All about electrolysers, HHO, joecells ect. :)

[Tarkus]

My HHO Gen pics

Here are some pics of my current generator, the bolt is to tie the neutral plates together. (empty for cleaning)
The electronic box pulses the MOSFET to the plates. Two small S.S. screws act as a level sensor.
I built in a window washer pump to refill the system from a tank carried in the bed of the truck, found I needed to run it with a solenoid valve to keep it from flooding engine with water.
I observed the cell producing what seemed like a large quantity of HHO as well as quite a bit of foam.
I haven't found reference to foam except with joe cells ???
The PC power supply box works great to house the electronic bits and pieces.
The cap in the photo shows the 2 PCV valves and associated plumbing.

Bigger and better things coalescing on the work bench, will post pics and test data when finished

[rangerbentman]

Page 2

Hello everyone.
I made two videos with some demonstrations of what the HHO od Browns gas can do.


Any other stuff you want me to burn/melt?
Thanks,
Jetijs

All the way back to page 2 of this remarkable journey into knowledge. If you are willing to try I would like to know what happens when you melt the part of a catalytic converter that has the platinum / paladium coating on it. I am wondering if you can seperate the two or would this only become a mess of the two? Don't try this on your own car use your neighbors.

[Jetijs]

Hi rangerbentman,
So far I can not make these tests, because my old electrolyzer is disassembled and the plates used to make a new one. Here are some pictures of my new series cell electrolyzer and the building process:











Isn't it a beauty?

This electrolyzer has 33 steel plates insulated apart form each other with a layer of 3mm thick vinyl. The beauty of this design is that it is MUCH cheaper than my previous one, it is much easier and faster to build and you can make this at your home, no special tools needed. The cut slots in one side of the plates are outside the cells so you don't need to worry about a potential spark across connections that could ignite the HHO. Also you can easily and fast switch to different plate configurations and you don't need any special connectors that could withstand the KOH environment. The vinyl is easy to cut and work with, it has become my new favorite material It is almost fun to assemble this electrolyzer compared to my previous one. This electrolyzed can be filled with a little less than 2L of water. I checked if there are any leaks - no leaks at all. Tomorrow I will test the gas production rate
So far I just love this design
Thanks,
Jetijs

[Redmeanie]

Jetijs,
Man you just keep whipping them out! Very Good work and I like the size and layout..... All I can say is SWEEEET!

[rangerbentman]

Agreed

Jetijs,
Man you just keep whipping them out! Very Good work and I like the size and layout..... All I can say is SWEEEET!

I appreciate the good photo's and the constant bettering of the cell. Would you mind posting the amount of hydroxide used and the volts/amps . Thank you.

[MoHHO]

Alright Jetijs, lay it on me. How much do you want for one of those beauties?

[Jetijs]

MoHHO, I am not intending to sell these, I just want to show how easy is to build them so that everyone can do this. Also this design might not be perfect, will need to do some testing.

Anyway, today I tested the output of this electrolyzer. I used distilled water with a teaspoon of KOH in one liter electrolyte ratio. The cells were arranged so that they formed five six-cell compartments in parallel. Two plates were left unused. This way I could reach the max amps (20) on my power supply at 15V, that is alot better, because with my previous design I had to step the voltage up till 27-29V to get the max amp flow. I am sure that with more electrolyte I could achieve the same amps at 12V or even less voltage. I measured the output and it was 2 litres in one and a half minutes at 20A 15V input power. That is 300W of power. I am sure that I could get the same amps at lower voltages with stronger electrolyte solution and if I can get the volts as low as say 10V then I will get the same ammount of gas using only 200W

There is a small issue of the foam problem. The spacing between the plates is so small (3mm) that the foam climbs very fast till the upper plate holes and gets in other cells via those holes. I must level the water about 30mm below the holes to solve this problem. I will try to use 4mm vinyl for spacers, maybe this will help to reduce the foam problem a bit

I did not measure the output of my previous cell so I am not able to compare the results, but it seems alot better. Maybe someone can tell me if my numbers are efficient? How much gas per how much imput power would be considered to be a good result?

