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Old 12-03-2008, 01:11 AM   #5 (permalink)
Palionu
ADHD Savant
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: sacramento, ca
Posts: 27

Great White - '01 Honda Civic EX
90 day: 36.89 mpg (US)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bennelson View Post
Hydrogen burns great. The trouble is making it in the first place, and how much energy that takes.

If you are making it on the fly by using electricity generated from your alternator, it is going to take a LOT of energy to make, thus greatly loading down your engine.

In some ways, it's like trying to make a perpetual motion machine.

One way it could work, is to have a supply of charged batteries, which would run the current to make the gas. Charge the batteries at home, and recharge them again right when you get back.

A more efficient way to use that electricity would be just to have it run a motor instead.

A seperately charged hydrogen gas generation system would have the advantage of still being able to cut over to just running on gasoline only. I assume there would have to be some timing changes to make everything run right, so that might be an issue.

A while back, I talked to a really smart guy who has built a slick electric truck, is running a wind generator, and has other smart-guy projects going on. I asked him about hydrogen generation for automotive fuel use. He said he experimented with it and had no luck. I assume he was doing the typical way of running the battery off the alternator to run the H2 generator.

If you try running a system off seperately charged batteries, I would be interested in the results. That's the only way I can really see a workable system.
I browsed the ebook and found the following schematic. It looks like it uses a control module of some sort to control the voltage going through the water from one contact plate to the other (both of which are made of stainless steel). According to some sources you only need 1.23 volts but i haven't found any mention of how much current is required so yes, the search continues.



Sadly, this is the clearest this image is, I even tried it magnified, still blurry but you can maybe make it out
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