Experimenting with HHO (hydrogen on demand)

[Gotwind Ben]

That's a shame Andy.
Surely (in my simple mind) the development/use of smaller more fuel efficient vehicles would cut co2 emmisions massively overnight - I know it's not quite as simple as that.
I know your popular (Ford or GM) pick up trucks are massive in size in comparison to our European versions.

It seems like a no brainer to me to buy smaller more fuel efficient diesel models??
Of course I may have missed something, we are on differen't continents

Oh I agree but in the US, if the truck has 4x4 right there is gets lousy mileage. The U.S. may talk a huge story about saving fuel & the "carbon footprint", but it does very little.

My truck is not considered a full size truck, there are F 350 with HUGE engine which are obscenely gargantuan. A sub compact truck would not be practical for the use I have. I wish I could get a European or Australian Ranger with a diesel, it simply is not available here.
On the other side of the coin, My personal car is a 2.0 4 cyl Hyundai Elantra. It gets great (for here) mileage 35 MPG Hwy. I plan on putting an HHO generator on that this summer which I expect will increase that to just under 50 MPG.

The number of vehicle models sold in the United States that achieve combined gas mileage of at least 40 miles per gallon actually has dropped from five in 2005 to just two the Honda Civic hybrid and the Toyota Prius hybrid. (some hybrid, if they made them able to be plugged in it would really be efficient)

Overseas, primarily in Europe, there are 113 vehicles for sale that get a combined 40 mpg, up from 86 in 2005. Adding insult to injury is the fact that nearly two-thirds of the 113 highly fuel-efficient models are unavailable to American consumers and are either made by U.S.-based automobile manufacturers or by foreign manufacturers with substantial U.S. sales operations, such as Nissan and Toyota.
These cars sold in Europe meet or exceed U.S. safety standards, so there is no reason why they shouldn’t be made available to U.S. consumers

U.S. consumers say they are willing to buy these cars, so the big U.S. automakers are actually going backwards at a time when it’s possible to make cars that are more fuel efficient.

Why? for the same reason prescription drugs cost more in the US, because U.S. consumer will in the end pay up!

In the next few years I have plans to move to the southwest (Arizona or New Mexico) My intentions at that point is to build a small bio diesel lab.

[Gotwind Ben]

Thanks Andy.
I hope our other U.S forum friends here like 'Fish4fun' and 'Ghurd' plus others in the U.S can offer an opinion.

Maybe this topic (in general) is worthy of a new forum section - step over Obama, we'll sort this one out
Simple common sense..

Once upon a time there was a car that did 100mpg and 100mph
It was a Daihatsu Charade turbo diesel in the 1980's but where is the equivalent now?
Nearest cars are the diesel Smart and the VW fox.
I'm looking to get a Smart next month by the way.

Once upon a time there was a car that did 100mpg and 100mph
It was a Daihatsu Charade turbo diesel in the 1980's but where is the equivalent now?
Nearest cars are the diesel Smart and the VW fox.
I'm looking to get a Smart next month by the way.

To add fuel to the fire in the late 90's GM made an electric car for the US market.
The GM EV1

I saw this movie called Who killed the electric car

Very interesting film, it showed the life of the GM EV-1 and how it was wiped out. It shows how GM ignored product demand for political reasons, and how it reverse promoted the car. It shows how the battery technology that made it work was sold to Chevron by GM.
I'm not a conspiracy theory buff, but it makes you think !

If you can catch this on I highly recommend it.

Read the wiki article.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1

This was the eventual end of these cars which were only a few years old.

I had a 76 VW Rabbit diesel 5-spd. It got 70MPG easy enough, and I believe it would get 80MPG with all highway driving if the speed was kept at 55MPH (89kph).
It would do 120MPH with enough time (like an hour) on level ground.

