Running my gypsy bus off of water!

[phillbus914]

check out this post... viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3199&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

I don't think you can completely run on just hydrogen without some major modifications... When using gasoline you're still feeding the correct ratio of fuel/air to the engine - and adding hydrogen in the air intake (similar to adding nitrous oxide to gain HP) With fuel when you step on the throttle you feed more fuel to the engine... with HHO isn't there just a generator feeding the same amount of hydrogen to the engine at idle and at higher RPM's?

I'm no expert on HHO but that's one major point you'd need to address.

Are you seeing significant mileage increase? Smitty on here tried it, but I don't think he seen very good results and he gave up on it. Made me very skeptical of HHO add ons....

And now that gas is less than $2 a gallon (diesel around $3) I haven't heard much buzz on it.

[the_experience03]

I have heard plenty of scientific evidence as to why it doesn't work. I've only heard anecdotal evidence that it does. In either case I see a problem with using one of these systems on our buses. First, if you have a diesel with mechanical injection it isn't going to do a damn thing. Second would be for those of you with gas engines. I think very few people have fuel injection on their buses. A GM chassis with a TBI 366 is about the only way I think you'd see it. So...you have a carb. Now ignoring the fundamental problems with the 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics by saying it does in fact work still leaves a problem. The HHO acts as an oxygenate to some extent I guess, but it is an extra supply of fuel more than anything. It doesn't matter either way. Carbs are stupid little devices. Really, they're just straws with some calibrated holes in them that meter the fuel based on three difference forms of engine vacuum. They have no ability to trim the fuel to match the needs of the engine. Therefore you would have to do this manually when under HHO. That would most likely mean leaning it out. So...what happens when the HHO generator takes a dive? You burn holes in aluminum pistons.

Yep...I'm pretty skeptical, but try it by all means.

[lapeer20m]

i'm curious about your hho generator. especially if you are able to run your engine directly off of the hydrogen you produce.

what kind of setup do you have? what engine? what kind of results have you had so far? good or bad? does the bus run on hydrogen? or a combination of hydrogen and some other fuel like gasoline?

[phillbus914]

Originally Posted by twysted gypsy

I implore you to conduct a few more experiments and come up with a more valid argument because yours does not hold water, or make fuel out of such..

Yeah I'm not interested in throwing money away "experimenting" with HHO when I've seen no evidence that it really works, aside from a few people (none who've I've ever met) that say it works... A member on here (link I first sent you) tried it and it did nothing. Plus gas is $1.89 a gallon here now, if you want to take time and money experimenting to not waste a whole $1.89/gallon on fossil fuel by all means go ahead... I think this is a the bass akwords way of reaching your goal though - ever hear of WVO??

If regular engines could run on straight water (hho) I doubt that after 100+ years of gasoline engines, you're going to be the first person to figure it out.

[the_experience03]

Originally Posted by twysted gypsy

First, actually the DC input is in direct correlation to the amount of gas being put into the engine by means of manual control via the gas pedal, but if you are so clever then you would have found a way to not spend so much on gas. Second, I mentioned that we are NOT using diesel. And third, if you were so well versed in the laws of thermal dynamics you would more likely then not be living on a school bus. So, I implore you to conduct a few more experiments and come up with a more valid argument because yours does not hold water, or make fuel out of such; see not float; check... sink... waste your money on fossil fuel, I think I might have just read that its good for you, or something.

~P

Wow. You get some friendly skepticism and you come back all salty and pissed off.

I'm going to laugh off your personal attacks, but I would suggest you be careful about the judgments you make about the membership here. I do not live in my bus. If I did live in my bus it would be a personal choice and have little to do with my career. Likewise, if my career choice was one that didn't necessarily afford me all the luxuries in life, but kept me happy it would not make me any less competent or any less of a person. You will find this is a friendly site full of people from all walks of life...let's keep it that way.

Now then...I will share with you some reasons why the system won't work, as tested in an automotive lab in which I was present. Modern cars will not allow themselves to lean out that much. You will see no or even negative changes in fuel trim. They can give the impression of more power from vehicles particularly prone to heat soak of the intake manifold, but this is based on the same principle as water injection...cooling and therefore condensing the intake charge.

Can the system work? Possibly. If you ran AFR's in the neighborhood of 20:1 the hydrogen could theoretically help complete the burn of the fuel preventing lean misses. However, again the computer is not going to allow the fuel trims to get this lean, nor is the ignition mapping going to be likely able to compensate for the conditions well outside of its parameters. You would have to modify the mapping within an OBDII engine to do this via a programmer. On OBDI you would have to burn a new chip most likely which can get expensive and difficult.

