Running An Engine On Water? Some Say It’s Simple
Posted by carrie_roll
This post is a series of conversations I have had, and great information I’ve received, from Chris Rohland, a member of the GreenJoyment community.
He has figured out how to run an engine on water, which means that in theory, if you had one of these engines in your home, you could run your heating and electricity on nothing but water.
GreenJoyment: Chris, what’s gotten you interested in working/living green?
Chris: Originally boy scouts. I learned to live off and appreciate the land. Kind of like survivorman and man vs. Wild. But not to those extremes. I am currently in the process of sawing logs from an overgrown woods to hand craft a log home. The point is to live off the grid with minimal technology. I want to raise my kids in an amish like setting. Im not impressed with the direction or reliability of the future of society so im getting out while the gettin’s good.
GreenJoyment: Not a bad plan. We’re hearing that perspective more and more and have to say that it seems like the safest way to go… We’ll do our best to bring you what help we can…
Chris: Here is the thing. With solar and wind power, there are downsides. As with everything. solar and wind power are subject to the availability of the sun and wind. Then the process of creating the solar cells is not a very green process. Just like bio fuels and ethanol, the process to create the fuel puts more co2 emissions into the atmosphere than if we just burned the petroleum that they replace.
Anyhow… Ive been checking into hydrogen to power my vehicles and my home. Attached is a diagram of a system i have been using in a ’86 ford ranger with a 400 hp Chevy 355 ci engine. Living in Wisconsin, it is not practical in the winter months, because water easily freezes, but the idea is wonderful in the warmer months, and i plan on using the same principal to run a generator to power my home all year round.
I basically use the process of electrolysis is to run electric current thru water to split the molecules and produce hho. Then you can ignite the gas with a spark or flame. The only emission burnt hydrogen produces is water vapor. so the idea of being able to produce electricity with no emission would be ideal, but impossible? The attachment shows the process of running water into a carburated motor with a manual fuel pump, converting it to hho and firing it all at once. and the motor can be used to drive a transmission on a vehicle or used to run a generator to power a home.
Check it out and let me know what you think. If you have any questions about this, please ask. And feel free to share this info. It is public info and not to be sold.
GreenJoyment: Hey Chris!
I think this is simply awesome. I just don’t know enough about the technology to know any potential pitfalls or downsides to doing things this way. If this works in a home, I think it could be really rather revolutionary. What do you see being the biggest challenges with it? Also, do you have a background in electrical engineering or where did you learn to draw this layout?
Chris: The nice thing is that you run the power to a secondary main breaker box and from there you bring the power in under the main breakers in the house. that way you can shut off the ‘grid’ power and turn on the secondary box to allow power to the home from the generator. if something happens with the generator, you just flip the switches and you can be back on the grid.
I found this design on the Internet while researching hydrogen power. It came from a retired mechanic that remained anonymous. He ran this setup on a 1978 camaro for 30,000+ miles and had no trouble. I just transferred the idea to a generator setup to power a home. The only potential problem i can see with running a generator that much is the bearings would need greased weekly or even daily, and the brushes would have to be watched and replaced as needed. Other than that, there is really nothing that can go wrong. I am going to use a 2:1 pulley setup so when the motor spins at 900 rpm the generator will run at 1800 rpm, and the motor will have very minimal wear. You could set this up initially for under $1000, using a used motor from the junkyard. After you have some signifigant savings on your electric bill, you can purchase a crate motor for around $3000, if you want new. Or you can recycle the junkyard motor and get another one for a couple hundred. There is a company that sells a nice generator on eBay. 10-12kw would be enough power to run my 2200 sq ft home with electric heat and power my garage where i do some welding and such. It goes for $350. To figure out how big you would need, you have to add up the maximum amount of energy consumed at any given time from all your devices and appliances.
Infrared electric heaters use a small amount of electricity and are very nice to use for anyone. www.edenpuresale.com has a 1500 watt unit that heats 1000 sq ft and if it ran continuously, which it wouldn’t, would use approx. $80/ month. They sell for under $400.
You can also check this out. www.iheaterstore.com.
as for the schematics… That is Microsoft paint at its finest. lol no background. i barely have a high school diploma. I’m just a tinker-er. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. Please feel free to share this info. It is public info.
