Crazy gas saving scheme, will it work?

[jameskb2]

Re: Crazy gas saving scheme, will it work?

Thanks Wateinthefuel!

(How appropriate!)

I see....well, I could be confused, that's how I am generally.

heh heh.....

I was of the understanding that a water vapor in the air mixture creates a denser charge. I live in Michigan, and we can have some pretty foggy days in the early spring. I've experienced a mileage increase on those days. I drive a loaded up E-150 for work, logging some miles...

But, it could be something else as it's not a scientific method.

So, thanks for clarifying that.

I used to race small block chevy engines in my youth, I had a water injection system on one of them. (It was an 11:1 compression, normally aspirated and the injector was only run at over 2000 rpm) it seemed to help, although as the article said, it was more for detonation prevention.

I'm no Smokey Yunick though.

I'll crawl back under my rock now.

 

[jameskb2]

Re: Crazy gas saving scheme, will it work?

Sarge,

It's not the copper...or well...it is...but....

It's the surface area and orientation. Think of your rig like a battery. The plates in the battery are aligned in parallel, equally spaced to produce current.

You should have the same. Heck, you might be able to take an old battery and use the lead plates in there to do this. I don't know for sure, but I remember that in my experiment, the size of the carbon rods, and the distance and alignment were factors in creating gas. I imagine that two sets of rods (two pos two neg) would work well, (more current needed though). You would align them Pos-neg-neg-pos though, so that all four would be creating gas. A pos-neg-pos-neg would not be as efficient for gas production.

Also, I don't think that anything more than clean water is required. You are trying to extract the base elements from water...contaminating it with a soluble solid (to try and induce a better current flow...I know) is contaminating the experiment. You should, (it will work...) just use clean water.

IMO

 

[SS MAYFLOAT]

Re: Crazy gas saving scheme, will it work?

It seems to me that just about every vehicle on the road that has a battery already has access to hydrogen. The gas given off by the battery while it is charging is hydrogen. That is what causes batteries to blow up when a spark occurs too close to the battery. What if you took a small motorcycle battery and purposely overcharge it to make your hydrogen generator? While deleting the gas in the small battery, you will be removing the gas that would cause an explosion within the battery.

Just a thought to dwell on.......Good Luck.......Inventions are done by trial and error and if it isn't done and experimented with, nobody would ever know the outcome.

 

[Pony]

Re: Crazy gas saving scheme, will it work?

Don't you guys watch mythbusters?? LOL I believe they did an episode on this one.......

 

[Kenneth Brown]

Re: Crazy gas saving scheme, will it work?

I wasn't reffering to the contraption making more than it uses. I was meaning I hope the contraption makes more power than the alt uses therefore a net gain.

 

[MikDee]

Re: Crazy gas saving scheme, will it work?

I'd guess you need salt in the water, or (brine) as an elctrolyte to aid in the chemical reaction, plus you are making blue/green copper sulfate (corrosion) with the copper rods, as was mentioned here by a previous poster, I would think you need carbon rods, or something that's not gonna corrode as your electrodes.

 

[angus63]

Re: Crazy gas saving scheme, will it work?

I'd guess you need salt in the water, or (brine) as an elctrolyte to aid in the chemical reaction, plus you are making blue/green copper sulfate (corrosion) with the copper rods, as was mentioned here by a previous poster, I would think you need carbon rods, or something that's not gonna corrode as your electrodes.

Just to clarify as it has been stated several times, there is no measurable sulfer in any of the reactants in this case, so copper sulfate is not derived from the reaction. Copper sulfate is a resultant when copper reacts with sulfuric acid as in a common wet cell battery. What the Sarge created was copper hydroxide, a precipitate which is blue on color and will remain in solution for a while until it settles out.

 

[jay_merrill]

Re: Crazy gas saving scheme, will it work?

Waterinthefuel is correct about air density, for all of the reasons that he mentioned. In regard to water injection in aircraft engines, I would add that the primary purpose of it was to inhibit detonation at maximum pwer settings/manifold pressures.

 

[SuzukiChopper]

Re: Crazy gas saving scheme, will it work?

