# Completely crazy idea



## miscrms (Sep 25, 2013)

Using electricity stored in battery to make hydrogen to burn in an ICE will yield about 1/3 the range (if you are lucky) as using the same battery to turn an electric motor. You would also need a vastly powerful battery and a lot of water to make hydrogen fast enough to feed the ICE.


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## Hollie Maea (Dec 9, 2009)

To be clear, Hydrogen Cells (Fuel Cells, that is) create electricity, not motion. They replace the batteries in EVs, not the motors.


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## bigmotherwhale (Apr 15, 2011)

the combined system efficiency will be pretty horrendous, 
you could delete the alternator and use a bank of batteries and combine this with hho, electric water pump etc.. for more miles per gallon.


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## dcb (Dec 5, 2009)

bigmotherwhale said:


> the combined system efficiency will be pretty horrendous,
> you could delete the alternator and use a bank of batteries and combine this with hho, electric water pump etc.. for more miles per gallon.


that is still a crappy use of electricity. It would be better to motor the alternator from the battery...


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## bigmotherwhale (Apr 15, 2011)

dcb said:


> that is still a crappy use of electricity. It would be better to motor the alternator from the battery...


You have to do one first before you can do the other


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## dcb (Dec 5, 2009)

you said "combine with hho", sorry, but that is incredibly stupid.


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## bigmotherwhale (Apr 15, 2011)

dcb said:


> you said "combine with hho", sorry, but that is incredibly stupid.




You do realise that hho doesn't just have the effect of adding fuel for combustion? 
Hydrogen acts as a catalyst in the engine, increasing the speed in which the flame front on the fuel air mixture burns meaning you can set the engine closer to TDC and obtain more power and economy. This is why it has an effect at such a low concentration, and hence why using hundreds of watts to produce large amounts of gas is counter productive.

I see nothing stupid about using HHO, if its done from the alternator why not a battery - it will just never power a car on its own without adding another fuel


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## dcb (Dec 5, 2009)

bigmotherwhale said:


> Hydrogen acts as a catalyst in the engine


Like I said, incredibly stupid, as in belongs in the overunity thread stupid.


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## RIPPERTON (Jan 26, 2010)

Hollie Maea said:


> To be clear, Hydrogen Cells (Fuel Cells, that is) create electricity, not motion. They replace the batteries in EVs, not the motors.


He doesnt mean Fuel Cell he means HHO generator.
Fuel Cells ARE stupid because somewhere along the line you ave to store Hydrogen which is impractical as it leaks through any substance.
HHO systems imply you burn the HHO a couple of seconds after its made so you dont have a storage problem.
A solar panel recharging a lithium pack might make sense but you would have to try it.


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## Duncan (Dec 8, 2008)

bigmotherwhale said:


> You do realise that hho doesn't just have the effect of adding fuel for combustion?
> Hydrogen acts as a catalyst in the engine, increasing the speed in which the flame front on the fuel air mixture burns meaning you can set the engine closer to TDC and obtain more power and economy. This is why it has an effect at such a low concentration, and hence why using hundreds of watts to produce large amounts of gas is counter productive.
> 
> I see nothing stupid about using HHO, if its done from the alternator why not a battery - it will just never power a car on its own without adding another fuel


No it doesn't!

I'm sorry whale but that is simple blether from the HHO idiots
IC engine combustion is a well understood science - and adding some HHO 
(1) does not effect the flame front
(2) accelerating the flame front would be a BAAD idea - it's called pre-ignition and it can destroy your engine in minutes

_you can set the engine closer to TDC and obtain more power and economy._
That is "Retarding the ignition" and would give LESS power and worse economy!!

The limit on ignition advance is when you get detonation - there is another limit when the NOX gets too high, 

Engineers working on increasing the efficiency of their IC engines would sacrifice their granny for an extra 2% in efficiency - HHO is just a scam


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## bigmotherwhale (Apr 15, 2011)

Stupid?! Citations? 

Its okay Duncan i don't mind some actual input other than "its stupid" That's a dumb answer.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212017314000553

"The cylinder temperature and the peak cylinder pressure increase, while the
flame development and propagation durations reduce with the increase of hydrogen addition. HC and CO emissionsl"

" Bmep rises as the hydrogen fraction increases compared to pure gasoline operation. The proper explanation for
such a trend is, hydrogen has a much wider flammable range, a much faster flame propagation speed and a much
higher adiabatic flame temperature than those of gasoline, which help extend the flammable range and accelerate the
combustion of gasoline–hydrogen–air mixtures."

