Deep cycle battery solar recharge.

[Aquatron]

Hi,

Just a little question if you think it might be of some help to others.

Would it not be better to use a marine deep cycle battery that is recharged from a solar cell to run a hydrogen generator. It seems to me that if people are worried about it requiring more power to produce the hydrogen than you get back after burning the combined hydrogen-oxygen and gasoline, then why not remove the system completely from the engines electrical system and just use the deep cycle battery to produce fuel. These batteries are capable of running at 20 amps for a long time without discharging too far. The battery can be trickle charged with the solar panel not only while the battery is in use but when you have parked it for while and you go to work or have parked it for the day. I am going to install it in the bed of pickup truck but the battery could also be in the trunk of a car.

Another idea is to use platinum plated stainless anodes. This may sound expensive but the plate size only has to be half the size as the hydrogen producing cathode. The amount of platinum plating can be extremely thin and this will keep the anode from breaking down and forming the rust colored water for a very long time. These types of anodes are used in the production of commercial products and are used because the plates last a long time.

These are things that I am trying and want to know your opinion of.

Thank you.
Steven P

[JanGeo]

YUP definately both are great ideas. The HHO generator and solar powered/charged battery makes your vehicle a hybrid / pluging hybrid plus even if you were charging off the grid it would still be much cheeper than the gasoline energy costs. Platimum wire electrodes were used in my science class back in highschool when platinum was much cheeper than it is today and the water was spiked with sulfuric acid to make it conductive - made gas very well with low voltage and the acid solution stayed clear.

[bobc455]

Essentially you are using solar power instead of engine power to provide energy for the Hydrogen. Great idea, but it will take a considerably-sized solar cell to provide the sort of current to recharge the battery. Much larger than these business-card-sized things that I see some people put on their dashboard.

-BC

[GasSavers_BEEF]

*edit* dang it, bobby beat me to it.

how big a solar panel are you planning on using. I like the idea, I really do. the last time I checked, solar panels are not cheap. neither are marine batteries.

another idea if you are limited by solar panel charge times is to get 2 marine batteries so that one is always on the charger.

this probably has more merrit than any HHO system that I have heard of. I am not a big fan of HHO because of the losses of the electrical system. I still have my doubts about overall profitability. that being said, you can transfer this system from one vehicle to another so that the initial cost could be spread over a long period of time.

someone had suggested before to have an external battery (not hooked to the cars electrical) and use a charger (grid power) to charge the battery from time to time. this would lower the initial cost but you would have operating costs. I think it was RIDE (user name) that suggested it. can't remember because it was a few months back when it was suggested.

I think a big determining factor in how to go about it would be the cost of materials. the generators are relatively cheap (from what I hear) if you build them yourself but the battery and solar panel could get expensive.

start a gas log. I am sure several people would love to see how this idea works.

[Lug_Nut]

20 amperes discharge for an hour will require 10 hours recharge at 2 amperes.
I've a pair of solar panels, one in the car, one on the storage shed. These are about a foot area, produce a peak of 18 volts (at no load) and about 3.6 watts in perpendicular full sunlight.
3.6 watts at 18 volts is .2 amperes. One of these panels I have will require 100 hours of direct perpendicular (tracking) solar exposure to put back one hour of 20 ampere discharge.
The one in the car keeps the clock and radio memory from draining the fully charged battery when the car sits for days on end without being started.
The panel for the shed tops off a car battery that runs an inverter for low consumption (one 15 watt c-f, or a pair of 40 watt tubes) lights in the shed. It takes almost a week of 8~10 hour charge days to provide barely an hour of light with the 80 watt ones on. That's why I now have a "low beam" c-f in there too.

[JanGeo]

Get a wind generator - works on windy days and at night and usually they are cheeper and put out about 400watts - way more than a solar panel. The return on investment is going to be long term however.

[bobc455]

Originally Posted by Lug_Nut

20 amperes discharge for an hour will require 10 hours recharge at 2 amperes.

Nope, charging is not a 100% efficient process. It'll take more than that. (Sorry I can't cite the specific efficiency, since that would help with the conversation, but I'd rather let someone who knows the specifics give some efficiency numbers. But if you have a laptop, for example, you'll probably have observed that it's a lot quicker to go from 0 - 15% battery charge than from 85% to 100% charge.)

But you are kinda implying that solar cells are essentially a "current source" and not a "voltage source", which is the correct way to think of the situation.

-BC

[theholycow]

Originally Posted by JanGeo

Get a wind generator

...and attach it to the car.




























j/k

[JanGeo]

Actually with Lead batteries the amp hours out is almost the same as the amp hours in but you have to charge with a higher voltage so the energy is greater for charging than what you get back out. A good LEad battery should return about the same amp hours however. Laptops have Lithium batteries and they are a bit more efficient returning almost as much in as out also again charging takes a little higher voltage but not as much as a lead battery so they are more efficient however the final 10% charge will take a while to be absorbed as the battery ages it will take even longer. NiMh and NiCad batteries are less efficient than any of the other chemistries and usually have a high leakage rate loosing as much as 10% in a single day after a full charge plus to fully charge them you have to pump in an extra 10-20% more energy than you get out.

[african_andy189]

This is silly, converting light to electricity(14 percent efficiency) to charge batteries(probably a little power lost to heat in the charge controller), then powering a HHO generator(which is probably 20 percent efficient at most) and then power a car that's maybe 20 percent efficient. As many power losses as possible basically!

It is such an inefficient way of getting power.Why waste the time with this, electric power is the only way forward - the technology is easily apply-able to any car, lithium ion batteries now make even more power per kg available.All the technology exists, even with lead acid batteries you can make a decent electric car.Batteries were the biggest limiting factor - not anymore.

Yeah hydrogen is sticking it to the man but its just not practical,the amount of power used to convert water to hydrogen is rediculous, if there is a more efficient way then it might be possible.To have enough hydrogen to run your car you'd have to have a generator that is probably the size of your car and draws killowatts not milliWatts like they say.

with electric power you can be completely independent and self reliant, the only reason the governent is moving towards hydrogen is because they can make an infrastructure and pipe it and charge per litre.

Why has no one replicated the stanley meyer circuits that break water down using tiny amounts of power?If somone had actually done it there would have been a real revolution and people would demand water powered cars.

The funny thing is when people build these things no one EVER shows any results.If you get results i'd be glad to look at them, i wanted this to work aswell - i built one myself. I am completely open minded to these things but people have to see the truth of it all.

The logic of HHO generators is like the logic of a child putting a generator on the front wheel of his bike to power a motor on the back wheel.