My HHO generator experience

[Rags]

This will be my first posting on the epic tale of my HHO experience.
I own a 2002 Pontiac Sunfire, 2200 engine. My first attempt at building a generator was interesting to say the least. There is very little room under the hood of my car so had to figure where and how to configure the generator to fit.

I decided to go horizonal with the top end slightly elevated to allow for an air space for the gas to be made. After building the generator out of 4" pvc pipe capped at both ends and the usual attachments to empty, reload, and let the gas out. I made the cell from 8 ss switch covers spaced about 1/8" apart. I tested it with a battery charger, with 1 tsb soda pulling about 10 amps. It seemed to be working well, so I closed it up, and hooked it up to a bubbler. Not knowing I should have tested it to see if it was air tight, I was not getting any bubbles in the jar.

Finally a light went off and I figured out what was wrong, and corrected it. Low and behold I was getting bubbles.. I had previously had a toggle switch mounted inside the car along with a fuse in the line, so I proceeded to install my generator. I made a Flash Killer, and installed that along with a oneway valve + a bubbler. After being sure all was connected, I went for a drive. Nothing really happened, and I was unable to detect any difference in the way the car ran.

I gassed up and took the car for a 50 mile drive, and regassed, and checked the milage. I got 24.7 mpg. When I got back home and checked the generator, and bubbler I noticed the bubbler was almost empty, and there was water in the tubbing. So I figured the generator was sucking the water out of the bubbler. To make a long story shorter, I took the generator apart and put a baffle in it to help block the water from splashing around, didn't work. Scrapped that idea.

Next I went to 3" pvc pipe and made it 18" long, had to drop one plate so the cell would fit in the pipe. Got that all completed, with a cap with a screw in top, mounter the contacts on either side with the gas outlet on top, put a petcock at the bottom.

Did some more reading on things to do, so bought an adapter for the converter and installed that. Something else I forgot to mention was the amps I was running. On the bench the readings were around 12 to 15 amps. I did not have an amp gauage installed so didn't know what the amps were while out driving. Sooooo away I went, I drove about 25 miles then stopped to check the system, found out I had blown a fuse 30amp. Replaced it and drove another 5 miles and checked it again. Another fuse blew. Turned the system off and went home.

Took the generator out and noticed it was nearly dry, and the positive post had almost melted the pvc away. Repaired the damage and reinstalled the + contact. Put the generator back in the car, added (rain)water with 1/2tsp soda. That dropped the amps down to between 5 and 6. Bought an amp gauge.

I tried to have the 02 sensor on the manifold adapted but was unable to get it loose. So I ignored it.

I gassed up and drove 54.4 miles with the system on and took 1.8 gal of gas.=29.6mpg Gassed up again and drove 53.9 mile with the system off and it took 2.2 gal =24.9mpg

The next day I drove 100 mile and took 2.8 system off =35.7mpg
Yesterday 4-3-08 I went 106 miles and took 2.7 gal system on =39mpg.
The 50 mile trips were over the same route each time, and the 100 mile trips over a different area, but the same route. So it appears to be working some. Still tweeking, not sure what to do about the disconnected 02 sensor, still trying to decide about a EFIE.

That's it for now.
Rags

[mike]

Good story. And good persistence to get it right.

If you have a disconnected O2 sensor, you should have a check engine light going. You also should be getting much worse mileage than you could be getting if it were hooked up and working. I would say that your first order of business is to get that corrected, and any other sensors fixed and corrected and no engine warnings of any kind showing. The problem with a missing oxygen sensor is that the ECU will "guess" extremely rich. Just having a new or working sensor installed should give you a big increase in mileage.

After that you can think about an EFIE to get even better mileage.

[Rags]

mike Wrote:Good story. And good persistence to get it right.

If you have a disconnected O2 sensor, you should have a check engine light going. You also should be getting much worse mileage than you could be getting if it were hooked up and working. I would say that your first order of business is to get that corrected, and any other sensors fixed and corrected and no engine warnings of any kind showing. The problem with a missing oxygen sensor is that the ECU will "guess" extremely rich. Just having a new or working sensor installed should give you a big increase in mileage.

After that you can think about an EFIE to get even better mileage.