Click on the image to view it full-size
Update March 1, 2009
Jon asked:
I am asking about the relays that fires 120Vac into each cylinder. Chris was saying that the relays are triggered from the distributor which are tens of thousands of volts which would destroy the relays. I am thinking he is doing something else that is not on the drawing that is on your web page. I am hoping he would answer about the relays or the circuit so I can get something built.
Chris Responded:
I don’t know what is up with the relays. Common sense would tell anyone that what Jon says should be the case. But for some reason it works. I don’t know if it the ac vs. dc or what. All I have done is what is on the diagram.
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So, GreenJoyment community, looking at Chris’ design, what questions do you have?
Please post your questions using the comments field below.
21 Responses to “Running An Engine On Water? Some Say It’s Simple”
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Hi Chris, nice to hear from an independent person. I’m Terry in the UK and have been looking at several HHO systems, these make hydrogen from water and bleed the oxygen and hydrogen into the intake near to the carb.
Have looked at total hydrogen systems, there is an new eco house in USA that stores it’s excess electric solar power as hydrogen in cylinders and then converts it back to electric when the sun is not shining.
Also looked at total hydrogen systems that run piston engines. They talk of coatings to the piston, barrels and using stainless steel valves and exhaust. This is because of rust, but it sounds a lot of trouble and cost. I’m afraid your drawing did not come through in great detain but I think I am unlikely to run an engine just on hydrogen at present.
It would be great to have some feedback from an independent person who has made, and is using a HHO system and not someone that is attached to a company. How economical is it, recommendations on setting it up, and design.
I hope this is some help and look forward to any information that you can provide.
Thanks Terry -
Jon says:
From what I see in the drawing as I understand it. The spark plugs are using 120V instead of thousands of volts to ignite water.
Would you have to adjust timing to make this to run smoothly?
Does it run hot so you would need radiator?
Could I run this on a lawnmower engine for testing?
I am sorry for many questions but you got my attention. -
emanuel caruana says:
Can I receive more notes regarding engine running on water?
Regards
Emanuel -
Hub says:
first 120 volts won’t jump a gap. It takes several thousand volts to jump the spark gap. Cars normaly use 20,000 volts to the plug and to get relays to operate at that rate several operations a second they would have to be very expensive and still wouldn’t last very long .
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David Penman says:
well ive tinkered with hho and have actually built a little model that works till the water gets to a temp of 150 so im working on a cooler but it is designed to just save fuel milage i would like to know without the exspence of the relays and in the diagram you have a sparkplug wire leaving the dist. and going to a relay not gonna hold that kind of power and wont respond fast enough to fire in order please send me a more in depth diagram and ill work on putting a pic. of my system online so we maybee can swap ideas and make this thing hho work thanks
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Abdalla Nizar says:
Thanks for the information,please if you could provide us with more deatails,both in diagrams,chemical changes and any usefull notes.
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Lonny says:
Hello Chris, l think you have a good idea, but I think you need to consider the real problems that may make this concept impractical for a dependable power system. One is the limited life of a standard engine under the water vapor conditions and the real issue of producing enough hydrogen and your storage method. You need to do the math on this first before solving the other problems. I don’t believe it is possible to make a transportable self contain system. This is why the current hydrogen cars require filling stations and a enfrastructure changes to be practical. You can buy a bolt on hydrogen machine for your carborator, but they don’t produce enough hydrogen to work. Myth busters recently tested the unit without success. I will add that you are contributing to the power problem solution by raising public awareness and that solutions are probably right in front of us but we do not see them.
