After little nap it’s time to resume HHO research.I decided to take my time, look at the big picture and to decide on what things I need to focus. This article will provide a short review of the “HHO world” to arrange all the parts and choose path for the future.
If so, the main target of HHO system is to decrease total costs of fuel+maintenance by maximizing efficiency and minimizing MPG, under assumption that standard vehicle is being treated. The most basic idea of HHO system is an HHO generator which schematically connects to the engine in the following manner:
The most basic config – Just inject highly volatile hho gas and hope for something good to happen. Although it is generally a good idea to be optimistic, in our case this kind of hho cell connection isn’t expected to give improvement greater then 15% at best. This is the result of computer controlled modern engines – the computer isn’t “aware” of our intentions to connect hho generator and many time interrupts our attempt differently than we might hope. The fact is that as long as the hho cell providing hho gas which is in-fact hydrogen -- oxygen mixture, bigger percent of the remains is oxygen which is sensed by oxygen sensor. The car computer actually increases the fuel supply to compensate and ruins any efficiency gain we achieved by installing the hho generator in our car. In the worst case scenario the final result is worst than a car without hho cell. One more thing to consider is that HHO cell will consume energy from the car battery so it’s is not just a plug and play hho system but a delicate manner that require to find the working point that makes the whole process effective. (more on this later) The second configuration is HHO generator combined with HHO EFIE:
To make our HHO system a little bit more practical we need to add a device called HHO EFIE. EFIE stand for Electronic Fuel Injection Enhancer – such a bombastic name if you ask me… The EFIE sits between the oxygen sensor and the computer and adjusts the readings from the sensor to prevent the phenomena I described earlier. Make no mistake: This is the minimum viable hho system.
It contains of two parts which I described how to build in detail: 1) HHO generator / HHO cell 2) HHO EFIE
Here we can actually start and gain some serious MPG – improvement up to 50% is common and some cars / engines can even do more… We can expect great result here but only after some manual tuning – to make big MPG it is required to find the right working point and the exact amount of power to draw from battery for hho cell, to tune the hho cell properly, to adjust the EFIE to specific sensor and specific car computer, to keep the hho generator from going too hot / low on electrolyte and to make all those thing manually by trial and error. Moreover some of the initial conditions might change during the ride mostly due to temperature changes and so on… It is possible but require time and some skill. I believe that the missing part here is some form of closed loop which needed to monitor all the components and respond accordingly to changes which might occur along the way.
The Third Option – HHO generator + HHO EFIE + HHO Central Control Unit:
The achieve greatness we need to make HHO central control unit (maybe HHO CCU). The unit will be generic.
Small computers are found everywhere – and it not require a lot of computing power. To make HHO widely acceptable and used we must make a solution that cheap enough and generic enough that can fit for every one, a big project but once it is done will have huge impact on hho usage everywhere. This is my direction and I will start considering the alternatives to make it happen, stay tuned. What is OBD-II anyway?OBD II stands for On Board Diagnostic. An interface that can be used to control the engine, monitor different car parameters and read the “Check engine light” codes to determine possible problems. OBD-II can be found in most cars on the road today and it is a standard for all cars since 01/01/1996. OBD-II is the portal to communicate with the ECU – make sure you stay friendly.
What OBD-II can do for me?To read the OBD data it is necessary to plug into the OBD-II port that can be reached from the driver’s seat.The info reading is done by an external device such as Laptop or Scangauge 2 that can extract and present interesting data such as: Speed, RPM, timing advance, MAF air flow rate, Throttle position, oxygen sensor reading, engine coolant temperature. This data is critical for effectively control hho system and our plan is to tap this info into our control box for precise control. For example throttle position will be used to control how much power will be activated on the hho cell. Meanwhile we use Scangauge 2 to verify that our car is working like it spouse to together with HHO. Moreover OBD-II helps us to know what's wrong when “Check engine light” appears (Very common when playing with oxygen sensor reading and air/fuel ratio :] ), I use this Fault codes reference guide to determine the problem, saves lot of time and money not to garage the car every time the red light shows itself.
The RevolutionRev by DevToaster is the first iPhone application to connect with OBD-II interface. Real Time Metrics include: Vehicle Speed (including 0-60 time), RPM, Fuel Consumption, Engine Coolant, Temperature, Fuel Pressure and more. Rev also reads and lists engine codes and allows you to reset them as well! Rev communicates directly with your vehicle's ECU via an OBD-II hardware device. The hardware sends your data to Rev wirelessly.
Visit The rev home page. HHO generator 3D PDF model For Download
Published 5/31/2009
by First_Aider
in HHO to increase performance
Tags: hho generator, cad
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Many People requested me to upload an updated model of the First aid HHO generator (AKA hydrogen gas saver). I decided to response to this request: I prepared the full cad model and inserted it into PDF file that anyone can view with nothing more than adobe reader! The PDF model has a lot of options including assembly rotation part hiding and many more. Check it out:
I uploaded the PDF file to FileDen file sharing service because of completely selfish reasons…;] If you wish to build the suggested HHO gen. download the PDF now : Hydrogen gas saver PDF Have fun! Chasing the HHO outputs:
For that purpose we got a 4 lines x 20 letters LCD and prepared a nice case for it. The ingredients of our HHO screen:
All the buttons are normally open. The screen connects to the HHO control unit using printer cable, screen uses 8 + 3 pins to receive signal from the unit. After a very week or so of experimenting, we got the desired results from the screen (Screen data are fictional only for experiment):
Take a look at the guts of this baby:
Next mission is to place the screen in the passenger compartment and use it to find the best work point for our HHO cell. Meanwhile we consider to connect our HHO control unit to the ODB-2 port of the car and use it to receive vital data from the car’s computer like fuel consumption, RPM and so on. With an ODB-2 connection we will be able to use all the data that presented using Scangauge II for effectiveness calculations. To do this we will need to program an interface to ODB-2, Lot of work but for now it seems inevitable…:] Full hydrogen on demand: mechanical part is ready.