I wonder if you have actually done your own tests? where did you get your information from? the results here seem to support the conclusions i made from tests on a single cylinder honda engine. 

If this really has no effect why does addition of hydrogen change the timing rage so dramatically in which the engine will run? i found a shift of the running range towards BTDC, which supports the propagation speed theory and agrees with the results of this paper.


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## dcb (Dec 5, 2009)

bigmotherwhale said:


> actual input other than "its stupid"


Well, don't you think it is incredibly stupid for you to be discussing this in the EV conversion forum?!? There are just so many stupids with HHO that you just need to fuck off with it.

"Catalyst" HAHAHAH OMG IT HURTS IT IS SO F-ING STUPID!!!


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## bigmotherwhale (Apr 15, 2011)

Hang on a min! isn't it you who started talking about HHO? Your the one who called me up on it when i suggested he ran his ancillaries from a battery, and at that point i was merely using it as an example as it had been mentioned it before. 

I think your just rude regardless of who is right or wrong, i don't really care as your mind is obviously made up already so it is stupid to call this a discussion anyway.


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## dcb (Dec 5, 2009)

like I said, INCREDIBLY STUPID.

I suggested draining a battery to power a motor (i.e. the alternator) and for some unknown reason you think HHO is a better idea.

Do all the math, then realize that is completely ridiculous. YOU ARE WRONG END OF STORY!!!

Expecting me to do your homework is beyond rude.

As is perpetuating the discussion in this section of the forum, it belongs in the overunity thread.


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## bigmotherwhale (Apr 15, 2011)

i suggested removing the alternator and using a battery to power the ancillaries and as i said before you have to do one before you can do the other.

I never said i thought HHO was a better idea, i think you need to re read what i said pay attention to where i said "Miles per gallon" do you think i was talking about gallons of HHO?

You just like to name call and sit on your high horse. 

the only thing i have done here that is stupid, is continue to post.


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## ryan27968 (Mar 1, 2016)

dcb said:


> As is perpetuating the discussion in this section of the forum, it belongs in the overunity thread.


I fail to understand how this is overunity? It's running a fuel "generator" off of a separate battery pack. If it were running off the car battery, then I agree. It is overunity. But running off a separate power source is not overunity at all. Yes, I know it would be much less efficient. I know range would not be good. I know performance will be terrible. But it's easier and cheaper. I'm just getting thoughts on it.


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## dcb (Dec 5, 2009)

ryan27968 said:


> But it's easier and cheaper.


That is the "vortex generator" approach, i.e. you will build it and then you are kind-of stuck believing that it actually does something, and will never be able to test it objectively.

The paper used a tank of hydrogen, and only saw improvements in some areas (not volumetric efficiency) under low load. And only with specific amounts (i.e. 20% hydrogen!!!)

I just avoid low load altogether, because it is usually inefficient, even in electrics.

But this is the "overunity" thread, it doesn't have to be overunity, just a bad idea, i.e. it says "alternators" but you can replace that with "wall charger" for our purposes here, no difference.

http://www.diyelectriccar.com/forum...-free-energy-perpetual-motion-over-13449.html


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## ryan27968 (Mar 1, 2016)

dcb said:


> ryan27968 said:
> 
> 
> > But it's easier and cheaper.
> ...


I think you misunderstand what I'm suggesting here. I'm not talking about an efficiency booster. I'm talking about running only off hydrogen. Get rid of the petrol completely. I know that ice engines can run off hydrogen alone. I saw a video where a guy sort of did what I'm suggesting, except that he had a giant hydrogen tank in his back seat and he made the hydrogen at home using solar panels. It worked. He was essentially running a car off water and sun alone. The problem with this is that it's insanely dangerous to be carrying around giant tanks of hydrogen, along with the problem of leaking. I'm thinking a similar system except real-time.


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## dcb (Dec 5, 2009)

ok, I was responding to whale, who should know better than to introduce "a little hho" and expect not to get called on it.

back to your post:


ryan27968 said:


> Motors and controllers are some of the most expensive elements of evs.


That is actually not the case anymore, diy controllers are in the <$500 range with lots of power and motors can be had < $200. Plus logic boards for driving junkyard OEM EV's are starting to materialize.

The most expensive part remains the battery, and using it to create hydrogen to run a maybe 30% efficient internal combustion engine is, well, no nice way to put it, stupid. Compared to running a maybe 90% efficient and quite affordable electric motor?

why does this merit any more thought and discussion than that?


