burning transformers

[jameshvelez]

I am working on this electrolisys machine, which basically is a crystal base, 8 1/2'' tall
4'' wide and 3 1/4'' deep, I fill this base with 700ml of distilled water and I add 1/2 tea spoon of baking soda, I used 2 stainless steel 316L plates as the positive and negative terminals, they are 6'' long by 2'' wide, the thicknes of these plates is about 1mm, to cover my crystal base I used a 1/2'' thick acrilyc piece that is hold by two steel hooks that are hold in place by two steel springs, of course I place a rubber seal between the crystal base and the acrilyc cover, in order to avoid any leaks on the reactor, my acrilyc cover has a 1/4'' tube that allows me to connect a piece of plastic tubing to let the oxygen and hydrogen atoms escape. I started using a AC to DC transformer 7.5 Volts and 375 m-amps that last me for 3 months and worked really well until it failed, the I used some other transformers but all of them failed, some of them in as soon as 10 minutes, some other lasted one hour or more, the last transformes from Radio Shack where 13.8 volts 3 Amps, the first unit worked for 3 days and then failed, I went back to the store and they gived me a new transformer same 13.8 volts 3 amps, which worked for 1 and 1/2 hour and failed. I went back to Radio Shack and bought 2 transformers rated at 12 volts 500 miliamps, one of these units failed also afther few hours, I took it back to Radio Shack, the other units seems to be working fine, but I am afraid that it can fail at any moment. What am I doing wrong? please help anyone! Do I need more volts or more amps, a different kind of transformer? Note: The production of HHO gas, at 12 volts and 500 miliamps is fine!
James

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by jameshvelez

I... Do I need more volts or more amps, a different kind of transformer? Note: The production of HHO gas, at 12 volts and 500 miliamps is fine!
James

perhaps the continuous operation at full rating is heating the coils until the insulation fails and an internal short of the windings occurs. maybe try some heat sinks or fan or both on the transformer unit to cool it.

[Turtle]

another thought j-man. some of these commercial transformers/adapters have thermal over-load switches that shut the unit down when it gets too hot. this protects the windings from the shorts i mentioned above. often these lack an external reset, but they reset themselves when they cool off suffiently. the only way i found to determine this is to periodically try to restart the unit. i have used a model train transformer for experiments similar to yours & after shutdown it could take an hour or two to reset.

[jameshvelez]

hey t-man thanks for your interest in my project, your last comment is a valid one, I wil keep that on mind, thanks again!

[pamela]

hello james,
welcome to hypography!!

[modest]

It certainly sounds like you're overloading them. The first one probably didn't have overload protection and did its very best to work while not melting and causing a fire for a good 3 months. Most adapters, I'm pretty sure, have overload protection which doesn't reset but permanently destroys the device. You should buy a fuse at the rated power of the adapter to place between it and the cell and use a resistor if necessary.

~modest

[lemit]

Isn't there some way of reducing the overload by redesigning the electrolysis device? I haven't done this myself in 50 years, so I'm really just trying to prompt someone to give me a thorough refresher course on electrolysis, circuits, and such. If you could include the graphics with the little arrows, I'd like that a lot.

Thanks.

--lemit

[modest]

Originally Posted by lemit

Isn't there some way of reducing the overload by redesigning the electrolysis device?

Anything that increases the resistance will lower the power usage. A person could move the electrodes further apart or use less electrolyte. The conductance of NaOH doesn't change much with concentration though. Easiest, I would think, to use a resistor.

~modest