I originally saw one of these about 6 years ago on some guys DIY site he had. A 4" piece of PVC about 12" long. Glued on cap at the bottom, screwed on cap on top. All thread for the electrodes, tin can lids with holes poked in them spaced apart on the negative electrode (about 3 of em). A windshield washer pump and aquarium bubbler to help move the gases. Fill about 3/4's of the way with water and then add battery acid until it was drawing about 10 amps. A switch to turn it on and off and whamo.

I actually made one and put it in my Geo Metro. Buddy that showed it to me had it in his Mustang. I used to have a 45 minute commute to school and car pooled with 2 other guys. Being engineers we took notes on fuel consumption with and without the thing running. It was only turned on at highway speed. Funny enough, it did work and did help with fuel consumption. Keep in mind my metro did have throttle body injection and wasn't a regular carb, if I remember right that was one of the pre-requisites of it working right. Having a manual switch that can only turn the thing on when the key is in the run position is a must too.

In the end did it save me money? No. Why? Because it burned out two altenators. Would a heavier duty one help? Yes. Don't believe there is potential? That's fine, for the $30 it cost me to try out, and cost of altenator rebuilds aside... we were pretty impressed with it. Would I do it again for one of my current vehicles? Nope, I don't drive that much anymore.

 

[SgtMaj]

Re: Crazy gas saving scheme, will it work?

Well I tossed it out before trying with the stainless steel. It was a fun experiment, but I realized that it looked a little bit too much like I was trying to cook meth... didn't want the neighbor's to worry and all.

 

[SuperNova]

Re: Crazy gas saving scheme, will it work?

Right, but that's what the gasoline is for...



Right, no free electricity.. but since I'm already expending the 1 gasoline hp to get the .9 electric hp ANYWAY... if I can turn that .9 electric into .1 hydrogen hp, then that's an extra .1 hp burning in the engine that wouldn't have otherwise...

I'm thinking about it like this... imagine that the alternator was disconnected from the electrical system for a moment here... the engine and electrical system are running off the battery alone in this hypothetic situation, but the alternator is still physically installed. Even though there is nothing drawing current from the alternator it still spins because it's physically connected by a belt, which costs engine hp for it to be connected, right? And even though there's nothing using the current, the alternator is still generating electric power, but that power is completely wasted because there is nothing using it right? So if you then use that electricity to power an electric motor that somehow aided in propelling the vehicle forward, any hp that the electric motor added, would be an increase in efficiency, right? Ok, so that's basically what I'm thinking will go on here, except instead of an electric motor, I'm going to be using a chemical reaction to create some minute extra bit of hp.

This is SO COMPLETELY WRONG!!!!! That it is actually laughable.. I am not sure even where to start to correct the misconceptions contained in this entire thread and I am sure that very few would listen anyway..as already proven by other people attempts at posting correct information(kenneth brown, Pony and boatbuoy come to mind as offering correct information).
--
Stan

 

[SgtMaj]

Re: Crazy gas saving scheme, will it work?

This is SO COMPLETELY WRONG!!!!! That it is actually laughable.. I am not sure even where to start to correct the misconceptions contained in this entire thread and I am sure that very few would listen anyway..as already proven by other people attempts at posting correct information(kenneth brown, Pony and boatbuoy come to mind as offering correct information).
--
Stan

Although it's no longer relevant... perhaps one of them can explain exactly how the alternator gets harder to turn with higher loads, and how it can move more current if it's turning slower. Those are pretty much the two main problems I have with it. Also though, does that mean that all one has to do to save some gas is to turn off the headlights and radio?

 

[SgtMaj]

Re: Crazy gas saving scheme, will it work?

Sarge,

It's not the copper...or well...it is...but....

It's the surface area and orientation. Think of your rig like a battery. The plates in the battery are aligned in parallel, equally spaced to produce current.

You should have the same. Heck, you might be able to take an old battery and use the lead plates in there to do this. I don't know for sure, but I remember that in my experiment, the size of the carbon rods, and the distance and alignment were factors in creating gas. I imagine that two sets of rods (two pos two neg) would work well, (more current needed though). You would align them Pos-neg-neg-pos though, so that all four would be creating gas. A pos-neg-pos-neg would not be as efficient for gas production.