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## evmetro (Apr 9, 2012)

Although I don't endorse DCBs diplomatic skills, I am inclined to fall in line with his position on the situation. HHO may have its place in the world, but in the automotive industry, i see it is a red flashing light. Stupid, but not in all caps since you are just exploring an idea.


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## dcb (Dec 5, 2009)

Oh yah, I'm not ticked at OP for asking about straight hydrogen, but at whale for encouraging HHO specifically (especially since OP knows it is a scam), that is where things get capitalized.



bigmotherwhale said:


> and combine this with hho, electric water pump etc.. for more miles per gallon.


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## ryan27968 (Mar 1, 2016)

dcb said:


> ok, I was responding to whale, who should know better than to introduce "a little hho" and expect not to get called on it.
> 
> back to your post:
> 
> ...


Great. Thanks. You're the first person here being helpful. However, keep this in mind: electric forklifts are nearly nonexistent here in south Africa. The cheapest I could find is R30000/$2000 for an ancient Toyota forklift with dead batteries. Even assuming I could use the controller from it, that's pretty expensive. Also, an ev conversion is not easy. It takes a long time. You could build a hydrogen generator in an afternoon. One last thing: I could probably get batteries for free. I work at a computer store and we sell a good amount of replacement laptop batteries. I could most likely get all the old ones to steal 18650 cells out of.


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## dcb (Dec 5, 2009)

I mean, things are shipped, that is how the batteries got to south africa in the first place. I buy things from all over the planet, though I try to do my homework before ordering them (especially in diy space).


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## ryan27968 (Mar 1, 2016)

With the rand-dollar exchange right now, that could get pricey quite quickly. Not to mention the weight of these things and the 14% import duties.


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## Moltenmetal (Mar 20, 2014)

Any hydrogen generator you build at home in an afternoon will be dangerous and inefficient to the extreme. Then there's the matter of storing hydrogen, which as a liquid is only 75 kg/m3. You need huge tanks and high pressure to store enough to run anything, and you don't find those compressors just laying around- use a compressor designed for air to compress hydrogen and you're in for a very rude and unpleasant surprise that might damage not just you, but your neighbours as well....

More than 10% of the energy in the fuel on board is needed just to run the compressors, and that figure can rise to 50% or even higher as the scale of those compressors drops.

If you're then going to feed that hydrogen into a pathetically inefficient IC engine instead of a 60% efficient PEM fuelcell, you've just generated an enormous waste of time. Electrolysis (60% at best) times storage (90% at best) times the IC engine's efficiency (say 25%) is a pathetic 12% efficient from energy source to fuel on board. Even with a 60% efficient PEM fuelcell, it still sucks. Compare that to 90% using Li-ion batteries. Even if you had an infinite supply of free renewable electricity, this would still be dumbass.

When you electrolyze water you get hydrogen (H2) and oxygen (O2). This "HHO" nonsense is just that- nonsense. if you run a membrane or salt bridge separated cell, you get the hydrogen and oxygen separate from one another, which is far safer- but half the energy went into making the oxygen which you're just going to vent. Poof, there goes your energy!

When you run a mixed electrolysis cell you get an incredibly dangerous stoichiometric mixture of H2 and O2 also known as Brown's Gas. You cannot compress it safely. Storing it at pressure is the definition of foolhardy. And using it as a fuel in an engine designed to be naturally aspirated (i.e. to run on air) is both dangerous and foolhardy.

Adding onboard-generated Brown's Gas as a co-feed with another fuel (i.e. gasoline) as a means to improve fuel efficiency is a well documented scam. It needs no further debate here. At the end of the day, to increase the efficiency of a heat engine you either need to increase the temperature of the hot reservoir (emissions (NOx) plus durability and materials problems) or to increase the completeness of combustion (in an IC engine, there's nothing left in the exhaust to burn more thoroughly- look at an exhaust gas analysis and ask yourself- what's left to burn?). There's no magic flamefront voodoo at work here, just phreaking of the emission controls system in the car by feeding it a fuel mixture it can't detect properly and wasn't designed for. If you want increased efficiency at the cost of dramatically worse emissions, talk about it somewhere else!


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## ryan27968 (Mar 1, 2016)

Moltenmetal said:


> Any hydrogen generator you build at home in an afternoon will be dangerous and inefficient to the extreme. Then there's the matter of storing hydrogen, which as a liquid is only 75 kg/m3. You need huge tanks and high pressure to store enough to run anything, and you don't find those compressors just laying around- use a compressor designed for air to compress hydrogen and you're in for a very rude and unpleasant surprise that might damage not just you, but your neighbours as well....
> 
> More than 10% of the energy in the fuel on board is needed just to run the compressors, and that figure can rise to 50% or even higher as the scale of those compressors drops.
> 
> ...