Published 5/21/2009
by First_Aider
in Full Hydrogen on demand
Last week we ended the building of our long-planned new full hydrogen on demand cell. This baby planed to be highly efficient and to use the maximum space possible of the water filter. Our target with this HHO cell was to produce high amount of HHO without overheating the tubes, the water and the electric wires. The details:
1 Standard 10” water filter housing. (we just love that item :] ) 18 couples of : stainless steel tubes, inner tube (ID 6, OD 8) , outer tube (ID 10, OD 12 mm). Between the tubes there is plastic place holders, we used plastic clips with the right thickness (1 mm). On top of each tube stainless steel electrical connection was welded to connect the tubes to electricity. After connecting the wires, all connections was isolated to prevent unwanted leakage current. From plans to real life:
The SSL tubes was the most expansive parts because we wanted high grade stainless steel according to the 316L standard. Tubes was cut to dimension of our choice (160 mm).
The PVC plates was cut using hacksaw from a bigger plates and drilled using desk-drill with the help of printed 1:1 version of the holes location can be found here: Base Drilling A4(PDF)
2 PVC plates for holding the tube couples in place, 3 threaded metal rods for stability between the PVC plates.
The 3 threaded rods connects the Tubing-home to the upper base. The upper base has two more rods, each one use both as electrical connection and as holder to tubing of this assembly. All inner tubes connected to one rod and all outer tube connected to the other. Might look just like this:
The final step is to connect the upper base to the cup of filter housing. this can easily be done by drilling two holes in the cup and attaching the cell’s body using the two upper rods.
The final result make us smile after all the hard work: a massive HHO generator. Take a look:
The next step is to find most effective point of this cell and to determine if one HHO cell is enough to drive car or maybe there is need for three or six or maybe ten cells to keep up with the pace needed to fuel a car only on HHO. The main function of the control unit is to provide the necessary PWM and other needed inputs to the HHO generator. This will allow us to test many different PWM configurations, leaving the electronic components unchanged. Changes to the PWM will be taken directly from program changes. In other words, PWN is controlled directly by a program. The heart of the control unit is a programmable microcontroller which provide low current PWN signal. The duty cycle and frequency of the PWM signal is determined by the code that was programmed into the microcontroller. Later, a transistor is used to amplify the signal to the proper working current (which is limited only by car’s battery). The system sketch looks pretty much like this:
All you need to do to change PWM values is to make minor changes in the program. In the future we will use to microcontroller to display important data to LCD screen during the work of the cell. Part required for the HHO control unit: 1)Microcontroller – this a microprocessor system which contains program memory, parallel and serial input/output, timers and interrupts – all integrated into single chip that can be bought for as little as two dollars. To harness a microcontroller to our HHO mission basic digital logic understanding is required, plus C language knowledge is an advantage. It is possible to program a microcontroller both with assembly and C, but C is much straight forward option because it is easy to learn and remains the same even with different microcontrollers. If you are new to microcontrollers you have nothing to worry, you can quickly close this gap because microcontrollers designed for easy learning and implementation. Plenty of learning material is available over the net and you can even read this fantastic book about microcontrollers for quick start:
This book helped me to become from total newbie to someone that can program his own microcontroller :]
The microcontroller of our choice is Microchip PIC18F8520 , info can be found here. It is cheap and is more than enough for our needs.
2)Mosfet Transistor - is a device used to amplify or switch electronic signals. It is used in the HHO control unit to amplify the PWM signal from the microcontroller using electric power from the battery. In this case the mosfet should be capable to work under load of at least 50 A x 12 V Continuously and at any given moment. Data sheet of my current Mosfet transistor: http://www.megachip.ru/pdf/VISH_IR/FB180SA10.pdf
3) Set of connectors – needed to connect this HHO unit to the outer world. 4) Good metal box – can be any good looking box with enough space for components.
In future we will add to this control unit many important HHO features and the best part: no hardware changes will be required only C code supplemental.
Note: This device is not a must for running HHO system in the car but it will greatly help us to find the most economic and the most efficient regime. You can wait for our results and just implement them in you device without complications. stay tuned for updates… Final result:
As you can see, we lunched this excellent blogging platform – Blogengine.net. Now all news from our research will be posted in the comfort of this stylish blog :] Check out the project page to receive status update of the Full hydrogen on demand project. Little Taste form project:
SSL plates can be treated for increased HHO production
Published 4/19/2009
by First_Aider
in HHO to increase performance
Tags: hho generator, wallplates
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In our design we use stainless steel wall plates as electrodes inside
the electrolyzer. These plates (or any other SSL plate) can produce
much more hydrogen as electrodes if proper treatment is applied. From
experiment that we did the production of HHO gas increased by 11% with
treated plates. The Flame Arrestor
Published 4/19/2009
by First_Aider
in HHO to increase performance
Tags: safety, hho generator
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A vital part of any Hydrogen on demand system is it’s safety
features. Due to the violent nature of HHO gas we can’t afford a flash
back to reach the electrolyzer. The most common solution is The HHO bubbler. Another interesting option is the Flame Arrestor. A simple assembly that prevents from flash backs reaching the electrolyzer. Scangauge II discount code
Published 4/19/2009
by First_Aider
in General news
Tags: scangauge
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After long time search I finally found this discount code and bring
it to you as fast as possible before it expires. 10$ worth the code is: flossuccess09 and can be used at the Thinkgeek gadget store. Just enter the code in the checkout page after address submit and choosing shipping method (see photo for example).
Use it before expire!
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