Controlling Amperage
 

How do you control the amperage going to the HHO generator/what's a good power source?

not that I am agreeing with this stuff but simply answering the question

if you look at your generators as resistors, one simple thing you could do is series several of them together. another alternative is to use a PWM which pulses the voltage thus giving it a lower average voltage input thus giving it a lower current draw.

also a good idea in doing all of this is to have some way (ammeter) to monitor the current draw.

Ahh. Thanks. So simple.

On a side note, I'm a skeptic as well... But am givin it a shot anyway.

if I were you (and I am not) I would go with the tried and true methods first. if you want to experiment afterwards, that's cool.

there are just so many people playing with HHO that are still running around with 20psi of air in their tires and with their grill exposed and they seem to be doing it in a gas guzzling car.

I say do the easy stuff first. get your mileage up there, sometimes way up there. after all of that, if you still want to play with or experiment with other things, have at it.

when I say easy stuff, please see "201 tips to save gas" at the top of the page. I don't agree with all of them but there is some good advice there.

clamp on ammeters aren't cheap, especially if you get a good one (fluke). so if this isn't something you have lying around or readily accesible then all the profits of your HHO (if you ever see any) will be turned into equipment expenses.

If you own your own business you can always write one off as a business expense. Just last week I bought an infared thermometer, which is an indespensible tool for troubleshooting bad steam traps at work, but has many other applications, like automotive and in the kitchen... :D

-Jay

Clamp on ammeters are $10 to $20 at Harbor Freight, but may only be able to measure AC amps with the clamp. I have one from there that I used to measure current draw on a bunch of servers. I added them up, sent the figure to the guy who needed it, and forgot about it until yesterday when I foudn a note from my predecessor about power usage...which said the same thing as my number. That's accurate enough for me. :thumbup:

Regulating amperage is very wasteful. You want to regulate voltage.

if you notice my first post, the responses I had suggested just that.

there again, not that I am agreeing with all of this HHO stuff.

also, if you don't adjust the overall resistance of the generator, then the lower current can only be achieved with lower voltage. ohms law is a slap in the face sometimes.

V = IR

*EDIT* on a side note, the equipment I use is very accurate and also application specific. a network analyzer that goes up to 20GHZ. of course I work for a company because a basline model costs somewhere around 50k. there are guys that contract out and I am sure they charge a lot just because of the equipment they have to carry.

In reference to the deleted post:

i think "nice" is a relative term. the pwm that you are trying to sell looks like a college project using parts from radio shack. in fact, I believe I have just about all of those parts in my garage left over from some college projects that I worked on almost 10 years ago.

If I had to guess I would say that you are simply feeding the 12 volts through a chopping transistor and you have an ammeter on the setup. all in a neat little RADIO SHACK enclosure. If I were you, I would have went with the aluminum face plate. it makes it look more up-scale. so you could sell it for even more

...or, a new one that sells cheap:
https://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=95778
https://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/pho...5799/95778.gif

$4.99 (a dollar less in the store during the current sale).

Actually, voltage and resistance are the driving forces behind amperage. The battery supplies voltage and the electrolite creates the resistance, which in turn ups the amps ;)

The amount of gas produced is a direct function of the current flowing. Keep the solution in the cell as conductive as possible without disolving the plate material is very desirable and increases efficency of the generator and reduces heat per volume of gas produced. Simply applying 12 volts and varying the concentration is going to result in a lot of the voltage being used to produce heat = Volts x Amps = heat in watts. Since only the amps make the gas you want to make the cell drop as little voltage across the cells as possible. One way to do this is to use several cells in series each one dropping some of the 12 volts total and the gas produced is Amps x Number of cells. Another way is to use a chopper circuit with an Inductor and Capacitor and a "flyback" diode to switch regulate the battery 12 volts down to what a single cells wants to see for voltage and in the process you keep the current to the cell high but reduce the battery current by an amount equal to the cell voltage divided by 12 volts i.e. if the cell voltage was 1.2 volts you would draw 10 amps from the battery and conduct 100 amps in the cell - (1/10th) - if you had switching components that could handle that much current . . . like I have.

there is a relationship between current, voltage, and overall resistance.

good old ohm's law.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohm's_law

for those who don't know.

the theory is simple, the application can sometimes be a bear

my two cents
 

What I have seen is that a PWM is used for the single cell units. The amount of electrolyte is a factor as well. A lot of the devices may look like a college project but some of us don't even have the training or experience in electronics to build one. This is probably bad because we don't really understand how it works.

I have been looking for a way to hook up a amp meter with a LCD that I can install in the cab and not have the 10-25 amps running in the cab. A malfunction /overheat of the wire could mean fire under the dash. If any one can build a unit or has details on what I need then please help.

Figured I need a shunt under hood. The ones I found were not cheap. Not sure about how to size it. and what I need to make it read on a LCD . Want mili amps in the cab

Infrared thermometer for steam traps.... We just got a new ultrasonic device at work. You can test bearings, find air leaks, test steam traps(has temp reading) plus you can hear it without sticking a screw driver on it and detect electrical leaks by sound on high power lines(can't remember the technical term for it right now). It selects the frequency automatically and the one we have interfaces with a computer so you can log the data and history. Believe it's made by Emerson

How do common OEM amp meters do the job?

You could just make sure to use a fuse that's rated appropriately for the wire you're using.

You could use a clamp-on meter with the jaws cut off and relocated remotely using extra wire. I'm not sure how they work but this could cause the reading to be inaccurate (due to the extra resistance of the longer wire).

You could relocate the LCD remotely and leave the whole meter under the hood (whether clamp-on or not). You don't need to know anything about electronics, just basic soldering skills.

you could possibly put a freakin huge resistor (wattage rating) in line with it and read the voltage drop across it from the cab. that way you don't have high current lines under the dash.

maybe buy a 1 or 2 ohm resistor that can handle a couple of hundred watts (it will be physically big). mount it under the hood and use a radio shack volt meter to read the voltage drop. you would have to come up with a chart that tells you what the voltage drop will be at different amperages.

after writing this, it is probably more trouble than it is worth. it will work but there are probably easier ways to do it.

you could gut a multimeter and relocate the display near or on the dash. I think this was alread discussed.

PWM and amps
 

Got a bit carried away with the Arm & Hammer and my amps got too high. Pegged the 30A meter and blew the fuse, but wondered if a PWM would allow the same cell output with lower amps and heat?

PWM works great with motors that have inductance in the windings but not so good in this application. If you really want to regulate the energy into the HHO generator use a PWM circuit with a high frequency and a series inductor between it and the HHO generator.