Might sound great, but:
- It was almost a menace upon entering the highway. Not many on ramps around here were long enough to get it to 50MPH.
- It would not maintain a reasonable highway speed with moderate hills. Even in the foothills of the Allegheny's it was not uncommon to be going 40~45MPH at the top. Get in real hills and might have to down shift to 3rd.
- A very slight grade most cars would not notice made it difficult to maintain even 70MPH.
- With 4 passengers it was about like a riding lawn mower, even 1 passenger made a VERY noticeable difference.
- At 15F (-9C) it was luck of the draw if it would run faster than idle speed. By 5F (-15C) it was a safe bet it wasn't going to start even with additives. By 0F (-18C) nobody considered even trying to start it. Meaning there had to be a second car, with second insurance, parking, etc, which for all practical purposes makes a diesel almost a novelty in many areas.

I often wondered why people would accept that kind of performance in a diesel, but it would not be considered road worthy in a gasoline car.
My Dad's 2009 Toyota Corolla gets an honest 40MPG highway, and it's like a Lamborghini compared to the Rabbit.
I don't have a lot of doubt a modern technology gas engine, with the same performance as that Rabbit, would get similar MPG.

I do not believe the conspiracy theorists ideas about the EV1. It was a beta testing project with a stated ending.
If it was able to be done with a profit, they would be doing it. And if they did not, someone would. EV companies barely stay afloat long enough to get into production.
Corbin / Meyers Sparrow, $30,000, would barely get me to work, wife would not make it to work.
If there was any demand in the US, they would not be taking pre-orders with a $5000 discount on the first 1000. They build the things 40 minutes from here, and I doubt it would make it from them to me on a single charge with the standard battery.

To be practical in the US, need to hybrid technologies, like Andy is doing.
G-

This is another important component of the system. This is my completed PWM (pulse width modulator). It controls the amperage that the HHO generator will draw so that you don't get runaway. Voltage is modulated as a series of pulses which results in a sine-like flux density waveform in the magnetic circuit of an electromagnetic actuator. The smoothness of the resultant waveform can be controlled by the width and number of modulated impulses per given cycle.



By using this I can make a 10:1 electrolyte which as is would draw enormous amounts of amps, but I can now control just how much the HHO generator will get from my alternator.



This is really not hard to build. You can get all the components at Radio Shack. All the schematics are included here.



PWM (Pulse-Width Modulation) for controlling DC loads. This is the basic connections to the HHO generator.



Fan Cooled 30 AMP PWM
TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS: Power supply 12/24 VDC via. jumper Load voltage 12/24 VDC 30A max Output: Output frequency : 100Hz. This will adjust the DC output range from 0% to 100% Board size is 3.9"L x 1.7" W x 1.6"H Fan is for a 12V systems



I will post various enclosures I built that this can be placed it to work aesthetically in you car.

[Gotwind Ben]

Interesting ideas Andy.
Has all this been explored commercially to your knowledge?

Well when you say "commercially" if you mean can you go to the local auto parts store & buy a unit? then the answer is no. There are online retailers who will make all the components needed. The big problem is that there are so many scam artists out there that make ridiculous claims which give a bad reputation to this technology. There are people out there experimenting with compressed HHO which in theory, would allow you to get huge MPGs but that scares the hell out of me (I think Hindenburg) as Hydrogen is extremely volatile under pressure. I prefer to keep it as an on demand system which will leave no residual hydrogen on a vehicle which is not running. Energy consumption to create HHO also limits production. My thought is to eventually place a PV panel on the roof rack of the truck to charge auxiliary batteries so that the generators can use that as additional power source. This would eliminate some drain on the vehicle (same concept as why you get better mileage when you turn off you air conditioner.
To me the biggest challenge will be to install the required equipment & controls, without making the truck look like the Delorian from the movie Back to the Future.

I put together the cluster box which encompasses the PWM as well as a Volt & amp meter together. The PWM adjustment knob is at the lower left. Basically all the components were put into a Radio Shack project box. It works like a dream. I originally intented this for my truck but I opted to mount the guages in an A-pillar pod. I now use this for my bench system to test my components. I used 8 & 10 AWG wire. Unfortunately, all I had was red.



This is the wiring diagram for the PWM with both the volt meter & the ammeter incorporated in it. This configuration will allow monitoring of the adjusted voltage being sent to the generator as well as the amount of amps the generator draws. By using a PWM you can make a heavy (28%) concentration of KOH electrolyte without drawing amperage which would normally fry your HHO generator.


http://mysite.verizon.net/res14fogq/images/PWM%20BOX.jpg