Hydrogen Oxygen Generator Updates

Hydrogen Generator Videos Dry Cell installation on a 67 VW Beetle!

Note: I left some old previous posts below. Some of the old post have good information but be advised some of what I propose to do has already been done as you may notice from my more recent posts.

I've installed the East Texas Hydrogen Hybrid Automobiles Club dry cell on my VW Beetle. Here is the video of the installation done right after I finished:
Dry Cell installation on a 67 VW Beetle
Here are better still photos of the installation at the club website:
Dry Cell installation photos

I've learned that any hydrogen generator, even when improperly installed, tends to increase mileage and reduce fuel consumption. As good as this news happens to be, there are some problems though. If one of these units is installed without safeties in place a sudden engine backfire can cause the unit itself to explode as it is full of explosive hydrogen and oxygen gas. This is dangerous to be sure, but if you follow my progress you'll notice there are ways to ensure this won't happen and possibly increase mileage slightly as well. I use a vacuum line to connect this to the engine, but installed flow restrictor which also helps prevent a flashback. Between the flow restrictor and hydrogen generator itself I have a bubbler which also prevents any flashback from getting to the unit itself while also filtering some of the possible corrosive fumes before they can get to the engine. The bubbler happens to increase the humidity level of the hydrogen/oxygen flow which has the added benefit of slightly increasing mileage even further.

There are many ways to wire one of these into a car. I selected two older carbureted cars for simplicity to avoid having to deal with the EFI system and computer modern autos employ. However, if you drive an EFI new car these will work fine as long as you plan ahead first. Depending on the vehicle you'll probably need to adapt the oxygen sensor with either an adaptor that recesses it, or a stand alone circuit that intercepts the signal from the oxygen sensor before it goes to the computer and adjusts it for the hydrogen. Introducing hydrogen into a car, even a small amount, increases the flame temperature in the combustion chamber causing better combustion even for the primary fuel whether it be gasoline or diesel. This improved combustion not only gives better mileage, but as so many researchers have reporter, reduces the hydrocarbon emissions by more than 100%. The computer on your EFI car will misread this as running too lean and after some run time will increase the fuel delivery ruining your mileage. This is why when these are installed on new EFI vehicles mileage jumps up for a short time, then dives. As the computer averages the new readings and drops the old, it will suddenly begin to increase fuel delivery and negate your mileage gains. Along with circuits to intercept the signal and adaptors for the oxygen sensor itself, there are computer programs that can be loaded into a laptop that can reset the computer and tune the car's engine to run perfectly on hydrogen assist. Just a matter of finding a place that not only can do it, but knows how to do it.

While I did not have to worry about resetting the computer on my older cars, I did have to be sure I did a proper installation. When wiring these into the car it is best to use heavier wire than necessary to be sure there is little to no resistance in the wiring to get the best performance from these units. Also always use a relay wired into the fuse box to a location that is on when the switch is on and off when the switch is off so the unit stops when the motor is turned off. Also it is important that the circuit or fuse you tap into is off when the key it turned to the ACC or accessory position on the switch so the hydrogen unit is not on while someone is listening to the stereo. Not only could this run the battery down, but increases the chance of an explosion during engine cranking. In my installation I also have a on/off switch so I can shut off the system if I need to. I also grounded the relay to a momentary switch on the throttle so the unit turns off when the engine is at idle like sitting at a red light. No sense in dumping hydrogen in an engine that is idling, plus this makes the cars equipped with an automatic transmission easier to stop as the engine speed affects how hard you must depress the brake pedal. I also bought an accurate 30 amp ammeter so I can monitor the amperage to be sure nothing is wrong or getting too aggressive. The auto ammeters are terrible inaccurate. Don't use them. I also have a pulser installed that controls the amperage of the unit so it doesn't get too aggressive when hot, plus pulses the current of and off to increase efficiency by reducing electrical consumption without appreciably reducing hydrogen/oxygen production. While I don't know properly how to adjust the 3 different pots on this circuit, I know I'm better off with it that without. I'll learn how to tweak it better later. I do have a 12 volt fan blowing on the pulser circuit to help keep it cool since it is located inside the car mounted on the dash.

