This forum seems to have a mix of members that have tried just about everything, so here's one I haven't seen come up yet for discussion.
A friend of mine fell for the hype on the HHO or "Brown's gas" generators being touted to increase fuel mileage, and paid 75 bucks for one off the internet that looks like a high school science project built in a quart mason jar.
For those that have never seen one, it appears to be an expanded version of the simple electrolysis experiment we did in high school science class with a glass beaker, two metal plates, and a battery. The generators I've seen have two stainless steel electrodes made from either spiral wound ss wire or thin ss sheet metal mounted in a quart fruit jar or a PVC pipe section. The idea is to hook this up to your cars 12V, add water with a touch of baking soda for the electolyte, and connect the HHO gas output to the engines air intake system. The car still runs on the original gasoline or diesel fuel system and the hydrogen gas and oxygen supplement is supposed to increase the gas mileage. The claims are for 25-75% mpg increase depending on the car, engine size, driving habits, etc.
He doesn't have it installed yet, and I think it's mostly BS and doubt if there will be a measurable difference...unless the thing sparks, ignites the hydrogen, and blows his hood off.
As near as I can tell, these generators only produce a gas volume in the neighborhood of .5 -1.5 liters per minute with generator overheating problems in the upper part of that range. It's hard to believe such a tiny amount of HHO gas could make much difference to an engine sucking in several hundred cfm of air/fuel mix. Perhaps, in a very small car with a 1200-1500cc size engine, it might be able to make a measurable difference.
I expect the normal flood of comments and speculation and would really like to hear from anyone who has any ACTUAL first hand experience with one of these gadgets that can say from personal experience whether it's trash or treasure?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: ohiobuckeye,

Ive used this principal as a kid to build a canon.
"Load times" to generate enough gas to fire a single projectile was in the ballpark of 20 min per shot.
Given a four cylinder engine running 3000 RPM, such a unit would have to generate enough "propellant" to "Load pack and fire" 6000 times per minute (math is correct its four stroke)if one were to run an engine on this alone.
Since it is a blend of gasoline and this stuff in actual practice, I'd have to guess it would afford a "free power stroke" every 10 miles.

though its rare, Id like this to be one of those times I was wrong .... by all means share the results

Interesting concept. There are systems now coming out for internal combustion engines, but they cost a lot more than $75.00.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=660759158947266385

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5777084115140566094&q=&hl=en

http://www.fuelfromh2o.com/

Our Assistant Public Works Director read about this and asked our shop to experiment with it. We have a rather large fleet and if we can get it to work it could save quite a bit of the tax payers money.
One of the other mechanics is in charge of this particular project. I'm just sorta on the outside edges and watching. He's found several different designs for the hydrogen generator ranging from very simple and crude to one thats complex and works with the vehicles electronics.
He's starting out with the simple ones and working his way up. Bear in mind that this project is just getting started and it is a spare time thing at that. Could be some time before we get any definative results.
So far he has built a working mason jar hydrogen generator. As expected the gas output is on the low side.
The test vehicle is a Ford Ranger pick-up. Static tests while monitoring the vehicle's data stream do not look promising. There has been little to no change in the oxygen sensor readings which is what controls the fuel ratio.
He's decided to move on to other generator designs.
As I said, this could take some time to fully study. When and if we reach any final conclusions I will post about it.
Stay tuned.

P. T. Barnum said "There's a sucker born every minute" He was wrong. There are LOTS of them born every minute. This scam is as old as the hills.

The con man promises an poor underpaid city working man a Tremendous New thing. A "study" is undertaken by these ignorant city fathers, the con man gets it in the papers, The locals rush in, and by the time the city finds nothing but smoke, the con man is gone with the local's money.

"A fool and his money are soon parted"

quote:

Originally posted by Lee in Quartzsite:
Interesting concept. There are systems now coming out for internal combustion engines, but they cost a lot more than $75.00.

There are many different generators available at just about any price you want to pay. The 75.00 "fruit jar" version is at the bottom end of the scale. As they become more expensive and elaborate, the basics are still the same. What changes is the size of the cells, the number of the cells, addition of control and monitor circuits, safer and stronger containers, cooling for the cells, etc., etc...and oh yeah...a much higher price tag for something that may or may not work.
The welding/cutting units appear to be more practical due to size, cooling, a more constant use rate, and power sources being less of a problem. The welder size units probably produce enough to aid vehicle gas mileage but the long AC power cords get tangled in traffic....

Until someone can figure out how to get around the molecular bonds in water molecules without the consumption of energy, trying to convert water into 2 hydrogen and one oxygen molecule for fuel is a dead end.

We kicked this around on the forum about a year ago.

FRAUD.

It takes as much energy to generate hydrogen as the max you can get back. The "HHO" name is just an attempt to dress up an old scam.

Using the alternator "read burn gasoline" to generate a gas that you then burn in the engine is WASTEFUL because energy is lost to entropy. Even hear of the Second Law of Thermodynamics? (It's been around since 1865)

I teach physics and math in college and am continually AMAZED that so many people fall for this hokum. Obviously there are enough gullible people around who think a little electricity can generate FREE ENERGY to run the engine!!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: OKFC05,

The hydrogen generator works by drawing power from the electrical system to break down water to hydrogen and oxygen. It therefore requires the engine to work harder to run the alternator at a higher output in order to run the gas generator. Overall I would expect a decrease in gas mileage.

