As some of you know, I’ve been a little tied up lately and so haven’t been working on my generator.  I did get to work on it some this past weekend and thought I’d pass along the experience. 

 

First, as I stated in an earlier email, I’d conceded my position on the use of baking soda for the catalyst.  A friend had some NaOH (Sodium Hydroxide) and graciously gave me a small amount and in so doing advised me that when I started to use it that it would clean up my stainless steal plates.  He also advised me to use a very small amount.  I dumped the old water from the generator and rinsed it out, then filled it with distilled water, 8 cups.  I then added ½ teaspoon of NaOH. Turned on the Astron power supply and the amp gauge read 10 amps, but there was nothing in the bubbler bottle.  The generator has “fizzed up” when I turned it on but was basically doing nothing after that.  I gave it a few minutes and still nothing so I decided to add another ½ teaspoon.  Turned the Astron back on and got 20 amps and hydro in the bubbler bottle.  After a few minutes the amp gauge was nearing 30 amps and so I decided to cut the solution.  I poured out 2 cups of solution and added back in 2 cups of distilled water.  The astron was showing 20 amps again but after a few minutes it was nearing 30 amps. 

There was a fair amount of crud that had gathered in the bottom of the generator, presumably the NaOH was cleaning up my generator from having used baking soda previously, so I decided to take the generator apart, strain the solution and again cut it with 2 cups of distilled water.  While I had it apart I noticed that my two outside plates, negative plates, were shiny along the edges, where the NaOH had started to clean them,  but had a film of rusty looking crud everywhere else.  My dremel was handy and already had a brass brush chucked up so I decided to just clean those two outside surfaces.  Put it all back together, cut the solution, turned on the astron and bam, it hit 40 amps. Needless to say, I had to cut the solution a couple of more times before I got it back to about 12.  I let it run for a couple of hours and it settled at about 20 amps hot.  This next weekend I’ll complete disassemble the generator and clean all of the plates.

I then put it back on the van, installing a relay this time so that it would work automatically when the motor was running.  This thing is still getting awfully hot after it runs for a while and one of the issues that I’ve had was that when it was hot and I’d turn it off, upon cooling it would suck all of the water out of my bubbler bottle.  I had a check valve which I could put in the line between the generator and the bubbler but that was going to create another problem.  If I prevented the generator from sucking water from the bottle, it was going to create a vacuum in the generator which had no way to equalize.  I stopped by Car Quest and found a vacuum check valve, $4.89.  This thing is perfect.  It has a very very low cracking pressure and the end that goes to the generator is the same size as a 1/8” copper line.  I got a ferrule fitting and plumbed it to my generator. Now as the generator starts to cool, it pulls air in through the new check valve and leaves the water in the bubbler.  The cracking pressure is so low that I didn’t need a check valve in the line between the bubbler and the generator. 

 

I had to go to Birmingham today and again tomorrow so I stopped and filled up this morning, after my trip tomorrow I’ll let you know what king of mileage I got.  Today’s trip has turned up another issue.  Although the generator ran for a couple of hours in my garage with no problems, during my trip today the bubbler bottle filled with solution.  My assumption is that is was from the condensation of the hot gases coming from the generator, but then why didn’t it do it in the garage.  The only difference is that the van was riding down the road but most of the trip was on the interstate where there was very little to no shaking that could have splashed water into the tube that connects the generator to the bubbler.  Again I state that this thing is getting awfully hot, which is probably the issue that I should concentrate on.

 

Ok, that’s all for now.  Hopefully there is something here that can be of benefit to you as you experiment.  Good luck.

 

Pete