But again...most buses are carbureted. You could tune the carb's main metering to be extremely lean and you could experiment with the weights and springs in the distributer to get the engine to run reasonably well. This is a good thing for those willing to experiment. Unfortunately the learning curve can be steep. At 20:1 AFR you're really close to burning holes in pistons from detonation. The only saving grace might be a lean miss. I'm just not comfortable doing that on an engine I have to pay for. If it was computer controlled I might be a little more likely to do it as I could have some knock sensing (research Knock Sense for your application). By the time you can hear pinging and knocking you are already dangerously close to meltdown. Preignition noises often aren't audible to the human ear until its too late.

If you're still wanting to experiment then please feel free and post back bonafide results to the good or bad. Don't let skeptics like myself get in your way. Just make sure you understand the risks involved. I'd rather not see you meltdown your engine over a 5% fuel savings when you could take other steps to reduce your fuel consumption with far less risk. Just don't become another one of those people with little more than anecdotal evidence of how well the system works. Show results and how they were calculated. Like I said...everything in science says it won't so you need to PROVE your position.

For the record, I'm not a slave to petroleum...my bus runs on WVO.

[Redbear]

Ahhh, Hydrogen - the fuel of misty-eyed dreamers!

Honda has dropped off a hydrogen fueling station outside a state garage near the capital, and they are demonstrating one or more cars that run on compressed hydrogen. I don't know if the design is an electric car with a fuel cell, or if it has an internal combustion engine DESIGNED to run on the stuff. But apparently the little cars are drivable.

Also, a past governor provided a grant to put demonstration hydrogen fuel cells for electric back-up at several state radio sites. I (my agency) was given three of them. One site has one 4.5 kW unit, the other has two in parallel to make 9 kW, since the second site has air conditioning. The small site has two "six-pack'" cabinets, for a total of twelve welding-sized tanks of hydrogen stored at 2300 psi. The tanks there will all be empty in 24 hours running at full tilt. The larger site has a tank cage for each generator, with 18 tanks in each cage, 36 tanks total. This site will run for 36 hours at full tilt (but will 'drop a dime' to the fuel truck after 18-24 hours). The only problem with radio site back-up is that the storms that take out commercial power (snow, ice, high winds) will probably make the roads impassible, too.

Since 9000 watts is about twelve horsepower, and using the fuel cell efficiency as a reference, I figure it would take roughly 1 welding-sized tank of compressed hydrogen per hour to run a 12 horsepower engine. That would be 15 tanks per hour for 180 horsepower.

The fuel cells are quieter than a generator (they do have a cooling blower & pump), and are cleaner AT THE SITE (only water as exhaust). I would probably consider putting one into a sensitive micro-environment, as long as I could get fuel trucks in. It might also be great to pump pre-compressed hydrogen into transit buses in smog-plagued urban cities. But in the macro-environment universe, hydrogen isn't "Green."

I'm not an expert, but I have read it takes 4 watts of electricity to separate the hydrogen from the water (and compress it?) for every watt the fuel cell returns. Add the diesel fuel for all the tank trucks running back and forth, and hydrogen is NOT a green fuel. I have heard it referred to as a 'storage medium' instead.

I have two radio sites that are off-road and off-grid. Each has a wind turbine, solar panels, plus a propane generator for bad-weather backup. We fly ten 100 lb. bottles up to each site before winter each year, whether they need it or not. Five bottles in parallel will run a 12 kW generator about 110-120 hours at part throttle. I figure if part throttle is 4.5 kw, I get about 22 hours of electricity per bottle of propane, compared to two hours per bottle of hydrogen. No way am I flying 110 bottles of gas per year to each site, considering the cost of helicopter operations (including Jet-A fuel), plus the salaries of two pilots and 6-8 'grunts' on the ground.

I have heard of some research (Clarkson College maybe?) being done concerning making hydrogen on-site for backup fuel cells while the electricity is on, but haven't read any reports.

All that said, a totally 'water powered' vehicle CAN work. You just have to think of it as a plug-in electric vehicle with a hydrogen battery. Range and speed will be severely limited. Forget the interstates. You could drive a bus about as fast as you could tow it with a souped-up lawnmower, if you wanted any range. If you park at campsites with free water & electricity, and have on-board tanks, hydrogen generator, and COMPRESSOR with you, you could conceivably store enough fuel over time to get maybe a hundred miles or so to the next plug-in. It would be a lifestyle choice. If you tried to store hydrogen using a genset, it would probably take more fuel to make the hydrogen needed to drive on than it would to just drive using the existing engine running on petroleum, WVO, propane or wood gas. You could never make enough electricity using solar (using today's technology) on a bus roof to both live on plus store hydrogen fuel.

