Aron and I have started to build our own homemade HHO fuel cells. What we are working on isn’t rocket surgery, folks. These basic fuel cells that everyone on the internet seems to be churning out for their hho kits they sell aren’t very complicated. Even so, you can really screw up and cause an explosion. In fact, we did blow up our second HHO prototype. It was on Aron’s table in his house when both end caps and the anodes blew out of the casing. Our best guess is that a corroded connection arced and lit the hydrogen oxygen gas mixture, resulting in a blast that Aron says nearly blew his eardrums and the windows in his kitchen. No one was hurt, but the generator is non functional. We have since improved our design by removing all wires and soldered connections with a one piece anode made from stainless steel (corrosion proof).
If you go to look at our video on YouTube, you will see that Smartscarecrow left a comment pointing out we would have had a real problem if we had used a glass container instead of plastic. You may know that there are units with glass containers being sold online. I wonder how one of these units would hold up mounted under the hood of a car, with vibration and possible road garbage bouncing up.
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May 17th, 2008 at 8:37 pm
What about a design that keeps H and O2 gases separate until they are injected into the engine, or just prior?
Tim Says:May 20th, 2008 at 2:05 am
I don’t see the need for that. Just don’t have poor connections inside an explosive gas mixture. Our designs now have solid stainless steel with no internal connections. To separate the gases would double the size and complexity of the unit, and make it more failure prone as well as harder to install on a vehicle.
Bob Cowart Says:May 28th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
I don’t see how your genartor can produce enough HHO to provide an adquate amount to produce any savings.
Tim Says:May 29th, 2008 at 2:57 am
There are two different camps out there, as I see it. Some people are trying to replace gasoline with a huge quantity of Hydrogen Oxygen mixture. We are not trying to do that. You are right, if we were our generators would not produce enough.
Michael Says:The thing is, we have made some huge gains by producing less. We are trying to get the right mixture which will enable the gasoline to burn completely and more efficiently. We are getting the 35% and up fuel economy gains from what we are doing, we have decided to experiment some more and go over our entire process again. You can believe our results or not as you will.
June 10th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
is it possible that the canister exploded because there was no venting? From the video it looked like there was no outlet for the gas while it was being generated. Is this not the case?
Tim Says:i’m looking into building one of my own and if the capsul was vented then this presents a serious problem for me.
June 10th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
Michael:
Alex Says:What?!?
Do you actually think we built a sealed container and then wondered why it exploded?!@!@ I don’t understand your thought process on this one.
If the container was sealed, how would we be testing it for production, with an x ray machine or with our x ray vision? Were we using teleportation to get the gas to the engine?
Let’s get serious here.
June 13th, 2008 at 2:14 am
First I want to thank you for your great site!
I’m Hours new on this, but this is my common sence…
I like to give my input for Michael. I believe that the explosion was caused by one of the electrodes getting too hot or creating corrosion with the wire, that might have caused an spark inside the chamber and that for the explosion with the Hydrogen been generated.
Homan Huang Says:June 15th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
Mine is exploded too because the wire overheat on the top cap.
Bob Says:June 24th, 2008 at 6:19 am
Thanks for the great site. Have you experimented with retarding the ignition timing to improve your efficiency results? Since H2 combusts 40 times faster than gas (virtually instantaneously) there may be less, or possibly no, need to advance the timing. In fact, by advancing the timing (as all gas engines are tuned to do) aren’t you are actually creating counter-product work against the crankshaft when the H2 ignites several degrees before TDC (top dead center). I know that pure H2 engines are tuned to fire at virtually TDC. I haven’t built an HHO booster yet but I’m planning to. What I haven’t heard anyone anywhere comment on yet is whether it makes sense to retard the timing at or close to TDC when using an HHO booster.
Aaron Says:July 6th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
How are you able to keep the PVC from getting to hot and changing shape after long term running in a car. Many of the tests i watched showed that the bubbler could not sufficiently cool the apparatus. I am about to try to build my first HHO generator and this seems to be one of the problems that many have run into. Why? And What to Do?
Aron Says:July 9th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
Hi Aaron. From our experience a generator that draws 10 amps at 12v needs at least four litres of water. This has been enough area to disperse the heat. Most of our tests have had the generator mounted behind the front bumper but one was in the engine bay and it has run for three months under vacuum successfully. Your climate could however be to warm to cool the plastic enough. Try it, pvc is cheap.
Joshua Says:July 10th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
I did the same thing last night haha… I tried to light the torch end of my tube, and KABOOOM, my left ear still rings when I talk but my right one has regained it’s hearing abilities thank goodness… Time for round two!!!
shomas Says:September 12th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
any thoughts on using less electrolyte to lessen the current and reduce the excess heat.
Dan Says:October 11th, 2008 at 2:00 am
The whole idea behind this contraption is to create HHO gas right? So, how do you know you’re creating HHO gas and not just water vapor? I mean, separating the H2 and O2 gas with cathod/anode is easy, but I assume that creating HHO gas instead of just water vapor has to be a little more difficult.
Daniel Says:January 18th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
Ok quick answer…..add spark. if you get a bang…you have HHO.
also. there is not enough heat generated off the bat to create vapor and the Electrolysis (Sp?) is pretty well grounded in science.
I built my own generator (a small mason jar contraption) i discoveredthat the lid will flex enough to blow off instead of taking out the jar (scared the hell out of me)
however PVC is a much safer option.