Last thing on the installation of these hydrogen generators is to watch the amps the unit is drawing. If you draw too few amps you will still get some better mileage, but if you let the unit get too aggressive it can draw the engine down through excess strain on the charging system as well as create heat and possible damage the hydrogen generator or the car's charging system. Here is a good rule to follow; stay within the "flywheel effect" of the engine. Depending on how powerful or the size of the engine and whether it is gas or diesel, the engine will be able to pull a certain load of amperage and not strain. My rule is this, if you turn the unit on suddenly and the idle drops, it's a good bet you are drawing too many amps for that engine. When you first turn on the unit the hydrogen/oxygen has not arrived at the engine yet so the full load of the amperage hits the engine before it can receive any benefit from the hydrogen. It should not drag the idle down or remain in the "sweet spot" for that engine where the motion of the engine carries the load practically unnoticed. This will give you the best mileage and keep the unit cooler. Dilute the electrolyte by draining some off and replacing the drained of portion with distilled water until you get the amperage where you like it. Also remember these units draw more amps as they warm up. Check your amps after the unit is fully warmed up to be sure you aren't drawing excess amperage.

I've been remiss in updating this information despite being somewhat busy. Basically, the best information I have to share deal with Faraday's Law the the probable reason a hydrogen generator can be around 40% of Faraday's Law, meaning you are 60% in a deficit, yet you get an increase in mileage. As many already know, I was very negative about these hydrogen generators and fabricated a simple one to prove they don't work. Of course, despite being in a deficit situation and should have seen mileage drop, I saw mileage increase and consistently stay higher unless the unit was unplugged where mileage resumed to the point it was prior to attaching the unit. This started me on a amateur course building these and reading what others had done incorporating good ideas into my unit design. Along the way I've come across really good ideas and designs shared with me by others on the Internet. I've tried to be equally generous with my work and will continue to be. I've come across many ideas that were not working properly despite claims to the contrary, but that is to be expected. I also did what most people building these units did in that I felt if a little HHO (Hydrogen - 2 parts; Oxygen - 1 part) was good, then more was better. Of course, I was making moderate amounts of HHO and drawing very low amperage. I increase amperage which increase the production of HHO. Mind you, this is installed on a 1600 CC air cooled VW engine. The first increase in amperage netted me the same mileage. So I increased the amps even more, being careful since all I had was a 30 amp generator that happened be 41 years old. My mileage actually began to drop. What I learned was significant. When I was drawing 2 amps or less I got better mileage. Once I increased the amps, I found the mileage either did not improve or got worse. The closer I got to 10 amps the worse the mileage. I think I now know why after installing one of these units on an AMC Gremlin equipped with a much larger engine. On any engine, depending on displacement and whether it is a gasoline or diesel, there is a place where moderate amps can be absorbed by an engine in a sort of flywheel effect. In other words, the "flywheel effect" is the place where the action of the engine idling actually pulls the resistance by the moderate amperage without affecting overall engine performance such as idle or fuel consumption. As long as you stay in this sweet spot that that particular engine, the HHO produced with be nearly free. On my AMC Gremlin I noticed I could pull much higher amperage without noticing an effect on engine idle when suddenly switching the unit on. Mileage was great, about 35 to 45% better, in this range. Once I increased amperage to the point where idle would drop when switching the unit on, despite the increase in HHO production, my mileage either did not improve and usually dropped. This is a significant point to remember as some hydrogen units need lots of amperage in order to achieve peak efficiency. If one of these units are installed on an engine that is too small then the electrolyte must be diluted to drop amperage which drops unit efficiency, or mileage won't be peak and the effort will be disappointing.

Currently I'm working on a formula based on total square inches of surface area of the plates to determine where the amperage needs to be to achieve peak efficiency. This first work is being done on a simple plate set up that totals approximately 13.5 square inches per plate utilizing 3 neutral plates gapped at approximately 1/16th of an inch (+nnn-). This will accomplish two main objectives. It will allow a user to achieve peak efficiency from their units by using an ammeter and adjusting amp draw by strengthening or diluting the electrolyte. Also, depending on the engine size, anyone can select the perfect plate size for the maximum amps the engine can easily pull to avoid ruining efficiency by drawing more amperage than the engine can efficiently pull. This way the user can select the perfect hydrogen generator design for the engine. You do not want to go past 5 or 6 amps if your engine is a 2 liter gasoline powered engine otherwise your mileage won't be a great as you expected. In fact, I've found the more conservative you go, the better. An engine that has a unit that is way too small will get better performance, based on my information, than the same engine with a unit that is way too big.