Thanks,
Jetijs

[Jetijs]

Ok,
I increased the electrolyte concentration to the max. This made the max amps (20A) flow through the five 6-cell compartments at 13.5V. I measured the gas ouput and this time I could get 2 litres in just 1minute and 20 seconds. This is great, I reduced the power consumption by 30W and slightly improved the gas production just by increasing the KOH concentration. Also I just remembered one more advantage of this design - there is very small volume of gas inside the cell, that means that less damage can occur if the bubbler malfunctions, also you can't really break anything, because the explosion would probably just squeeze the nylon spacers out leaving the plates in tact Maybe the plexiglas end plates would crack, but that is not a big deal since you can easily and fast make new ones. I am considering using different electrolyte and switch the endplate material to polycarbonate, in this case even the end plates would not crack in a event of explosion
Thanks,
Jetijs.

[kumaran]

Hi Jetijs,

Very nice cell . This is the design I'm currently building at the moment but you build it first. This design is cheap and easy to make. I'm waiting for ordered plates to arrive. There will be three different sizes so that I could make full use of the vinyl sheet. 10" x 8", 9" x 7" and 6" x 6". I may drop the idea of drilling clamping hole onto plates since you mentioned the current design able to solve electrolyte leaking problem.

In your initial post, you mentioned 33 plates. I was wondering how could you use 12V.

The cells were arranged so that they formed five six-cell compartments in parallel.

This makes sense. Very nice expandable cell design which everybody can easy replicate.

Few questions on your design.

1. Did you drill small holes at the bottom of the plate for electrolyte auto levelling?
2. I didn't see electrode terminals in the pictures. How do you connect power to your cell?
3. You mention input power 15V and 20A. How do you measure voltage? Voltage probe across the cell terminals or source power (battery or power supply).

Few suggestions on problem you faced

1. If its true series 7 cell, optimal electrolyte strength (28% KOH and 72% distil water). Don't use teaspoon measurement for electrolyte to get exact measurement.
2. Use double layer (3mm + 3mm) vinyl to increase cell spaces. This will not elliminate the foam (cold electrolyte) climbing to top but could lower the foam climbing height.
3. Parallel series cell design should eliminate foam climbing top problem totally because of larger cell spaces.
4. Polycarbonate is not compatible with KOH but compatible with NaOH. So don't use it.
5. You need to measure the voltage across the cell and not from power source.
6. Properly conditioned cell should produce much better result.
7. Measure gas output after the electrolyte warmed up to get correct measurement.

For your info, your first test using 15V and 20A for 2L per 90 seconds, your cell efficiency is at 62.71%.

Second test using 13.5V and 20A for 2L per 80 seconds, your cell efficiency is at 78.39%.

I can send you the MS excel sheet to calculate the cell efficiency and keep a clean record of your progress. You just need to input appropriate value like above and the program will calculate the efficiency.

Just PM me your email address if you need it.

[Jetijs]

Kumaran,
Here is the slots that I am using to connect the plates with ordinary car connectors:



And this is how I connected the plates in the first tests, making five 6-cell compartments in parallel:



The red leads are the + and the blue ones are the -

I did not drill small holes in the plate bottom for electrolyte leveling, I can do this whenever I want because with this design, assembling and disassembling is easy and fast. I have four 8mm holes in the upper plate part and if I want to level out the electrolyte, I just tilt the electrolyzer till the electrolute can level out using one of these holes.
I did not measure the voltages across each cell, I just observerd the readings on my variable power supply (30V 20A max)

Thanks,
Jetijs

[kumaran]

I did not drill small holes in the plate bottom for electrolyte leveling, I can do this whenever I want because with this design, assembling and disassembling is easy and fast. I have four 8mm holes in the upper plate part and if I want to level out the electrolyte, I just tilt the electrolyzer till the electrolute can level out using one of these holes.

So it's true series cell. Clever idea since you have made 4, 8mm holes on top of your plates for gas output. Yes, we can use these holes to level electrolyte easily. But if the cell fixed to car, this method becomes troublesome.

I did not measure the voltages across each cell, I just observerd the readings on my variable power supply (30V 20A max)

Then you are measuring the input power wrong. We must always measure voltage across load (cell) and not from power source. Maybe, you should measure voltage across power source and cell and see the difference. The more amps the cell pulls, the more voltage drop across load (cell).