Also, I don't think that anything more than clean water is required. You are trying to extract the base elements from water...contaminating it with a soluble solid (to try and induce a better current flow...I know) is contaminating the experiment. You should, (it will work...) just use clean water.

IMO

That makes sense, I guess the gas that was comming off of it was oxygen then. It did settle out after a while, just like you said.

 

[jameskb2]

Re: Crazy gas saving scheme, will it work?

All I have to say about the people that try things and those that laugh at them is....

The world is flat.

You will never have a ship that can run under water.

You will never travel over 60 mph, because you will die.

You will never be able to refrigerate without ice.

You will never fly in a machine.

You will never...(insert all the other innovations that have been made by a desire to succeed and the determination to find a solution to that success).

There are those that dare to dream, to try...

The rest just sit around and make fun of them, achieving nothing.

Pretty obvious which is which in just this simple little thread.

 

[SgtMaj]

Re: Crazy gas saving scheme, will it work?

As far as getting better gas mileage in the fog is concerned, I have a couple of theories as to why this would happen.

1st, fog generally occurs in the morning when the air is colder, and colder air is denser than hot air, which allows the engine to suck in more oxygen per whatever volume of air you're measuring.

2nd, when driving in fog, one tends to slow down. Since the bulk of your gas is spent pushing air out of the way, slowing from say 70 to 55 would result in significant gas savings.

 

[SgtMaj]

Re: Crazy gas saving scheme, will it work?

I do wonder though, if it would be feasable (money wise) to make a standard electrolyzer, hook it up to your house electric, and route the hydrogen to the intake of an air compressor that would compress it to maybe 3 or 4 hundred psi (It would have to be highly compressed to store enough to make a difference), then hook up the tank so that it slowly leaked hydrogen from the tank into the intake manifold of the car.

There is of course a safety hazard there, as letting the oxygen go in the house would create an oxygen rich environment. While good for your health, you wouldn't want to light any candles...

Anyway, for the time being, I'm going to stick to the old tried and true methods of improving gas mileage... frequent oil changes, a sponge air filter, and conservative driving.

Speaking of gas prices, gas here just hit $3.09.9 from that refinery explosion by the way. At least it wasn't an immediate hike... but still that's nearly as bad as it was the week after hurricane Katrina. Sure hope we have a mild hurricane season again this year... the last thing we need is another excuse for a price hike. It's still bad enough that it makes me consider getting that BMW Smart car with the 60-something miles per gallon... too bad they are back ordered for like 2 years. By then gas will probably be a buck and I'll be cursing the day I signed up to buy one...

 

[jay_merrill]

Re: Crazy gas saving scheme, will it work?

If gasoline ever goes back to a buck a gallon, Ima buy a pair of fat fifties and an old Thompson Lapstrake boat and go out and burn/leak the stuff up!

 

[SS MAYFLOAT]

Re: Crazy gas saving scheme, will it work?

Damp wet roads means less traction which is less friction which improves mileage. It may not have anything to do with the air density IMO.

 

[Kenneth Brown]

Re: Crazy gas saving scheme, will it work?

I'm stepping out on that limb here again......


Theoreticly yes you could save gas by turning off your lights and radio. The alt would have less load therefore should not work as hard. I say this theoreticly because the amount of difference would be so small as to not be able to measure without scientific tools, or at least something a heck of lot more calibrated than your odometer.

 

[SgtMaj]

Re: Crazy gas saving scheme, will it work?

I'm stepping out on that limb here again......


Theoreticly yes you could save gas by turning off your lights and radio. The alt would have less load therefore should not work as hard. I say this theoreticly because the amount of difference would be so small as to not be able to measure without scientific tools, or at least something a heck of lot more calibrated than your odometer.

If that's true, then the difference between not using the aforementioned crazy scheme devise and using it would also be miniscule. So if the output of the device were enough to get even 1% better mpg, then it would be a success.

The only downside is that you have to appear to be cooking meth to your neighbors... Probably get the law called on you... maybe get shot as a result... but hey, with the price of gas, it's totally worth it!