HHO: Good, bad, or ugly?

[some_other_dave]

Originally Posted by IamIan

V-tech engages and disengages ...

My apologies, but this is a special annoyance to me:

VTEC is Honda's "pick a cam lobe on the fly" system.
V-tech is maker of cordless phones.

Originally Posted by Old Mechanic

Manufacturers today, in my opinion do not want to see leaps in progress that would make last years models obsolete overnight.

I think the car makers would be ecstatic if they could instantly obsolete all used cars. They'd have an unbelievably huge market for new cars! The aftermarket would not be happy, since they would have to throw out most of their product lines, so you could count on opposition from SEMA among others, but the new-car folks would be through the roof.

-soD

[Ken Fry]

Originally Posted by fastegg

Ken Fry.... I was just admiring your vehicle... what is it ? Have you got a written run down of the story and specs ?.... and while i'm on a role, have you got some pictures you could email me ?.... I reckon it looks soooo cool....
fastegg@tpg.com.au

Thanks! There is a thread here:
http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...ike-19843.html
Also one over at the Aptera Forum:
The Zing! - ApteraForum.com - Unofficial Aptera Car Forum
There's my site:
Think Big. Drive Small.
Which links to my earlier site:
Home

[niky]

Indeed. Car makers jump all over new tech. It's the consumers who don't like it. Time and again you see companies innovate... Mitsubishi with gasoline direct injection in the 90's, Audi with the ultralight aluminum A1... Mazda with the miller cycle engine... Only to be met with a resounding "meh" by consumers.

And 200 psi? Current high pressure diesel systems have rail pressures over 10k psi and injector pressures in the thousands. Same goes, apparently, for Ecoboost motors.

[Cameron318iS]

Most people who dissmiss this never take into account that hydrogen is what is being combusted in the engine already, Octane is a HYDROcarbon and they never think to adjust the A/F ratio just like you need to do with any major mod to any engine. It's way easier on a carb and mechanical fuel injection. But you can build them pretty cheap but they are useless you can adjust you air to fuel ratio. I have an HHO on my car and didn't see and mileage increase but I did get a 14hp and 10ft.lbs increase with no decrease in mileage, So I saw it as a plus! My grandpa had a pretty cheap wet cell he made out of a mason jar in a VW sports truck with mechanical fuel injection and was getting about 50mpg on the highway from 32mpg highway. Thats a pretty good set up PM if you want more info I have a bunch of pdfs on how to make a EFIE to adjust the A/F ratio and how to build HHO cells. And one liter is way stronger than wooden matches, I used to make mini hydrogen bombs and they were pretty damn strong, damn near killed a kid who tried putting his ciggerette out on a baloon filled with it. The slightest spark in a wet cell with have that thing in a million pieces in a second. Cells are pretty simple to make and are cheap the ebay and online kits suck. Really the only reason Hydrogen is being shut down if that it is too hard to capitalize on and they try to sell the hydrogen already split cuz nobody would be making money if they split it in the car. I am working on a magnet generator to power mine so I dont have to have any draw on my alternator. And having a higher load on the alternator doesn't reduce you mpg your engine is still pushing the same weight and would still be working just as hard if there was a lesser load on it. Anyone who says different doesn't know physics. The secret is to get an alternate power source to power the cell. A lot of cells don't even need more than 10 amps anyways.

[markweatherill]

Originally Posted by Cameron318iS

doesn't know physics. .

This is the real power source of HHO.

[fastegg]

How did you measure the 14hp increase ?

[UFO]

Originally Posted by fastegg

How did you measure the 14hp increase ?

And what was the AFR change?

[bestclimb]

Originally Posted by Cameron318iS

... And having a higher load on the alternator doesn't reduce you mpg your engine is still pushing the same weight and would still be working just as hard if there was a lesser load on it. Anyone who says different doesn't know physics.

I thought that the higher load on the alternator is why most manufactures' schedule a little more fuel when the headlights, or fan is turned on.

[gone-ot]

QUOTE:

"...HHO, the fuel of perpetual motion engines..."

[Ken Fry]

Originally Posted by Cameron318iS

I have an HHO on my car and didn't see and mileage increase but I did get a 14hp and 10ft.lbs increase with no decrease in mileage, So I saw it as a plus!

Assuming that this increase was at WOT and perhaps 5500 rpm, would it be safe to say that the engine was taking in air at about 5500 liters per minute? (I'm guessing a 2 liter engine?) Were you producing about 1 liter per minute with your "HHO" device? In other words, about .66 liters of H2 and .33 liters of O2?

And one liter is way stronger than wooden matches, I used to make mini hydrogen bombs and they were pretty damn strong, damn near killed a kid who tried putting his ciggerette out on a baloon filled with it.

How much is the energy value of .66 liter (.66 x .09 grams) of H2? Is Wikipedia incorrect? They say 141.9 kJ per gram. So .06 grams would be about 8.43 kJ. This is 141 watt minutes. If the input energy to your HHO unit is 14.5 V and 10 amps, then you are consuming 145 watt-minutes to produce one liter of H2. This suggests that you operate at a net loss, but at an absurdly high efficiency for electrolysis -- your one liter must include some steam. But all that does not matter. Others can see that the 141 watt-minutes of H2 is an unmeasurably tiny energy quantity given the likely 100,000 watt-minutes (134 hp-minutes) of mechanical energy produced by your engine each minute. If the H2 arrived at your car for free, energetically (and if it did not displace air needed for combustion) you should expect an increase of .14% in HP: about .18 hp. (In reality, even this would not happen. H2 gas displaces air, so injecting H2 gas into the intake airstream reduces power output, because fuel flow is automatically cut back to make up for the O2 deficit.)

Wood has an energy value of about 15 kJ per gram. So a 1 gram match stick has an energy value of 15 kJ, almost twice the energy value of a liter of the H2/O2 mix you call HHO. Is Wikipedia wrong here too? If we added the head of the match, we'd be even further ahead with the match stick.

The secret is to get an alternate power source to power the cell.

Darn... not a secret any longer. Here, you seem to be saying that thermodynamics does matter. You seem to be promoting the conventional, very expensive, means for running a car on hydrogen: buy the H2 in a tank, and let someone else incur the energy cost of creating the H2. (When you buy electrolysed H2, you are paying mainly for the energy used to create and store the H2, which is always less than the energy you get out of it by burning it, a sad consequence of those pesky thermodynamics laws.)

And having a higher load on the alternator doesn't reduce you mpg

Here, you seem to be saying that thermodynamics does not matter. What were you intending to say: 1. Thermodynamics does not matter (things work by magic). or 2. Thermodynamics matters (things work by science)?

Given your quest for a "magnet motor", I assume it is the latter, but you are sending out mixed messages. If you are in the first class, then I'd recommend reading about combustion. (John Heywood, the MIT guy who convincingly showed that HHO units have no effect at all, has written several very good textbooks -- classics in the field of combustion.) If you are in the latter class, then I'd suggest visiting Keelynet and Peswiki, where claims of magic get a better reception than they do here.

It's just a matter of finding the tribe where you belong.