Another improvement, if many of you are following my videos, is the venturi effect I've discovered to utilize a cooler to keep unit temperatures down. Instead of using an overhead water tank, as many on the net are doing such as Steve (delvis11 on YouTube) at http://www.HydrogenKo.com, I added a funnel/venturi orifice inside the unit that draws water through the unit and through a tube with great flow. The overhead water tank designs also provide good flow, but the tank takes up valuable space under the hood of cars that today have little extra space. By adding the venturi inside the unit the flow is increased dramatically and instead of an overhead water tank all that is required are tubing to add a cooler that can be installed behind the grill of the car or truck for cooling. I've been using magnets in conjunction with this venturi design to reduce water/electrolyte foaming which makes the units potentially less explosive should there be an electrical short below the water line such as in the plates/electrodes themselves. If you haven't seen the videos, generally the electrolyte/water gets homogenized with foam or microscopic bubbles of HHO. This circulates throughout the unit and is drawn back under and through the plates/electrodes. Once magnets are installed the microscopic bubbles appear to attract each other and join together forming larger bubbles that rise to the top faster and reduce or eliminate the foamy/cloudy condition. Using my system to measure the production of HHO I've not found this to increase production, just seems to keep the electrolyte clear keeping bubbles at the top 2 or 3 inches of water.

On this hydrogen generators there is a problem where the water or electrolyte forms foam or becomes so saturated with microscopic bubbles that the water/electrolyte becomes very cloudy. This cloudy condition is from massive saturation of HHO, a very explosive gas, so there is a danger. Add to that the fact that the more foam there is there is then less water is in place for electrolysis. A friend, Lyman Eppley, showed me that on his tube cell placing a magnet above the tube in the path of the bubble discharge caused the bubbles to quit repelling each other and form larger bubbles, especially in the vicinity of the magnet. It's possible the bubbles pick up a charge from the electrolysis and repel each other which is why they resist joining together to form larger bubbles that would rise to the top and be gone. The magnets must somehow change that charge and cause the bubbles to form into larger bubbles that rise quickly to the top leaving the water clear.

My VW cell was out of the car for a check up and inspection so I was bench testing it and noticed massive foaming. I fabricated a venturi made from an inverted funnel to channel the bubble discharge. On top of this I placed 3 round ceramic magnets with a hole in the inside diameter where the open ID of the magnet would wrap around the opening of the funnel and magnetize the bubbles rising from the electrodes. On top of these 3 round ceramic magnets I placed 3 more smaller magnets allowing them to use their natural magnetism to self position themselves. Then, after making sure the hole is unobstructed, I placed 3 more round magnets with the ID hole on top of this. Once again I placed 3 smaller magnets on top of this as before. Then one last round open ID magnet on top of this.

I then placed this assembly large end down on top of the electrodes. I ran the cell for more than 30 minutes with no cloudiness forming below the top 2 or 3 inches. What's more is the larger bubbles and the capillary action of the funnel created a suction of sorts below in the part of the tube containing the electrodes causing it to draw clean cool fluid from the holding tank faster and ejecting warn fluid from the top of the cell to the tank faster. The difference was remarkable and something beyond what I was expecting. I now will have to incorporate this into the cell before placing it back into the car. Check out the video at the Hydrogen Generator videos page.

