter and tested voltage and resistance consumtion.

Real simple device but if you want ideas on building your own go here:

http://www.brownsgas.com/brownsgashome.html

Great free reasource (lots of people are trying to sell this idea) all you need is a 5th form chemistry experiance.

MAGN1T · Post by **MAGN1T** » Thu Jun 19, 2008 10:40 pm

What have you used for electrodes?

Are you separating the hydrogen and oxygen or piping it in mixed?

Steve

Trls250s · Post by **Trls250s** » Fri Jun 20, 2008 8:34 am

For electrodes im using old stainless backing plates from some rack mount hardware we have at work.

No im not seperating, i will just pump the mixed "browns gas" into the engine as is.

Went to bunnings today to try find a container by making it out of pvc pipe (like a spud gun but way shorter) unfortunately nothing was cheap enough for my liking ($40 per fitting!).

Cranked up the unit last night to check resitances etc. If you build one of these i warn you, this sucker can sure draw some power. Sitting still my unit is 150 Ohms, but under operating conditions (as the reaction builds in the water) it goes down to 1 Ohm ~ 1/2 Ohm, My unit was drawing 12 Amps at 12.1 volts from my battery.

I have no doubts that its producing enough hydrogen to run the entire engine off it either (this sucker CRANKS when its going), so im looking at circutry that feeds current to the unit dependant on where the throttle is. This way i wont have an ample supply of explosive material sitting around which the car is idling.

I will take photos tonight, but we are moving house this weekend so i may not be able to keep everyone up to date until we settle in next week.

If anyone else is trying this please get in contact with me as im pretty interested to trade ideas.

barryogen · Post by **barryogen** » Fri Jun 20, 2008 9:52 am

Trls250s wrote:I have no doubts that its producing enough hydrogen to run the entire engine off

Very interested in seeing the results, but I think that you are severely underestimating an engines thirst for air.
2L 1000RPM is 1000L per minute, or just under 17L per second

Trls250s · Post by **Trls250s** » Fri Jun 20, 2008 10:44 am

Never really thought of it like that.

Also the principle of you can only get out what you put in, if you ran an electric car on a single car battery im sure it would go dead pretty fast. Therefore the electrical energy the 'fuel cell' consumes will be directly related to the amount of combustable hydrogen it produces.

But i have to say this thing definately cranks, its comparable to having a pot of water boiling flat tack on the stove.

Doesnt matter though, if it can save me $20 a week in petrol ill try anything.

Im defaintely keen to flog off work and work on it all day but unfortunately i need to money to pay for important things like rent, and food.

sergei · Post by **sergei** » Fri Jun 20, 2008 11:06 am

It will not save you, there is no reason why it would, you will loose more power due to loading the charging system.
Well let me explain why it does not work and is complete waste of time.
First of all the energy required to split hydrogen and oxygen from water will always be more than the energy produced from burning that hydrogen oxygen together.
Second point is that energy required to make electricity will always be more than you will get out of the electricity.
And third, even if you burn the oxygen and hydrogen together the loss of the reciprocal engine is so high that the whole concept of having brown gas device running of electricity produced by charging system is seems to be very laughable.

In rough terms, you will get out (being very optimistic here) 5-10% of what you put in electrically in your cell, so roughly every 100W you will spend you will get out 50-10W on the crank.

Water is not fuel.
It will not burn, neither not in Oxygen or Nitrogen, the only way "burning" water is combining with some other chemical (Fluorine comes to mind). But this is very in-effective way.
The only way water can be fuel is fusing deuterium/tritium out of it.

I don't even understand why people even bother with whole brown gas "fuel cell" thing, I have asked a firm believer on what principle it works, he could not explain it.

The reason why you cannot have such devices is due to ENTROPY. I though Perpetuum Mobile machines were of 18th and 19th century concepts.

Trls250s · Post by **Trls250s** » Fri Jun 20, 2008 12:24 pm

Dont get me wrong i understand where you are coming from with this, but this has cost me nothing, nada zippo to make. I dont see any harm in trying.

Your justification for why it shouldnt work makes logical sence, but id rather DO something then sit infront of a computer, telling others why there ideas wont work. I mean have you actually tried it? How do you TRUELY know it wont work?

MAGN1T · Post by **MAGN1T** » Fri Jun 20, 2008 12:32 pm

As with all science, theory was invented to try to fit what actually happens.

Many "scientific " people, like car fans are very one eyed.

If your water splitter draws say 12A at 12V, that's just under 150watts.
When you burn it, you'll get less that 150 watts from it but there'll be an extra 150 watts load on the motor via the alternator.

There's more to it than that though. The story on TV said the gas was drawn in before the throttle body, so in effect it's been modified into a lean burn engine with less of the side effects of a lean burn. It's thermodynamic efficiency will be increased probably and so should be more economical. A bit like using water injection but a bit better.

edit , it will allow you to lean out the AFR a bit but should automatically give a bit more timing advance as there should be less airflow signal for the rpm.