I'm not saying you could simply plumb hydrogen gas to a gasoline, propane or diesel motor and expect it to work, either. I'm just saying you CAN separate hydrogen from water by PUTTING ENERGY FROM ANOTHER SOURCE INTO IT, and Honda at least can somehow run a vehicle on compressed hydrogen. Two liters per minute uncompressed isn't enough. But I do love thinking 'outside the box.' Efficiencies improve. I've heard today's pocket cell phones have more computing power in them than the entire space capsules that went to the moon. "What will they think of next?"

[lapeer20m]

this guy is so convinced that HHO generators are a farce that he's offering a $1 million dollar reward to anyone who can put one on a car and get at least a 25% increase in fuel economy over a 6 month period. the car has to be able to pass emmisions testing, and the hho system cannot damage the engine internally.

http://www.aardvark.co.nz/hho_challenge.shtml

[recycler]

Oh, the things that used to be considered as outright impossible that are mainstream today. Oh, the things that we still dream of which might never be reality. Charge on skoolies for we shall conquer the questionable.

[CAMO-MONSTER]

in my freshman year in high school my science teacher shone us how to make Hydrogen using

hydro cloric acid
water
aluminum foil
pop bottle
and a balloon

now that made some Hydrogen with out no power !!!!!!!!!!

[lapeer20m]

Originally Posted by CAMO-MONSTER

now that made some Hydrogen with out no power !!!!!!!!!!

yeah, but it takes fuel to deliver all of those items to the store, then to the school. it also takes energy to manufacture and package each of the items used to make the hydrogen in your class.

[bbbrt76]

Originally Posted by CAMO-MONSTER

in my freshman year in high school my science teacher shone us how to make Hydrogen using

hydro cloric acid
water
aluminum foil
pop bottle
and a balloon

now that made some Hydrogen with out no power !!!!!!!!!!

it took a tremendous amount of power to create that aluminum foil from the naturally occurring state of aluminum oxide, the above reaction releases the hydrogen but binds the oxygen back to the aluminum foil turning it back to aluminum oxide and wasting the large amounts of power that went into creating the aluminum in the first place, in terms of energy it is a net loss conversion,

[recycler]

One might be able to create wealth if they are inginuitive enough to come up with a creative way to make people think that wealth that doesn't exist actually exists. Enron;lehman bros; fanny may; the soon to be former administration. I know, I'm reaching but there has not been much action here lately. Am I right or am I left?

[Ray_WA]

What is wealth?

Wealth is the blood, sweat, and end result of the work of man. Whether an individual man shares in the wealth he creates is another matter entirely, but the more men you have working the more wealth you have.


-Ray


------
I started life with nothing and I still have most of it.

[phillbus914]

Originally Posted by Ray_WA

What is wealth?

Wealth is the blood, sweat, and end result of the work of man. Whether an individual man shares in the wealth he creates is another matter entirely, but the more men you have working the more wealth you have.

Right... but where does this wealth come from??? Another man.

Also wealth now days is created less and less from the "blood & sweat" and more from working smart... For instance, my friend works at burger King for 2 weeks (70 hours or so) and ends up with a $400 check (wealth transferred from customers at burger king)... I put an alternator, throttle cable, gas tank door and a couple tires on a 98 Cavalier a few weeks ago & make $800 profit (wealth transferred from a bank in form of a loan, and repaid by the guy that bought the car)

[Ray_WA]

So working smarter makes you more likely to benefit from the wealth you create, and working dumber makes your boss more likely to benefit from the wealth you create more than you do!

Now let us remember, there are more than one kind of wealth. We all know people who are poor financially but who have a wealth of knowledge, friends, etc. Again, in those areas, we gain from the work we're willing to put into it, whether the work be put into relationships with others, learning something, or maybe even fixing up an old school bus.


-Ray

[timbuk]

www.fuelwater.info

[phillbus914]

Originally Posted by timbuk

http://www.fuelwater.info

humm... maybe this guy should claim his $1,000,000 prize...

Originally Posted by lapeer20m

this guy is so convinced that HHO generators are a farce that he's offering a $1 million dollar reward to anyone who can put one on a car and get at least a 25% increase in fuel economy over a 6 month period. the car has to be able to pass emmisions testing, and the hho system cannot damage the engine internally.

http://www.aardvark.co.nz/hho_challenge.shtml

[cucullen]

Originally Posted by timbuk

http://www.fuelwater.info

this just screamed scam ad the moment i looked at it.

[timbuk]

found the site in kijiji and thought id post it here while surfin disclaimer:in no way affiliated! timbuk

[Navistate]

Maybe if you use beer instead of water.