Fellow AMC owner and Hydrogen Hybrid Automobiles of East Texas club member Lyman Eppley constructed a circuit board from plans found on the Internet for a PWM. This particular circuit board was adjustable, but would maintain amps, frequency, etc to preset levels while you drive. This had the distinct advantage of keeping amperage to the maximum preset level without the need to constantly adjust to different driving conditions or constantly changing amp draw from a hydrogen generator that gets more aggressive due to temperature increases. He installed this on his 1993 mini van which was fuel injected. In order to get the maximum benefit this circuit was also combined with another circuit to compensate for changes in output from the oxygen sensor and MAP sensor needed to get these hydrogen units to work properly on EFI vehicles. I was present when Lyman installed this on the mini van. Before being installed I made a note, visually, of the bubbles in the bubbler to see if visually there would be a noticeable change in gas output as this unit began to limit amperage. In my own personal experience if you drop amperage from, say 30 amps, down to 20 amps, then you notice a reduction of bubble count in the bubbler. As Lyman adjusted this circuit down in amps I could visually see no reduction in output of gas. Not very scientific, but still impressive since I was skeptical this unit could reduce amps while keeping production high. Lyman confided in me that he was somewhat skeptical this would work this good either.

As luck had it Lyman's mini van suffered a mechanical problem requiring removal of the steering column putting the mini van out of service and preventing road test time of this unit. Lyman generously offered to loan me the unit to test on my Gremlin. I jumped at the opportunity and had this installed late Friday evening. It was dark and I did not change any of the adjustments Lyman had made on the unit when it was installed on his mini van as it was after dark and I was tired. However, I couldn't resist the opportunity to run the car some and watch the ammeter. Visually this unit was really making lots of gas despite the reduction in amps. My ammeter shows very high most of the time, starting out cold at around 30 amps and going up from there to 40 amps after warming up. Since I'm running a 30 amp fuse I doubted this was accurate, but assumed the amps might be quite high. After installing this circuit board my ammeter showed below 30 amps, maybe in the 15 to 20 amp range meaning things were less aggressive electrically. I drove the Gremlin to the Hydrogen Hybrid Automobiles of East Texas Club meeting the following morning to test it out. It was a 30 minute plus drive at highway speeds so this was a good test run. Temperatures when I left that morning were slightly below freezing. As I drove I noticed the ammeter showed nearly 30 amps. On the 30 minute drive, however, the circuit never got hot and only warm to the touch. On the return trip back to Lufkin Lyman rode with me and used a temperature sensor to test the temperature of the circuit and it only got a little past 100 degrees F on this trip which was impressive. When we got to Lyman's house we did a gas output volume test on this unit while Lyman adjusted it to different levels. Frequency from halfway to high seemed to have no significant effect on gas production. However, there was a slight reduction in production turning the frequency all the way down, guessing this was what direction the adjustment screw went. So the frequency was returned to the mid range area. Changing amperage down seemed to have a slight reduction on gas production, but not very much. Basically after playing around with it Lyman set it to the previous levels. Apparently that was best. Then Lyman connected his ammeter to the system to check the accuracy of my ammeter. While my ammeter was showing right at 30 amps or just slightly less, Lyman's more accurate ammeter showed 18 to 19 amps. So it was just as I suspected that my ammeter was approximately 10 amps high on the readings. At this setting the unit was making approximately one liter of gas per minute.

Lyman's circuit seems to do a great job holding amps down. This should equate to less strain on the engine pulling the alternator and should reflect some better mileage. I'll post results here.

If you read my previous post you noted I have a problem cylinder on the AMC six as number one cylinder seems to have excessive oil consumption fouling the spark plug. It was apparent to me that the plug only fouled when the hydrogen was turned off. To test this theory I reinstalled the number one spark plug without cleaning it. Since this plug was badly fouled I didn't know for sure if the hydrogen could possible have any cleansing effect on the spark plug since it couldn't be firing very well if at all. My plan was to drive a week and then check the plug. However, after only about 2 or 3 days the engine idle had gone up and there was no evidence of miss firing so I went ahead and pulled the spark plug on number one cylinder to check it. It was clean meaning there was a cleansing effect by running the hydrogen on. I believe this alone warrants the used of hydrogen on this vehicle until the replacement engine is ready. It would be interesting to do a pollution test on this vehicle with hydrogen off and then another pollution test with the hydrogen on. I believe the reason diesels get so much better benefit from these units is due to the fact that the hydrogen improves the combustibility of the fuel which in a diesel is a light oil itself. In my Gremlin's tired engine it would appear the motor oil leaking into the cylinder is being combusted by the hydrogen and burned literally as fuel which prevents the spark plug fouling when hydrogen is on. Maybe these units would work best on an old tired engine? Something to consider.