Certainly well worth experimenting with.

sergei · Post by **sergei** » Fri Jun 20, 2008 1:13 pm

Trls250s wrote:Dont get me wrong i understand where you are coming from with this, but this has cost me nothing, nada zippo to make. I dont see any harm in trying.

Your justification for why it shouldnt work makes logical sence, but id rather DO something then sit infront of a computer, telling others why there ideas wont work. I mean have you actually tried it? How do you TRUELY know it wont work?

Well you are approaching things from different angle.
What is the most inefficient step in making power from petrol? Engine - only ~20% efficiency. So what you need to look at is not increase efficiency by minuscule amount (car manufactures did that already, they pretty much maxed out), but on how to increase efficiency where it actually converts MOST of the potential energy of petrol into mechanical energy that propels the vehicle.
Let me put it in this way:
ICE(piston/rotary): efficiency 20-25%
Gas turbine: 30-70%
Fuel Cell: 70%+
Electric motor 90%+
Electric motor+battery 60%+

And if you think I just sit in front of screen and do nothing, instead of trying, you are wrong, I have located source of the electric motors, controllers, and batteries (Lithium BTW), it just matter of funds (lots of it)... I am past the stage of randomly poking with a stick and hoping that it will result in something good...I have broken already enough

.

sergei · Post by **sergei** » Fri Jun 20, 2008 1:31 pm

In other words, to get real gains you are far better to:
Run thinner oil
Maintain your vehicle regularly (filter/oils etc)
Pump up the tyres to slightly higher pressure
Run narrower tyres
Make sure thermostat is in functional order (many of them jam in open state, or don't close properly)
Remove all the rubbish from inside of the vehicle
Make sure PCV valve is functioning properly (if you have one) -> you could add a vacuum pump that introduces low pressure in the crank case, helps with air resistance losses (from moving pistons and rotating crank), also has a side effect where it stops oil leaks.
Make sure O2 sensor is alive.

And the most important is to drive in such way that you don't have to brake a lot

- which results in using accelerator only when it is necessary, and increased distance in traffic

ChaosAD · Post by **ChaosAD** » Fri Jun 20, 2008 6:08 pm

Or get an aftermarket ecu. The oxy sensor is tuned to 14.7:1 'stoich' to make the cat work properly for emissions.

If you lean the car out to say about 17:1 cruising on the open road you will save petrol but at the expense of low emissions.

As sergei said, every time you convert energy you will lose some. I bet that water splitter gets warm. and the i/c engine isnt that efficient, a lot of energy is lost as heat and sound.

pc · Post by pc » Sat Jun 21, 2008 10:06 am

What Sergei said.
It's all been done before, none of 'conversion in the car' line of reasoning works... it is proved beyond all doubt in theory and practice by many people over the world.

Other options will be economical once the petrol price gets high enough. IMHO the petrol price will continue to be artificially inflated until many other options are put into production... it is the only way to make the research and production of other options economically viable before we run out of oil.

Crampy · Post by **Crampy** » Sun Jun 22, 2008 11:34 am

Well on Cambell Live this week they're going to explain the Electrolyser and whether it works or not.
I'm pretty keen to have a look and see what they reckon.

MAGN1T · Post by **MAGN1T** » Sun Jun 22, 2008 10:01 pm

pc wrote:IMHO the petrol price will continue to be artificially inflated until many other options are put into production... .

Or until the yanks pull out of Iraq.

fivebob · Post by **fivebob** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 12:26 pm

hmmm

http://aardvark.co.nz/daily/2008/0623.shtml

http://aardvark.co.nz/hho.shtml

Trls250s · Post by **Trls250s** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 2:07 pm

http://aardvark.co.nz/hho.shtml

Mmm, 2 sides to every coin. Im definately going to watch Cambell Live and see what the deal is before i setup my thing.

funniest thing is i havent paid a cent to make what ive made so was i really scammed?!?!?

Or is this just another ruse from the oil companies lining the pockets of the media! (this is a joke btw do not take this seriously)

YOU DECIDE

Im still going to finish building it and test it out to see if it does anything at all besides drain my car battery.

xsspeed · Post by **xsspeed** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 2:11 pm

how have you not paid to make? I assume that you have had to supply power to it?

Trls250s · Post by **Trls250s** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 2:21 pm

xsspeed wrote:how have you not paid to make? I assume that you have had to supply power to it?

I dont get what you mean?

I have just used bits and parts from around my garage, and i tested it at work (so i didnt pay for the power it used

) so i truely havent paid anything to build it.

xsspeed · Post by **xsspeed** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 2:24 pm

Trls250s wrote:
xsspeed wrote:how have you not paid to make? I assume that you have had to supply power to it?

I dont get what you mean?

I have just used bits and parts from around my garage, and i tested it at work (so i didnt pay for the power it used ) so i truely havent paid anything to build it.

that clears it up, i meant somehow you would have had to pay electricity.
be it from the wall or from your battery etc