Hydrogen Generator

Hey folks, don't you know 'hydrogen can do everything.' Just ask the President who used it to defund the "Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles", which had proposals for hybrids from GM, Ford and Chrysler in 2001.

Bob Wilson

ps. I've got a poll running so we can show our enthusiasm for hydrogen.

 

This quote says it all. There is no free lunch.

Tom

 

Me too, brother, me too.

Re: Implementing a HHO generator.

If you choose to ignore the thermodynamic implications, either through optimism or ignorance, you will find that there is another issue to contend with. If you are successful at generating HHO, you will throw off the fuel/air ratio because the hydrogen adds extra fuel that the Engine Control ECM has no clue about and the oxygen will fool the ECM into thinking that the engine is running lean. So the ECM will add fuel by increasing injector time on, which actually is at odds with your desire to use less fuel.

Over on the Explorer forum, people are trying to get around this limitation by fooling the MAF sensor and/or the O2 sensor(s). One individual has proclaimed success, but has not published any details about his "tune" for HHO. Others have posted that they initially seemed to gain mpg, but then later the mpg went right back to normal (or got worse) as the Ford PCM adapted to the HHO. In any event, no one has run one of these long enough to determine if it will have a negative impact on engine reliability (like burning holes in the pistons).

Also, keep in mind that its illegal to modify the emissions system (US Federal Law) which is necessary to compensate for the HHO.

Good luck.

 

This is flat-out not true. The hydrogen and oxygen liberated by electrolysis will completely recombine in the engine, resulting in no excess oxygen in the exhaust. It works like this: you start with one molecule of water, split it into two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom, and burn it in the engine where it recombines into one water molecule. What you get is a little energy from combining the hydrogen and oxygen, and a little water vapor. It doesn't make the engine think it is running too lean, because all the sensor sees is a bit more water.

What your are proposing to do is to illegally modify your engine control to cause your engine to run too lean. This will increase your mileage, but at the expense of damaging the engine. Skip the hydrogen generator and go directly to the engine modification. The results will be the same, with less bother and expense.

Tom

 

Hmmmm......does that depend upon "perfect" combustion of the HHO? Well, whatever the reason, the people trying this are finding out that they must modify the engine control system. You may be correct that they are only leaning out the mixture with very little benefit from the HHO.

One issue that I brought up is that you would need to know the flowrate of HHO to effectively "tune" for it, but this point was ignored.

The thread that covers this is here:HHO: Is it alchemy? Or will it improve gas mileage on a ’99 4.0 SOHC Explorer? - Ford Explorer Ranger Enthusiasts Serious Explorations

Please don't harass the people there; they are just trying desperately to keep their SUV's economically viable.

 

Follow the link that I posted above. There are about half a dozen individuals who are trying different designs of HHO generators and discussing it in the thread along with observers and skeptics (like myself).

 

Great, we're on the same page so far. Do you think that means you can draw additional power from the 12V system without using additional gas?

When I was way too young to take a thermodynamics class, my dad bought me a hand-cranked generator to play with. There was no mistaking that the more electrical load you hook up, the harder you gotta turn the crank. Very clever of my dad - I could have learned the same thing in a thermo course, but this was years earlier, more fun, and impossible to forget.

Ok, so we're talking about an outside maximum budget of 120 watts. That's the limit on what you're going to spend generating HHO, and the hard outer limit on what you'll recover burning HHO.

That's the beauty of doing a back-of-the-envelope budget entirely in terms of outside maximum, ideal lossless conversion figures. All of your implementation details will certainly vary your results from the ideal case, but the variation direction is predictable.

You may have thought you were addressing a different audience. During a period when the world saw manufacturer lobbies insisting that a much more efficient car wasn't even practical, conspiracy theorists saying that a simple carburetor invented decades ago would have solved the whole problem if Big O hadn't squashed it, assorted con men pitching all sorts of schemes in scientific-sounding gobbledygook, etc., Toyota quietly sat down, applied known, sound scientific and engineering principles, and produced a genuine working, no smoke, no mirrors product that can drive you to work without violating any physics and get you 45 to 50 MPG doing it, and with a bit of driving technique already get you the 60+ MPG you want from this mod. It's a product that scored a pretty big hit with a lot of us here, and so did the no-nonsense, scientifically-informed, sound engineering process that produced it.

-Chap

 

LTS, here is the information you need (maybe not what you want): when these "HHO" devices improve fuel economy, emissions or performance it's because the engine was running badly. The injected HHO gas partly compensates, but what that engine really needed was a tuneup. HHO devices will not improve MPGs in any car which is already running correctly; it can only reduce them because of the energy required to electrolyze the water, most of which will not be recovered by burning the HHO gas (although the MPG reduction may not be noticeable if you limit the current and thus the power needed to operate the device).

Everyone needs a hobby, but a hobby which voids your car's warranty may be rather more expensive than you expect.

 

It would be easier to set up a water injection system; that idea dates back to the 40's or 50's. The concept is that injection of water vapor into the intake manifold causes the fuel/air mixture to burn more slowly. This allows ignition timing to be advanced, improving power and mpg.

However implementation of the concept requires thought so that only the appropriate amount of water is injected.

 

The other issue is that tinkering with the mixture and timing isn't an easy matter on modern computer controlled fuel-injected cars.

The H2 injection systems (I'm going to leave out the O2 because the intake is already 21% O2) theoretically work on one or both of these basis:

1. Energy drawn from the 12v system is "free" -- your car alternator is running anyway, so why not use it? As mentioned above, though, the greater the load the greater the drag on the engine. The Prius is a special case with its inverter, but it still increases drag on the motor/generator.

2. Small amounts of hydrogen help the mixture burn better, and the amount of extra energy extracted from the gasoline exceeds the cost of producing the hydrogen. I have not seen any scientific explanation of this.

 

The hydrogen/oxygen gas from a generator acts with gasoline the same way propane works with diesel ,as a catalyst....this can work ..and many say it does work ... There is a guy on the inet that shows how he did it by using the rear window heater def. wires as a voltage tap for his generator on his Prius ,his generator uses 10 amps and by adding baking soda it will increase the amps to around 20 amps and make more gas ..he said the defrost wires were good up to 40 amp but thought it was too much draw ...This whole idea is not getting something from nothing ..it is to break down the elements in water to the basis elements ........gas combustion produces much ,much more power than electric ...How big a battery would you need to drive a Prius 500 miles...our batteries now in the E/V mode go 2 miles at best ....so it wouldn't take much gas to make a difference and at 10-20 amps the energy ,he says, you come out ahead....Check a google search for Hydrogen Generator Prius ,he even shows you how to make one...I'll try to post if I find it..............m

 

:deadhorse:
You have a 2008 Prius, do the experiment.

Bob Wilson

ps. I can't believe I contributed to this nonsense.

 

It's not a catalyst. The hydrogen and oxygen are consumed in the reaction. If they were catalysts they would mediate the reaction, but not be consumed.

Tom

 

To do a decent test you will need a dynamometer and controlled conditions. Real world driving has too many variables for meaningful results. Perhaps you should buy a small test engine and start there.

Tom