This has really been a learning experience for me all the way around. While the 67 Beetle has a new mechanically sound engine the results on the Beetle for highway mileage seem to remain between 30 and 40 percent better mileage. The unit on the Beetle currently has no PWM and draws amps brute force right from the car's electrical system. The electrolyte is very weak and I estimate that cold amps on this vehicle appear to be less than 10 and even could be close to 5. Having such a small engine makes it unnecessary to need to produce a lot of HHO which is good since this car's 41 year old generator can only produce 30 amps. Since the engine displacement is so small the light production of HHO consistently keeps mileage high. I've noticed a few potential problems on this car however.

The VW air cooled engines tend to run extremely cold in town compared to the high temperatures we see at highway speeds for extended periods of driving. In town the engine can be driven for as long as 30 minutes without being shut down and barely achieve 130 degrees oil temperature. I have not done any lube analysis of the used AMSOIL motor oil yet, but I've noticed a white foam collect at the top of the oil cap indicating water or moisture in the motor oil. This can develop into a corrosive condition for the engine as well as destroy the motor oil's additives. But after an hour at 65 or 70 miles per hour or so the oil looks clean and smells healthy so I believe the heat bakes off the moisture. I've installed a cut-off switch on the throttle that shuts this unit down at idle. I believe this has increased my mileage a little since there is no need to produce hydrogen at idle and on this car might even help take some stress off of the system that charges the battery. Since doing this average temperatures have dropped which is normal for this time of year. Yet, no evidence of moisture in the motor oil. I need to have the oil analyzed to be sure, but I can see a definite improvement.

Whether the hydrogen is on or off, the VW mileage is much higher when engine temperature is highest. In the summer with oil temperatures at 230 degrees averaging 65 miles per hour this car was getting 42 peak miles per gallon with no HHO. With the cooler air temperature it's difficult to achieve 210 degrees oil temperature and the car only gets about 36 to 38 miles per gallon at the same speed on the same highway. This is why I'm glad all of my test runs were done on the same day at the same temperatures with HHO and without HHO. It's the only way to test accurately and evenly how well this unit is working. So far the car sees in excess of 30 percent better mileage with the unit on than off. I'm not able to hit the 50 mile per gallon range like I did during the summer months, but continue to have the same percentage increase in mileage none the less. Despite the difficulty getting this little air cooled engine to even out temperatures I believe this car works extremely well with hydrogen. I would literally have to buy a small diesel powered car and install AMSOIL bumper to bumper to compete with the mileage I'm now getting using gasoline. I'm beyond happy so far.

I will not be able to test the Gremlin, as I have the Beetle, turning the hydrogen on and off on the same day at the same speeds to get an "apples to apples" comparison and here's why:
The Gremlin has a worn engine and in number one and number two cylinder I've had plug fouling. No problem as I clean the plugs. Since installing my hydrogen generator I've been driving it more, especially around town, to test the unit out. The plugs quit fouling which I thought was great. Of course, I thought this was because the engine somehow improved mechanically due to rings seating down better or valve seals swelling better due to the increased time being driven. However, this was not the case. I drove this car for 3 hours on a highway trip Thanksgiving day with the hydrogen on and got really good mileage, 43 percent better than the best mileage this car had ever recorded in the past. But on the return trip, about 2 1/2 hours, the mileage dropped off badly. The next day I found number one plug badly fouled. Apparently the problem with the oil consumption had not gone away. I was wondering if the hydrogen somehow was preventing the plug from fouling? I did notice during the time the plug quit fouling that I continued to have to add oil at times to the engine. It does leak, but maybe some still was getting into the cylinders? I decided not to clean the plug and installed it back in fouled. What I wanted to do is drive this car as much as I could with the hydrogen generator on to see if the plug got worse, better or didn't change. The plan was to go one week and pull the plug, but only after a few days the engine idle was higher and it was running much better. This morning in the AM I pulled number one spark plug again and it was very clean compared to before. The electrode was very clean and it only had some residual deposits on the outside of the electrode. Clearly clean enough not to misfire. Somehow running the hydrogen generator prevents plug fouling in an engine burning oil. In fact, it would appear it has the ability to actually clean deposits. Is it the hydrogen? Maybe the increased moisture? I don't know for sure but I know until I get my replacement engine ready I can't do an accurate HHO on and HHO off test with this car as the plug fouling makes the mileage terrible without the unit on. My mileage with the unit off on Thanksgiving Day was 63 percent worse than with the unit on which is indicative of other factors in play such as plug fouling. I'm happy with the fact that I got 43 percent better mileage than my previous best ever mileage and I'll leave it at that until I get my other engine ready. When I bought this car it had sat for 18 years and the engine was full of water that had gotten in during heavy rains with the valve cover gasket missing and open holes in the valve cover. Not a good candidate for testing the efficiency of HHO. But if someone has an engine in a tired condition this will keep the plugs clean. Can't complain about that for sure.

