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Bryan1 Guru Joined: 22/02/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1424
Posted: 10:03am 21 Jun 2025
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G'day Guy's A few weeks ago a mate showed me a youtube on water splitting which has been on my mind ever since. Now there are plenty of ways to go about this where a single outlet will give you HHO which is a very volatile mix to say the least.
So doing this on a budget where I found some whisks for $1.50 which sit inside a couple of soda water bottles and have a SS scrubber in each whisk and with the bases of the soda water bottles cut off the electrical contact can happen under the bottles.
Finally went on ebay agian to buy a 32 volt 10 amp lab power supply and sure enough the seller changed my order to a 120 volt 3 amp lab power supply. I messaged the seller within 5 minutes when I noticed the error and the next morning got a reply saying my order was corrected. Now as the 120 volt was around $30 dearer it will be interesting to see if a credit or refund is there but I doubt it. So I will get onto that after the unit arrives.
From the video I did watch he went from zero volt to around 6 volts for a 10 amp output now the whole point of this exercise is to power this straight off a solar panel where I just happen to have a spare 330 watt panel for the project.
This morning I assembled the unit and siliconed the top to keep the wires in place and seal the outlet so pic's can come in the next few days.
Now I do and ask several outlet for tubes got blank face from all but one where I got a tip to drive around the corner to a ag place and picked up 2off tractor tyre tubes got told they had puntures but they haven't lost pressure in 2 days so no leaks.
The first run I will be using balloons to check the output and see how long they take to fill.
Now to compress the gas into a lpg bottle an old fridge compressor will be used and if a higher pressure pump is needed I will just make one.
Enough for now and remember this all just fun.
Regards Bryan
Bryan1 Guru Joined: 22/02/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1424
Posted: 02:55am 22 Jun 2025
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G'Day Guy's, Well finally got it all setup and going
I made a saturated solution of baking soda and used my 30 volt 3 amp old power supply and finding it does keep going into current limit.
At first saw no action on the ballons so siliconed up around the tubes and cut some short lengths of 10 and 12mm tube pushed them together and now the ballons are a tight fit and found pretty well straight away they popped out so they are filling slowly
With wild weather coming this arvo I'll wait until it's over before setting up the 330 watt solar panel as this black duck doesn't want to be a wind sail
Cheers Bryan
Godoh Guru Joined: 26/09/2020 Location: AustraliaPosts: 524
Posted: 06:16am 22 Jun 2025
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Hi Bryan, that looks like fun. It is something to be very careful with but I guess you have read enough about the flammability of the stuff. I still remember well having a charging battery blow up in my face. Hydrogen carries a wallop. There was a fellow around long ago who was making HHO gas to weld and cut with . It was known as Browns Gas in those days. I guess the youtube videos are copying his ideas. Have fun. Pete
Bryan1 Guru Joined: 22/02/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1424
Posted: 06:44am 22 Jun 2025
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Hi Pete yea for this units first run today was a bit of fun finding the leaks as didn't get much action with the balloons So put another bead of silicon around each outlet and gave it a few hours to cure. It did turn out with the hydrogen balloon had a hole in it as I thought with the balloons not being blown up beforehand to stretch the rubber would restrict the expansion.
Just ran it a few minutes ago and within a few minutes the balloons were standing up right so got the leaks all fixed
So now got some lathe work to do making the fittings for these tractor tubes and found out the thread on the tyre valve is 5/16 x 32 TPI and sure enough I do have a tap and die Also with these big tubes it will take a heap of gas before any real pressure builds up so I should be able to capture some of it.
That 32 volt 10 amp lab power supply is due here Wednesday so no real rush as this wild weather is due to end around that time.
I do guess the real fun will start when I connect that 330 watt panel as the open circuit voltage is around 38 volts and about 10 amps of current should get more bubbles going.
This whole setup cost less than $30 and it is a huge learning curve
Cheers Bryan
Godoh Guru Joined: 26/09/2020 Location: AustraliaPosts: 524
Posted: 06:53am 22 Jun 2025
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When I was a kid I used to make Hydrogen filled balloons. I used Hydrochloric acid and dropped Zinc bits into it. I used a milk bottle as a container for the acid and put a balloon over the top quickly after I dropped the zinc in to the acid. The balloons filled pretty fast and one had to be quick to pull the balloon off or they blew up too much and went bang. What i did find was that leaving them overnight they lost gas. It would take a couple of days for them to be flat but the gas got out. Have fun with it pete
Bryan1 Guru Joined: 22/02/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1424
Posted: 07:00am 22 Jun 2025
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Pete I silver soldered some 5/16" copper tube onto 2 of those brass valves I had here so each arvo after a days run I can shut the valve to keep the gas.
I still need to setup my old fridge compressor to accept the 8mm plastic tubing and put in a pressure gauge as knowing what pressure is there is needed.