Without sophisticated current controls on the gas generator I would think a large one would very possibly cause damage to the alternator and/or voltage regulator due to causing them to run closer to peak output most of the time. Alternator output is not great enough to handle a large enough gas generator to do much of anything any way.

The power used to break down the hydrogen and oxygen is going to be more than the power gained by their recombining in the engine per the laws of thermodynamics I believe.

Taken to extremes if power gained was more than power used in making the hydrogen then we would have a perpetual motion machine. Again the laws of thermodamics say "no way jose".

BTW one of these devices was tried on Mythbusters with no noticed improvement in fuel mileage.

Lots of fuel mileage scams on the internet including such items as magnets to clamp on the fuel line etc. I can remember that one from long before the internet too. Small ads in car magazines and Popular Mechanics if memory serves.

I'm not sure what to think of that yet.
A friend of mine rigged one up, and I have
seen it in action. He's got in an old V8 powered
chevy van.
And yes, the first thing I thought of was how
similar it is to the electrolysis rig I sometime
use to clean metal that I dig up. I'd always
noticed the bubbles, but didn't really give much
thought to it being hydrogen gas.
He's got it sitting on the front floor board
and it's basically just a jar as you described,
and he runs it off the cig lighter I think.
A vacuum hose leads from the top of the jar to
a open vac port on the engine.
I ask him, does that thing actually work?
He said the jury is still out but he said it
made his engine run cleaner..??
I guess the carb settings, tune up, etc may
not be the greatest on his van, if he thought
it was burning dirty to begin with..
But he says he made the engine burn cleaner,
and maybe idle better.
So I ask, well have you done tests checking the
mpg?
He says, well a little at first, but not lately.
But then he goes on to explain that he's pretty
sure he's burning a lot less gas than before.
His reasoning was fueled by spending less money
per week for gas.
But then I say, well that's not much of a test.
You need to keep strict records, and test
with and without for certain periods of time.
He agreed, and said he would start keeping
records again.
So far I'm not really convinced it does too
much, but I'll try to get a another report
later.
It may well add a little fuel energy, but
whether it enough to actually notice a mpg
difference I dunno..
I will state that this guy is no dummy, and
is fairly sharp on technical things, but wishful
thinking may be overriding actual results.
IE: placebo effect...
I'll ask him about it again next time I see
him. But anyway, yep, I have actually seen one
in action, work or not...
BTW, I doubt the current draw is all that much.
I know that I run my electrolysis rigs off
wall warts, and the current draw is less than
an amp in most all cases. I use different
voltage wall warts depending how strong I want
the electrolysis action to occur.
So I don't really see the draw off the
electrical system as being too great.
Heck, it would blow the 15 amp or so lighter
fuse if it drew too much current.
I bet the actual draw is an amp or maybe even
less. That could be easily checked..

The individual HHO generators draw in the neighborhood of 6-8 amperes and above that rate they develop overheating problems and 6-8 amps isn't going to overwork the alternator or noticeably decrease horsepower. 6A X 12V = 72 watts which amounts to less than 1/10th horsepower. The question is whether an HHO generator capable of producing something less than two liters/min. of the Hydrogen-oxygen gas mix can improve the gas mileage of an existing gasoline or deisel vehicle.
One of the arguments used by the HHO promoters is that gas and diesel engines are so inefficient compared to a hydrogen powered engine that combining the gasoline and HHO fuel sources makes the gasoline engine more efficient enough to offset any power drain from the add on generator. HHO gas does appear to produce several times more energy than an equal volume of gasoline/air mix, so maybe there could be some miniscule mpg gain, but I ain't buyin' the 25-75% gain story until I see or hear proof from a reliable source.

Grayfox and MK,
That's great if you have some guinea pigs you can observe close up. Certainly would appreciate any updates you can get from either of those projects.
MK, the "fruit jar" on your friends floorboards sounds like the same type rig my buddy was talked into buying. He's slower than molasses, so it may be months before he gets it installed and we see any results from his vehicle.

It looks like the only free lunch for
internal combustion is the heat that
goes out the tailpipe.

Some method of producing fuel or amps that was based on heat would be using power that is already produced without causing more load
on the engine.

Any ideas?

quote:

One of the arguments used by the HHO promoters is that gas and diesel engines are so inefficient compared to a hydrogen powered engine that combining the gasoline and HHO fuel sources makes the gasoline engine more efficient enough to offset any power drain from the add on generator

This is "junk science gibberish."

The "efficient" way to run an engine on hydrogen is to generate it in large quantities at a power plant and store it under high pressure in the vehicle. However, it still takes more electricity to produce the hydrogen than the car can turn into horsepower.

Course you also need all the infrastructure to produce, store and distribute the hydrogen.

I've always wondered why exhaust or cat. convertor heat was not harnessed to pump freon through the AC system. And like it or not, regenerative braking and electric motors assisting the internal combustion engines is a sound plan. But cost too much money for a quick payback. There was a system a few years back that Navistar was working on for UPS that compressed hydraulic fluid pressure and then released it to get the truck away from a stop. I would be dissappointing to think a fruit jar and 12 volts were going to save the transportation industry.