I'm not satisfied to be sure. Next there is a need to control amps as much as possible. On the Thanksgiving run of the Gremlin amps climbed up past 30 amps which concerned me. Even though I wired this for 40 amps, I surely didn't want to run that much amperage. I had a 30 amp fuse installed and bravely continued to run this unit despite the amps increasing beyond the 30 amp point on my ammeter. The 30 amp fuse never blew so maybe the ammeter is not accurate. Installing some sort of PWM would make it easier to control amperage and possibly increase mileage as well. Currently in the Gremlin I have a heavy duty potentiometer installed that I could reduce amps with. I've noticed it gets very hot when I do this so I usually leave it turned all the way up to prevent burning it out. A PWM (Pulseband Width Modulator) circuit would be a better more efficient way to control amperage. That's next for me! Check back as I'll post updated information here.

I've tested mileage on the Beetle for several two hour highway mileage runs and the results are impressive. As we all hopefully realize, mileage can vary a lot depending on driving conditions such as wind, temperature and whether driving on an uphill or downhill grade. That being said I ran the unit on for an hour or two then turned it off and ran the car on the same highway and same day to get the same identical conditions for my test so to keep things constant. One test I may have lost control of was on a trip back from Houston I ran the unit on for the first half of the test and turned it off on the second half of the test. In this test the wind was horrible as a strong cold front was approaching. Usually I run the unit off first, then on on the second half. When the weather declined I felt the second leg of the trip with the unit off was being affected by worsening weather and made it appear that my hydrogen unit was working better than usual. Probably more due to increased wind blowing the little Beetle about during that last half of my road test. In this test the car got just under 30 miles per gallon with the unit off and got just slightly over 40 miles per gallon with the unit on. If I had run the car with the unit off on the first leg and then unit running on the second leg I'm sure the wind would have caused the results to work against the hydrogen unit somewhat. But judging by the overall test results it would be safe to say I'm getting between 30 and 40 percent improvement in mileage if I ignore that last test run on that windy day.

I'm impressed that this unit works so well. This was a great test and makes me feel this has been very worthwhile. Despite the great mileage the actual costs of the fuel saved won't be very much because the car used so little fuel to begin with. If you put a calculator to it, a car that consumes a lot of fuel getting poor mileage would net many times more money in savings with a much smaller percentage increase in mileage. So, I guess the larger vehicles that get such a small increase using hydrogen from water are actually the vehicles that would benefit the best from this technology considering how much fuel they consume to start with. In other words, 10 percent of 5,000 gallons consumed is better than 40 percent of 500 gallons consumed. Better to brag about getting 1 mile per gallon increase on the average mileage of an SUV rather than brag about getting a VW Beetle to 50 miles per gallon from 42. Think about that the next time someone says, "It only got me about 1 or 2 miles per gallon better mileage." Depends on what they are driving or how much fuel they are slurping doesn't it?

The hydrogen generator I installed on my VW Beetle has not worked for very long at all. I've had two instances of hoses popping off during a highway trip and one bubbler failure that ruined my mileage. On these instances the mileage was around 38 MPG which is normal for this car without hydrogen at the speed and conditions this car was being driven. I do have an upcoming highway trip where I will get a chance to test how productive this unit will hopefully be. I've installed hose clamps everywhere and repaired the problem with the bubbler, so I can't imagine problems this time. Also, I've installed a momentary switch on the throttle which turns the unit off at engine idle. This is wired to the ground wire of the relay and will make sure that this car isn't pulling electrical current for the hydrogen nor making hydrogen while the car isn't moving. I'll post updated information soon.

