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Oct 092012
 

When I asked Chuck Botts what to call his proposed seminar at our Fall 2012 rally to be held in Springville, Utah he gave me a title that didn’t provoke any raised eyebrows so I asked him to spice it up a little. The reason that I wanted him to spice it up was to get some attention, to maybe attract new people to come to the rally. Chuck came up with: "The Mileage Shop Hydrogen Generator - how does a 45% increase in mileage sound?" so that is what we published in the schedule and on the GMCnet with the expected uproar - some of it not very friendly.

First, some background information about Chuck:  In the 1970’s Chuck worked on a project for NASA called the Space Tug. Chuck’s role involved the use of light weight fuel cells that were being developed by P&W using liquid Oxygen and Hydrogen fuels. The Space Tug was supposed to be the mechanism for retrieving digital data from space but was obsoleted by secure digital download before it could be implemented. Chuck is a scientist and is not selling anything.

Second, Chuck had been using the Mileage Shop's Hydrogen Generator since before our Spring rally at Casa de Fruita and having great results so he was enthusiastic when he talked about it there. That is why I encouraged an aggressive title.

When Chuck arrived at the rally he was very disappointed to report that the hydrogen generator was still “working” but his mileage improvements had disappeared. By “working” he meant that it was still generating hydrogen (but doing no good). He wanted to cancel his seminar but we convinced him to just report the facts and what happened from beginning to end. It turns out that Chuck had modified the concentration of the electrolyte (KOH – food-grade potassium hydroxide) thinking that if 20 amps of current through the electrolyte and water mixture was good (his previous experience) then 40 amps (the maximum?) would be better but instead, it just stopped working. When Chuck contacted the Mileage Shop to report the problem they suggested he retune the mixture to get back down around the 20 amp level and try again. That was Chuck's plan as we were leaving. He subsequently reported that on his trip home from Utah he had reduced the concentration of the KOH to the point where the current was 15 amps and producing hydrogen but his fuel economy did not seem to change. Chuck plans to take his coach back to the Dyno Shop and try to figure out if he can again get some mileage improvement - stay tuned here.

The following is a link to Chuck's presentation as a PDF. Please be aware that this is an extremely large file (18 megabytes) so, depending on your connection speed, will probably take quite a while to download so be patient. Click HERE to download it.

 

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