You should get very much higher efficiency with this design as its true series cell.

[Jetijs]

Could you tell me more about the acurate power consumption measuring? I don't get it. I mean what is the difference? My variable power supply has 20A max outpu, when it senses that the load has too small resistance, it decreases the voltage to keep the amps at constant max setting. This is how I got the 13.5V 20A. I mean watts are watts Am I missing something here?

Also, how can I dose the electrolyte concentration? I have the KOH in a form of white flakes. Do I weight these flakes?
Should I sand blast the plates to increase the surface area?

[kumaran]

Could you tell me more about the acurate power consumption measuring? I don't get it. I mean what is the difference? My variable power supply has 20A max outpu, when it senses that the load has too small resistance, it decreases the voltage to keep the amps at constant max setting. This is how I got the 13.5V 20A. I mean watts are watts Am I missing something here?

Yes you are missing some very important point in measuring voltage and amperage. Trust me. I did the same mistake during my initial testing on motor generator project. Somebody identify the power measuring mistakes.

The voltage that shown at power supply is source voltage. Source voltage is always higher than load voltage. You can use amperage readings from power supply since the amperage is in series. If we measure amperage reading anywhere in the circuit, its still the same. But voltage would be different. We are only interested in load power consumption. I give you another example which can clear some confusion here.

Power source : Battery 12V 70AH
Load : Car head light bulb

Before connecting the above circuit, just measure the voltage across battery terminal. Let say 12.8V before load. Now connect head lamp in series with amperage meter (if you have one). When circuit is complete the amperage reading should show some readings like 7A. 7A is amount of current consumed by load (bulb) and tiny resistance from wire used for connecting load.

Now, measure again voltage across battery terminal. The voltage should reduced somewhere 12.5V depends on load power consumption. This is the voltage shown on your power supply meter.

To get load voltage, just measure voltage across load. You should see less voltage than 12.5V. Let say 12.3V. So the power consumption for load (bulb) is 12.3V x 7A = 86.1 watt. We are only interested in load power consumption and forget about source power output.

I believe, your cell should perform much better than my cell. Wild guess 120% or more since its true series cell.

Also, how can I dose the electrolyte concentration? I have the KOH in a form of white flakes. Do I weight these flakes?
Should I sand blast the plates to increase the surface area?

Yes, the percentage for KOH and distil water is measured by weight ratio. For my cell, I use 300 gram of KOH and 1200 gram of RO water. 20% KOH and 80% water. Cross hatch the plates surface with rough grit sand paper. Bob Boyce did advice not to use sand blast method to increase surface area. More important is conditioning the plate which will take weeks. Properly conditioned plates could produce much higher gas output (> 50% or more).

[Jetijs]

what do you mean with conditioning plates? Just hook a Bedini device on and let it run?
BTW, thank you for the answers, it is clear to me now

[kumaran]

Hi Jetijs,

what do you mean with conditioning plates? Just hook a Bedini device on and let it run?
BTW, thank you for the answers, it is clear to me now

There are two type of conditioning:

1. High voltage spike pulse (Bedini, Stan Meyer, Dave Lawton, Ravi and so on uses this method for pulse driven electrolyser)
2. Low voltage and low current (Bob Boyce uses for series cell)

For first method, white coating appears on electrode after sometime of conditioning process. Once the electrode plate fully covered with white coatings, gas generation increase.

For second method, anode plate turned into brown goldish in colour.

Both methods need to change electrolyte periodically to help conditioning process. But we cannot swap the methods. Example, brute force is for series cell. If use brute force for pulse conditioned plates, the white coating get disappeared. If use pulse driven method for series cell, will not generate enough gas.

For series cell conditioning, use less strength (< 10% KOH) electrolyte (< 3A) to condioned the plate for 3 days. Pour out the electrolyte and fill up with new batch of electrolyte. Again power on for another 3 days and the process repeats until you see the colour of electrolyte unchanged or minimal changes.

First batch electrolyte will be very dark in colour and becomes lighter and lighter in colour on subsequent batches.

I'm using 304L plates for my electrolyser and the electrolyte colour remain unchanged after extensive abuse with longer run with higher amps (up to 30A).