The unit on the Gremlin has worked exceptionally well. I haven't taken this car on any long trips to test mileage, but plan to do so soon. The cheap bottle I used for a bubbler developed a hole and leaked. I replaced this with a better medical bubbler. The new bubbler now has a metal bracket mounting it to the firewall to limit vibration. Also I slid the bubbler into a foam beverage cooler, like the ones you put your soda or beer cans in, to protect the bubbler from being damaged by vibration. I cut away part of the foam to make it easy to see water level and bubble activity. Another problem that cropped up was the hose that comes out of the skull eye sockets (see video) started trying to fold or crimp which would have restricted or stopped gas flow from the main unit to the holding tank. I replaced this with a thicker hose (actually two hoses, one with a smaller ID slid inside the larger one). Now the hose does not have a tendency to fold and stays arched perfectly as it enters and exits the eye sockets and nostril of the illuminated skull head. Lastly I added a momentary switch to the throttle assembly of this car which turns off the unit when the engine goes to idle. This means the unit will not be working while the car is sitting like at a red light or in the driveway warming up. The momentary switch is wired to the ground wire of the relay same as the one in the Beetle is wired.

One thing I did not think of until now was severe cold weather. In my part of East Texas it doesn't go below 32 degrees very often. But every winter for maybe 2 or 3 days it does freeze from time to time. I did not add a way to drain the water to prepare for a hard freeze. While I can drain the units, it's not easy. I plan to add drain hoses to both of the units to facilitate draining them during severe cold while the car is not in use. I will update with pictures once I figure out the best way to accomplish this.

The hydrogen unit on the Beetle has been replaced by a much better unit that is way more productive at less amperage. This unit utilizes a holding tank that receives the gas from the generator located below it. As the bubbles rise they carry some water with them to the holding tank. Then cooler water flows down to the generator from the holding tank to replace the water drawn out by the bubbles. I've tested this unit, a 12 plate unit, and it ran for 5 hours and never got up to 100 degrees F. It was drawing about 5 amps, or less, producing 500 milliliters of gas cold and close to one liter warm. After running 30 minutes the gas output increased to 600 milliliters per minute. See a video of the test of this unit: Hydrogen Generator Bench Test Video

This unit works so well that I plan to remove the Hydrogen Generator from the Gremlin and make the same modifications as I did for the VW Beetle. The main difference between the two cars is the Gremlin has a larger displacement engine meaning it won't get as a dramatic mileage increase as the Beetle, but the Gremlin does have a 100 amp alternator. Compared to the 30 amp generator on the Beetle the Gremlin will be able to run higher amps through the plates and produce more gas. For this reason I plan to use around 30 plates in the Gremlin Hydrogen Generator to go for maximum production.

As I test these units and fabricate/make changes I will post updates here on this page. I do have one thing to report. On a recent run in the Beetle I moved the hydrogen line from the vacuum line in the carburetor to the air cleaner. I had read where this was the best place for the hydrogen to be added to the engine as vacuum isn't constant. It mentioned to add the hydrogen above the butterfly. This was absolutely the wrong thing to do! My mileage dropped dramatically, to the same level as before I ever used a hydrogen generator. Here is what was happening: the hydrogen gas, being much lighter than air, was escaping from the top of the oil bath air cleaner and not going down the carburetor throat. Remember, hydrogen is the smallest molecule known to man and the lightest. If there is any sort of leak it will find it. Using the vacuum line is best as this prevents the hydrogen from escaping. The argument that the vacuum isn't constant and won't allow enough hydrogen at higher engine speeds when vacuum is low is not a valid one! If your unit is properly constructed and airtight, even if there is no vacuum, the pressure from the hydrogen cell will push the gas into the carburetor vacuum orifice. You read a lot on the Internet and not everything is valid for your application. You'll have to evaluate what you read from other's experience and make some changes for your unique application.
Arthur Nesmith

Hydrogen Generator Updates