HHO car adaptation

Step 6 Giving life to your monster

This is going to be the scetchiest part of my instructable. I am still searching on a good way to power it only when the car is on without having to drill through the fire wall, without having to connect some wires, or flip a switch everytime I get in the car. A wire from one electrode needs to go to negative and the other to positive of your car battery. I just ran the wires up to the top of the hood so I can connect them when I get to my car and tuck them in neatly the rest of the time.

-updates-
-Going through the firewall wasn't as bad as I thought. I just looked under the steering wheel and saw all the wires running through a rubber stopper. I rammed a fishtape through there and caught it inside the hood. I pulled 1 wire through and cut it. To turn it on simply connect that 1 wire back together. For now I am using wire nuts but it shouldn't be a problem to connect it to a button or switch. I took apart my dash because I was going to connect it to the rear defrost button(I have used it maybe twice in 3 years) but there was all kinds of circuit board wiring hooked up to it so I said forget it.

Comments

[magisterchief]

its a good thing u don't use your rear defogger. i have the same car. last time i used mine in the winter my whole back glass shattered from the difference in heat between the glass and the air.

[j0nes]

why not just power your device from the red power wire(accessory wire) on the back of your car stereo? It is the one that supplies 12 volts when the cars accessory is activated you could still ground to the battery although any metal under the hood would work and your hot lead to the stereo, turn on the key and presto. only problem is if you listen to the stereo with the car not running while smoking a cigarette and it leaks out of the air cleaner and boom.

[Dan Minix]

Not Nearly enough amps Going through that wire

[Larek]

Because that would use the car's electrical power to create the hydrogen. That would just be a loop that looses power. It would be like you took a Bicycle and put a small generator on the front tire, and a small electric motor on the back tire. The engine of the car burns the H back into water, the engine runs the alternator, that unburns the water to H (called electrolysis), which is fed into the engine. If all components were 100% effect at this task then nothing would happen, real life says it hurting your fuel economy. But if the Power comes from a stored source (thats cheaper than gas to replace) then yes this can be helpful.

[reed92]

Larek, I would like to see you carry out electrolysis without electricity. The theory behind drawing power from the alternator is a majority of people do not have enough accessories running in their car to use 100% of the alternator's generated power, therefore you can harness that wasted energy and improve the efficiency of your engine

[Larek]

Reed, I was saying to bring another electric source with you and use this process to convert that Stored energy to a usable form for running the car.

It appears that you are not familiar with how a alternator works. It does produce a constant Voltage, but not constant power (thus energy) only as its needed

A easy comparison is the Water pressure in you pipe at your house. The pump (or city) pressurises the water in your pipes to 60psi (like voltage). the fact that there is 60psi in your pipes isn't using any water. However if someone in your house flushes a toilet, water from your pipes flows into the toilet, this loss of water makes the 60psi drop. To restore the presser, the pump(city) flows water into your pipes until the pressure is restored. You can see/feel the pressure drop when your in the shower and some one flushes.

An alternator is made up of three parts. A three phase AC generator, a rectifier (ac->dc) and a voltage regulator. The generator, unlike most your use to does not have any physical magnets, all the magnets are electrical in nature.

To start, the battery runs the center magnet of the generator (so that is like a normal generator). This generates AC power, which is converted to dc by the rectifier. The problem is at this point is that the voltage a generator creates is dependant on the Speed that the alternator is turning (think of any hand crank or bicycle head lamp). Your engine's speed is NOT constant, if it was you wouldn't need a gas petal.

Your car needs/wants 14v(14-13.5v is required to charge your battery), so the voltage regulator looks at the voltage coming off the generator and varies the power to the center magnet limiting the output power to 14v*(X)Amps (power=watts=Volts*Amps)

The (X) is important to not forget. IF you are drawing 2amps, and suddenly you draw 20Amps, (like flushing the toilet), the voltage would drop. The Voltage regular then allows the center magnet to -turn-on-more- thus bring the power up until 14v is restored. (the voltage will only drop to 12v do to the battery then providing amps, but the voltage regulator is very fast)

Your alternator only produces the power you use (+efficiency losses that you can't recover) The concept of 'waisted' power is untrue. It creates a constant 14v but just like how 60psi=gallons is wrong, 14v=Watts(power) is also incorrect. You do use "100% of the alternator's generated power" because the alternator isn't generating power at its full capacity, only what you demand of it.

[reed92]

I stand corrected. Thank you, Larek. I now see the foolishness of my argument. I wonder if a solar panel and a small go-cart battery would do the trick.

[bart10655]

you should capitalize BOOM it would be more persuasive lol

[Jalakahops]

Because your stereo is on a fuse that would blow if you used both at the same time. Good try though.

[kikiclint]

you could always replace the fuse in the box with higher and hack in a correct fuse at the stereo to keep it from burning up.

[BLSTIC]

Simple. Use a relay controlled by your fuel pump. It is on for about a second when the car is first on, and starts going again as soon as you start cranking, and doesn't turn off unless the engine stops.

[petercd]

Another auto method would be to power it from a relay which takes the negative for the relay coil from the oil pressure switch. That way it will only switch on when the engine is actually running. Two fuses would be added safety, one in the circuit from relay to booster, and one on the pos between battery and relay.