I appreciate the points you made about the safety/efficiency of electrolysis. However, I think you did not read me earlier posts. I'm not talking about running an hho/petrol hybrid. I'm talking about hho only. Next, won't be storing the hho at all. It's gonna go straight from the generator to the carburetor.


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## dcb (Dec 5, 2009)

so you mentioned controllers...

well hho is typically low voltage, so the hho controller is a low voltage affair, ~1.5v, or is a rather complicated multi-cell job.

lets say you want 100hp out of your engine, and being low voltage your controller is maybe %50 efficient (plus zero research), and the electrolysis (just a swag) is 60% efficient, feeding a %30 efficient ICE. for an overall 10% efficiency. 

That means you need 10x the batteries of a normal Electric vehicle, or about 6600lbs worth if it were a nissan leaf (which makes about 100hp) and the range and handling and acceleration would be terrible, plus it would consume large quantities of water.

and you need a non-existent 1000 hp controller that puts out about 1.5v and handles about 50,000 amps (that will need a very large inductor)...

Since you claim to have access to lots of batteries (good luck with used batteries...), and I know there are plenty of AC motors available there, then just sort out a high voltage pack and controller, though coupling it to the drive-line is its own challenge.

But this "crazy" idea is really a non-starter.


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## bigmotherwhale (Apr 15, 2011)

dcb said:


> Oh yah, I'm not ticked at OP for asking about straight hydrogen, but at whale for encouraging HHO specifically (especially since OP knows it is a scam), that is where things get capitalized.


Your annoyed at me for having a different opinion to you?

I posted study where an improvement was show in engine efficiency as well as a reduction in pollution and you just called me stupid in a variety of different ways, you offered no evidence other that "knowing its a scam" (are you a religious type?!)

heres another study, this one with HHO instead of pure hydrogen

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1110016815001714

again an improvement. 

If you have reasons for thinking it doesn't work other than a belief, please share them, specifically real world tests, and i will listen. 
Or will i get a barrage of swearing again?


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## Duncan (Dec 8, 2008)

Hi Guys
Please turn down the rudeness knob and turn the politeness knob up a bit

To the OP
Your idea would work - BUT the overall efficiency would be absolutely appalling 10% or worse
That would mean a huge and heavy battery bank
If you were using modern lithium batteries you would be limited to about 20Km range,
Using Lead acid I would be surprised if it would do 2km

Motors/controllers
There will be companies doing electric motor repairs - contact them - and see what they have, my motor cost me $100

Controllers - look up the Paul & Sabrina OpenRevolt - the kit is about $600


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## miscrms (Sep 25, 2013)

dcb's wag of 50,000 Amps based on efficiency assumptions actually looks pretty close. 

30mpge hydrogen ICE 
1GGE hydrogen = ~1kG
~33.3g/mi required on average

Cruising at 60mph requires 33.3g/min

Typical hydrogen electrolysis production = 0.007SPLM / Amp
1SPLM Hydrogen = ~0.0841g/min
0.007SPLM / Amp = 0.589mg/min / Amp

33.3g/min / 0.589mg/min/Amp = 56,555 Amps

Note this is continuous for cruising, acceleration would take considerably more flow / Amps.

Rob


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## evmetro (Apr 9, 2012)

It would be interesting if one of us who really knows better than to have anything to do with hho in regards to the automotive industry, were to jump on board the scam and start selling hho kits. I have been approached before by people who try to get me interested in their product, and I can usually tell right away that they have no idea what they are talking about. They usually aren't even prepared to process any discussion of perpetual motion or over unity. If one of us who knows what is really going on were to sell those kits, we could probably make it sound even more believable. I suppose it would be just my luck that I would unknowingly stumble onto DCB...


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## Moltenmetal (Mar 20, 2014)

ryan: if you carefully re-read my post, you'll see what I think of the idea of feeding Brown's gas to an engine designed to be air aspirated. It's a very bad idea. Even if you were able to re-engineer an engine such that it were capable of running and surviving long term on Brown's gas, the energy efficiency hits I talked about still make it a really wasteful way to convert and store energy.


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## Moltenmetal (Mar 20, 2014)

BTW feeding a little Brown's gas to an air aspirated engine isn't anywhere nearly as dangerous- it's just extremely unlikely to improve energy efficiency if the Brown's gas is made using the output of the same engine. Negligibly likely in fact, given the enormous energy efficiency hit resulting from making Brown's gas from water.


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