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hafeez says:
this is the good idea.i m working on it for a few months.and im successful to run a 1.5kwa gasoline generator on hho.about 4 lpm of hho.but Jonathan can you tell me weather you run your car completly on hho or mixed hho in gasoline.and other thing is that if you run your completly on hho than trll me hho much gas is made by you and how much volts and amps you are using.please rep me.i m waiting
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Chris says:
I am impressed by the expressed interest in this. But first of all, its not my idea, im just passing it on. And im no expert, believe me, but the ‘brain-child’ of this said not to make it more than what it is. I didnt. This is exactly what i did, not necessarily in this order. I took my 1986 ford ranger that has a .030 over chevy 350 ci engine. dyno at 435 hp. i removed the gas tank and installed a fuel cell from a race car for a water storage tank. i cut a 2” hole in the top for my exhaust inlet. more later. i connected the fuel lines to said cell. the manual fuel pump on the motor draws the water thru an inline fuel filter and up to the carb. i replaced the carb jets with 2 sizes larger jets. water, not hydrogen goes into the cylinders like the gas normally would. i got a plastic batterybox for a boat and mounted a 400 watt cobra inverter inside. any non conductive housing will work to prevent the inverter from grounding to the body. hook the inverter up to the relays. one for each cylinder. i got my relay from a HVAC supplier. its good for 680v ac. it interrupts both the positire and the negative as to keep stray 120v out of your vehicle. i attached the + to the top of the sparkplug and the – to the base pinched between the plug and the block. the current only goes to the plug and nowhere else. no it wont short out any electrical system. distributer wirer goes to the switching lead on relay for said cyl. i increased the plug gap by .02. the distrib makes contact and trips the relay allowing 120vac to the plug creating a plasma arc. when you introduce the water vapor you have electrolosis in the cylinder with ignition. the intense heat of the burnt hho converts the unused water into steam assisting in the completion of the combustion/ power stroke. the water vapor exhausted is connected to the two inch pipe in the fuel cell to save any unused water and to preheat the water for better atomization in the engine. the fuel cell has to have a vent to release any pressure. adjust the engine timing where it runs best
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That is the best i can explain this. the idea, process, and conversion are simple and can be done in a few hours. if you hook the inverter and relays up, you can run a hose to a pail of water and it will idle with some timing adjustment. the main thing is it has to be carburated with manual fuel pump in this scenario. if anyone divises a system for efi, please share. one thing ive noticed is: at approx. 3000 rpm the distrib fires so quickly that the relays ‘switched’ time is shortened to thepoint there is a power loss. solution- keep it below 3000 rpm. if there are any questions, comments, or concerns just post them. ill monitor this. or my email is thepowerplayer@rocketmail.com. good luck.
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What kind of relays do you use? 12Vdc, 24Vdc, 120Vac?
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Corey says:
I have a couple of questions for Chris. First, do you have any pictures you can post online of your working car? Second, you say you use it in the summer, how many miles have you driven it?
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Alan Hosie says:
Chris I would dearly like to be kept posted on this Alan
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Chris says:
Hello all. The relays I used are good for 680vac. I got them from a hvac dealer and they have + and – input and output. Both are switched and there is a lead in to turn the relay “on” and “off”. I didn’t have much time to play with this after I ‘threw’ it together last fall, but for the people that are interested, ill give it a more serious effort when it warms up a bit. On a lighter note, I pulled it in the shop today and fired it up. It took about an hour to get it going. Ill take plenty of pics and possibly some video. I have another ranger with a 289ci v-8 that I built pretty good. This is intended to be my show truck, so it will be converted with more care, but will be done. This summer if I have time. Ill take video of it all. There are ‘burnout’ competitions that I will be entering both in during this summer and ill get video of them. Ill probably post on my youtube channel, as usual. Until next time, be good, and if your not, don’t get caught.
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Jim says:
I don’t have time to read all the comments but what about the second law of thermodynamics, entropy can be created but cannot be destroyed. Put another way it requires the same amount or more energy (always more because of entropy) to electrolyze the water than can be gained by recreating the water by burning the hydrogen.
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Christer Dirfeldt says:
Hi Chris! This is very interesting! I have a question about the inverter. The inverter makes AC not DC. How can it then be electrolysis in the cylinder then? Or do you have a rectifier?
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countryboy says:
first off the water motor wont work,also second you cant buy a 12kw gen anywhere for that kind of money. You really need to do some research.I have been building and running hydrogen cells in my cars and trucks for over a year now. I have been a mechanic for 40 + years and can tell you a motor wont run entirely on water.. Im from mo the show me state…show me please
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Ali says:
Hello Chris,i am very interested to make a car and a Genset to run with water.
Kindly send me the conversion plans of the above mentioned items.
best regards
Ali -
Sibo-Dennis ebi says:
Good day Mr Jonathan Kraft, I really do love everything in your site.I sent you an email asking if you can allow me to write article for pay. you replied me and said I should send you a sample article to see if it is fit for publishing and also stsate my charges. I have sent one to you entitled “going green”.I have not got a response from you .sir if you don’t mind I would like to charge $30 per article it is still negotiable if you like it.
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Sam says:
Most of the time I don’t post on blogs, but I would like to say that this post really forced me to do so. Really nice post!
This is a very interesting topic, are there any good and clear instructions on how to do this?