Like I say mate all good fun in retirement where at end the goal of the project is reached.
Bryan1 Guru Joined: 22/02/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1424
Posted: 07:34am 23 Jun 2025
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Well ran the unit again this morning and found there was a leak on the negative side under the wire, so bent the wire up and after drying the area with my heat gun put some more silicon on to seal it.
Left it for about 4 hours and ran it again where I noticed the balloons inflated pretty well straight away and stayed around the same size, I did notice the negative side water level went down to the point exposing the SS scrubbers so stopped the unit.
What surprised me was although the hydrogen balloon was pretty firm the water level hadn't dropped at all.
So the pressure of the rubber balloons is too great for the output of the unit so decided to deflate the tubes and I'll make the fittings tomorrow for them.
Got notification the power had turned up but it wasn't at the local shop and when I got home looked at email again where it said 4 to 6pm for delivery so expecting a truck very soon.
Cheers Bryan
Godoh Guru Joined: 26/09/2020 Location: AustraliaPosts: 524
Posted: 07:49am 23 Jun 2025
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It sounds like you are having fun. I guess that the old style gas tanks that rose up as they filled and dropped as they emptied were built that way for a good reason. I hope the tractor tubes work for you, they should hold a fair bit of gas. Have fun Pete
phil99 Guru Joined: 11/02/2018 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2566
Posted: 08:30am 23 Jun 2025
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The problem will be the unequal stiffness of the balloons. As the water can flow freely between the sides there can be almost zero difference in pressure between the two sides. So if one balloon requires more pressure to inflate than the other the water will move to the other side and not inflate the balloon any further.
Godoh's suggestion may be the way to go.
The Browns Gas system avoided the issue by simply collecting the mixed hydrogen and oxygen in a single container. It is potentially explosive so it is imperative that the material used for the container can not act as a catalyst for a reaction. Edited 2025-06-23 18:32 by phil99
Bryan1 Guru Joined: 22/02/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1424
Posted: 10:30am 23 Jun 2025
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Now what I did fail to mention I took the balloon of the negative side first and the water level didn't raise at all it only when I took the balloon off the positive side the water level in the negative chamber leveled out.
So it does look like I may have a leak at the bottle tops and HHO is mixing above the water line so tomorrow I'll take it out let it dry and silicon up around the bottle tops.
With the forecast here tomorrow of 20-35mm of rain I should get a bit of shed work done while managing leaks etc in my shed.
Bryan1 Guru Joined: 22/02/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1424
Posted: 05:00am 25 Jun 2025
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Well had 2 emails on Monday saying that 32 volt power supply had been delivered and it turned out they left it by my front gate and didn't even notify me.
So it has been thru one hell of alot rain and luckily the power supply was in a plastic bag and turning it on it works The manual is soaked but there isn't much info so got very lucky.
Yesterday machined up the fittings for the tubes so now the job getting everything hooked up and letting the fun start.
Cheers Bryan
Edit: Ok vacuumed out the tubes and got it all setup and going
Set the power supply to 32 volts and it's drawing 5.861 amps and slowly the amps are raising so it does look like this setup will be suitable for the solar panel. Edited 2025-06-25 15:38 by Bryan1
Godoh Guru Joined: 26/09/2020 Location: AustraliaPosts: 524
Posted: 06:35am 25 Jun 2025
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Delivery people these days don't care at all. Their way of working seems to be that they delivered the parcel, so that is all they are paid to do. Doesn't matter if they leave stuff in the rain, or somewhere it may get stolen. As far as they are concerned they delivered it. Glad to hear the power supply works and good luck with making gas Pete
Bryan1 Guru Joined: 22/02/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1424
Posted: 06:47am 25 Jun 2025
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So I've dialed in the power supply to 20 volts and it's drawing 4.364 amps and slowly rising and as my shed battery is fully charged I'm going to leave it running overnight.
I'm sure this power supply will handle it due to a cold night and I have noticed the fan only runs for a short time. The power supply has been going now for well over an hour and it's still cool to touch.
Tonight I'll get back onto ebay and let the seller know due to him allowing the package to be left if moisture does kill the power supply I will be wanting another one free of charge as negative reviews are a killer for ebay sellers.
MaryB_MN Newbie Joined: 03/08/2024 Location: United StatesPosts: 9
Posted: 01:12pm 25 Jun 2025
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Hydrogen is very hard to store... it can leak thru a lot of materials. So don't expect days of storage!
Bryan1 Guru Joined: 22/02/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1424
Posted: 12:25am 26 Jun 2025
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Well just came up to the shed and found the power supply was in OCP ( open circuit protection) and both of the tubes do have good signs of filling
Now what I expect is the amps slowly got to the max set point which was set at 8.3 amps so the OCD protection came in.
Now in that picture the tube on the left one can a distinct fold which now filled out and that one is the positive side ( Hydrogen ) and the other tube is is also filled out.
