Has anyone ever installed one of those HHO thingies

[tommytunes]

I have been reading about HHO generators for autos. The problem I always see is the computer wants to compensate for the added O2 and adds more fuel. Has anyone ever successfully used one on a gas engine. I hear that diesel motors do get some better performance.

[soutthpaw]

They are totally worthless, it takes more energy to make the HHO than is derived from the end product. Otherwise you would have invented perpetual motion and the world's energy needs would be solved!!! its a few people making money off of gullible folks that get suckered into all the marketing and disregard all the laws of Physics and common sense

[Longshot270]

Ha, yeah you can make hydrogen and oxygen that way but the you can't make enough to make a huge impact on large engine efficiency. And to make enough gas for a large engine would require massive amounts of electricity. Scientists have been making hydrogen and oxygen that way for over 100 years but the system is designed for quality of materials not quantity of materials. But I wouldn't completely doubt ALL (or at least question the amount of mileage gains) of the claims because I have seen it work on small applications.

The only reason I would buy it is if I could sue them for making such exagerated claims.

[tommytunes]

I've been messin' with small project size units. My question is concerned with whether the Gryphon could have a program to compensate for the added 02 and Hydrogen. There may be ways, with solar, to lessen or eliminate the impact on the vehicle charging system. So, the statement that it takes more power to make than can be realized does not include outside power. There is a fellow that is using solar and wind power to generate pure hydrogen (separated from the O2 in the generator). Stores the Hydrogen for heat and cooking and has enough electric left over to power his house. He's off the grid. But that is not within the scope of this forum to discuss. I digress, sorry.
Tom

[soutthpaw]

sure a tune can be made for that but you would probably want to live tune on a dyno with live data reading of the short/long term fuel trims etc...
I did read an article on Hydrogen with CNG combo on a research project in AZ I think it was... didnt produce much of an improvement... that was coming out of a special premixed dispenser too
here are a couple links
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/7004124/...ations-Summary
http://avt.inel.gov/hydrogen.html

[Jackpine]

Originally Posted by tommytunes

I have been reading about HHO generators for autos. The problem I always see is the computer wants to compensate for the added O2 and adds more fuel. Has anyone ever successfully used one on a gas engine. I hear that diesel motors do get some better performance.

If these things actually work, and I can't see how they really would, I don't see the computer sensing any added oxygen at all.

As I understand things, the device electrolyzes water into its "pre-burned" hydrogen and oxygen components. These are simply dumped into the intake along with the normal air. The charge that reaches the cylinder would have the same amount of fuel as before, because the MAF sensor can't distinguish oxygen (or hydrogen) from air. But, if things go as planned, the oxygen in the normal air charge combines with the fuel and the added hydrogen and oxygen burn too, releasing additional energy (supposedly). Since the oxygen that was extracted from the water is recombined with the hydrogen, the O2 sensors in the exhaust don't see anything different so they won't send a "lean" signal to the PCM, which WOULD call for more fuel.

Now, I have to admit that I don't know how O2 sensors work. If they are simple temperature sensors, they COULD send a "lean" signal to the PCM because the burning hydrogen should produce a hotter exhaust. Added fuel would cool it.

I also think it takes more energy to electrolyze water than you can recover by burning the separated components. AND the energy needed to do the separation is, I think, much more than you are going to get out of some solar device you can mount on your vehicle. I doubt you are going to get any useful amount of hydrogen at all.

I had four 15-watt solar panels for our trailer, and was really only able to get about 2.5 Amps at 13-14 Volts out of them - on a clear sunny day! This is hardly enough to do any serious hydrogen generation.

- Jack

[soutthpaw]

there has been some improvement in the efficiency of solar panels but not enough to accomplish the HHO reaction... it would make more sense to use the electricity to run an electric motor. Just saw that one of the big tech universities made a breakthrough on solar cells making them like 90 % efficient so we may see big improvements in solar in a few years
There have also been some good results with CNG/Diesel powered vehicles...

[Longshot270]

To Jack, I think the sensor really does measure the amount of available oxygen (this is also a relation to the relative amount of unburnt fuel). The catalytic converter is designed to use unburnt fuel to start its own combustion reactions to break down anything left. So there always needs to be some fuel getting past the engine to allow this reaction to continue. By adding more O2 in the beginning the engine's reaction will be more complete leaving less oxygen and unburnt fuel for the sensor to read. The computer is going to think "Uh oh, no fuel over here means too much air". To compensate, the easiest and safest thing for the engine to do will be to add more fuel. Also, the computer adapts to it's environment, to a certain extent, to make the engine run more efficiently. If you take a truck from the beach and load it on a trailer and pull it to the rockies it may have a little bit of trouble at first running on the thinner air. I wouldn't be suprised to see a lean code going the other way because the computer will be used to putting so much fuel in for a given amount of mountain air. Take it to the beach where the air is denser and the computer will wonder why there is so much more air. I have read that some people noticed that the generators caused their mileage to go down intially but then over time of at least a few weeks it improved. This could suggest that the computer is learning to use the new ratio of oxygen to fuel. Personally I think there are too many variables to say yay or nay on how well it works. But I do not think that all of the companies selling the kits are honest about fuel savings.

[Power Hungry]

There ya go! Use solar panels to handle the HHO generation! Then you're getting something for nothing.

[Longshot270]

And if you do want to try it, I've found this kind of solar panel that works really well. It is designed to rechard deer feeders. The key thing that makes it work better than any other I have used is that the surface is covered in honeycomb shaped bumps. I think they are supposed to either focus the light onto the cells better (or it bends the light that comes from an angle to focus it onto the cells like the ends of some fiberoptic cables) because it will still put out a fair number of amps from almost any angle.They come in 12 volt but I used a 6 volt charger to run an MP3 player with a bad battery when I was out in the kayak. I just put each pole of the alligator clips to the correct poles on a 12 volt cell phone car charger that fit into the music player. Still used regular headphones but I put them in a little box where they would amplify like an old fashioned megaphone. So I basically made 100% green stereo system. I might buy a rechargeable 6 volt battery this summer so I dont have to worry about shady spots killing the MP3 player. + =

If you have one of those bed covers you could put a bunch on there. On a sunny day that might be able to generate enough to make a difference. The intial cost of the panels will be what get you though. I think they were around $20-$25 each.