You are right I do have a check engine light, also it says my trac is off also. I will reconnect tomorrow. I know so little about how these things work, that I was just taking his word that nothing negative would occur.
I disconnected the 02 sensor at the suggestion of a fellow tester. There is no problem hooking it up again, it is real easy to get at.
Thank you for your input, I will post again when I have more info to share.
Rags

[Rags]

Ok Mike,
Now what? I decided not to wait until tomorrow. I reconnected the sensor but the check engine light did not go out. Do you know what I have to do to get them to go off?
Rags

[mike]

Well, since you have a 1996 or later vehicle, you can plug in a ScanGauge, or similar OBD II reader and read your codes. Any mechanic will have one of these things if you don't want to buy one yourself. They cost $169 I believe.

Some vehicles have blink codes. For instance for my car, if you turn the accessory switch on/off/on/off/on within 5 seconds, it will read out it's trouble codes as a series of blinks of the check engine light.

Once you fix the faults the check engine light will go out.

[Rags]

I was surfing and came across a forum that was talking about check engine lights, and one of the suggestions for getting the light off, if there was nothing wrong, is to disconnect the positive side of the battery and let it set for 10 or 15 minutes and the light should go off. I did just that, at 11:10 pm est I went back out and connected it, and the both lights were out. So now I am back to square 3. I think I will drive the car as is for a period of time to see how the mpg shakes out and go from there.
Thanks Mike for the help.
Rags

[DragonWhip]

Rags Wrote:I was surfing and came across a forum that was talking about check engine lights, and one of the suggestions for getting the light off, if there was nothing wrong, is to disconnect the positive side of the battery and let it set for 10 or 15 minutes and the light should go off. I did just that, at 11:10 pm est I went back out and connected it, and the both lights were out. So now I am back to square 3. I think I will drive the car as is for a period of time to see how the mpg shakes out and go from there.
Thanks Mike for the help.
Rags

Rags, check out Harbor Freight, they have a Cen-Tech OBD II code scanner for $90 and it resets cel's. Good Job, Keep tweaking. Later

[Leftwings22]

I read your thread Rags.

Great job on significantly increasing your MPG.

Couple things about HHO cells if you dont mind.

The SS wall plates you use are made from cheap SS. When building a cell, please only go for 316L, as anything less will leech out the iron content in the SS mixture, making a mess inside the cell, and also making it draw more amps, as a result of dumping all that fe into your electrolyte solution. Thats one problem you are having, I am certain.

Now, if you are drawing that many amps, it also means you are PROBABLY creating steam, which is why your cell always needs filling.

There are ways to control that problem, which entails a lot more testing than you have apparently done so far. A basic is to try to eliminate voltage between plates, and that involves putting in neutral plates into your system. You can use a battery charger as a power supply to test out new configurations. You can also go to my You Tube site under the same name, and see all kinds of useful HHO information, by many of the HHO people I subscribe to. Some of them to look for are Smart Scarecrow, Sid Young, M3scal, D3adpool, Zerofossilfuel, among others.

I am NOT selling anything here or on YT, just trying to pass along information to those that can and will use it. I am also not affiliated with this site in any way, other than this forum. MEANING, I am not trying to sell you anything at all, just trying to help get US ALL away from the noose OPEC and our govt has us in.

Now REMEMBER, HHO is an EXTREMELY VOLITILE MIX OF GASSES, hydrogen and oxygen. USE PROPER SAFETY PRECAUTIONS! USE A TRIED AND PROVEN BUBBLER SYSTEM!! A normal check valve WILL NOT WORK! HHO burns at a rate of 8,160 feet PER SECOND! Please do much research on flash-back-arrestors, and be safe with your experiments.

If you have any questions regarding HHO, feel free to contact me.

Mike, I hope I didnt step over any boundaries here, but this is something I DO know about.

All the best to you and your project.

Lefty

DragonWhip Wrote:

Rags Wrote:I was surfing and came across a forum that was talking about check engine lights, and one of the suggestions for getting the light off, if there was nothing wrong, is to disconnect the positive side of the battery and let it set for 10 or 15 minutes and the light should go off. I did just that, at 11:10 pm est I went back out and connected it, and the both lights were out. So now I am back to square 3. I think I will drive the car as is for a period of time to see how the mpg shakes out and go from there.
Thanks Mike for the help.
Rags

Rags, check out Harbor Freight, they have a Cen-Tech OBD II code scanner for $90 and it resets cel's. Good Job, Keep tweaking. Later

[colchiro]

When you disconnect your battery, you clear out all the settings so your ECU may take a week or more to get back to where it was.

[mike]

Leftwings22 Wrote:Mike, I hope I didnt step over any boundaries here, but this is something I DO know about.

No boundaries here man! Go for it! Thanks for the information.