Just checked the battery voltage and I'd say it would of run for most of the night too and I'll run it all day today where I can keep an eye on it.
Cheers Bryan Edited 2025-06-26 10:51 by Bryan1
Bryan1 Guru Joined: 22/02/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1424
Posted: 05:49am 26 Jun 2025
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Well been running the unit all day and just noticed the current output had dropped to nothing
Man the unit was warm so left it for half an hour and topped up the water with nice cold water. Got back running on 10 volts with a 3.451 amp current draw.
Now silly me had my wires crossed and it's the negative rail that outputs hydrogen not the positive rail. Now as we are making 2 hydrogen atoms to one oxygen atom the way the tubes were filling gave me the tip so checked it on google.
Anyway below is the output so far
So as we can see the tube on the right is the hydrogen and it is not far away from being filled I do have some E sized oxy/acetylene bottles to use as the storage and sorted the fridge pump for the hookup, also had a copper outlet for the acetylene bottle which will make for easy filling.
Cheers Bryan
Edit: Well closing the shed up for the night so set the power supply to 10 volts and the current current draw is 2.9 amps, so hopefully running gently overnight will go all night long and tomorrow the first decanter. Edited 2025-06-26 17:23 by Bryan1
Revlac Guru Joined: 31/12/2016 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1143
Posted: 08:52am 26 Jun 2025
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About 30 years ago a friend come over and showed me his HHO rig, it was made with all stainless steel cream separator innards and SS canister, plugged it into our 48v 50a battery charger and it was bubbling slowly, he lit up a few bubbles for very loud BANG, the 2 large bubbles, should have had ear muffs for that. I tried it with solar a few years back, setup took no more than 5 minuets and it producing bubbles I could light with a match, splashes water everywhere as well.
Haven't seen one yet that has been done with separate gas at the outlets, it has always been an explosive mixture......a few families have had a divorce over this stuff...... It might be worth testing before you try to compress that stuff or it could be the last bit of fun you have........Bubble a little bit into soapy water take it out doors away from everything, PUT some hearing protection on and light the bubbles....hope you are correct and it will just burn instead of exploding. Cheers Aaron Off The Grid
Bryan1 Guru Joined: 22/02/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1424
Posted: 09:16am 26 Jun 2025
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Hi Aaron thanks for the tip with the bubble test and I will do it before I do the decanting as so far no pops or bangs etc.
Today when I saw the power supply stop I touched the unit and man was it hot so got a litre of cold water and topped up the fluid.
Now one thing I have noticed when I mixed the baking soda I put 1/2 a kg of it in 3.5 litres of water and made a total saturated mix with over 1/2" sitting on the bottom of the flask. Now it has run for a full day the level of the extra baking soda has more than halved.
I reckon the sweet spot for running this unit is under 5 amps to keep the heat down as running on 9 amps over a few hours caused the breakdown.
The good thing about this design is the electrical connection is done under the soda bottles so no real chances of a short circuit.
Regards Bryan
Bryan1 Guru Joined: 22/02/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1424
Posted: 12:42am 27 Jun 2025
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Morning Guy's, Well leaving the power supply on 10 volts worked over night and got a heap more filling done
Now just did a bubble test and rather than a loud pop the bubbles just burnt very quickly
I'm going to keep filling until like with the balloon run where the water level drops in the soda bottle showing it has reached the max pressure.
I have ramped it up to 15 volts with a 3.231 current draw and keep an eye on it today and I do think by this afternoon it may be ready for decanting.
Regards Bryan
Bryan1 Guru Joined: 22/02/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1424
Posted: 05:00am 27 Jun 2025
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G'Day Guy's, Well decided to do the first decant just now and off the first batch got 20 PSI in the tank
Here is a pic of my decanting setup
First I pulled a vacuum on the tank using the fridge pump and used that cheapo gauge setup I got off ebay where found it only half finished. Anyway just using the ports I've found it's good for pulling vacuums and like today able to read the pressure attained.
I found the beauty of that clear plastic 8mm tube just a quick heat with a lighter then push it onto the 5/16" copper tube. Now I did find when I closed the valve on the tank the hose shot off as the fridge compressor was still going
Anyway I'm pretty happy it's only taken 2 days to do a cycle also as the other tube is much larger I have left it and will decanter off the second run or sooner if needed.
Still a long way to go now it is looking good where for a few dollars one can make their own setup and best of all being off the grid the cost of power is zilch nada nothing
Regards Bryan
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The Back Shed's forum code is written, and hosted, in Australia.
Notice. New forum software under development. It's going to miss a few functions and look a bit ugly for a while, but I'm working on it full time now as the old forum was too unstable. Couple days, all good. If you notice any issues, please contact me.
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So put another bead of silicon around each outlet and gave it a few hours to cure. 
