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Bob Boyce is a popular water fuel cell researcher. The following information has been provided by Bob. An abstracted is included with additional reports which have been archived from this site.
Around 1990 Bob had an electronics business in Florida and at the time he had developed hydroxy units to power racing boats. His boats, running in an open class, started setting world records and could out perform all the other boats running on petroleum fuels. During this time he began work on an automobile engine modified to run on hydroxy.
He was doing this in his shop and was close lipped about it. He thinks one of his employees started talking about it too freely because someone broke into his shop and stole the prototype engine. So then he began work on a second engine. This time the thief, or thieves, not only stole the engine, but they ruined his shop as well.
Shortly thereafter false charges were brought against him, which cost him 5 years of legal agony and most of his money. Fed up with the harassment, he and his wife left Florida and moved to a remote area where he would be free of the intimidation he faced in Florida. For a few years he kept relatively quiet about his hydroxy system. But sometime around 2002 he began sharing information about his system. By 2007 he had disclosed most of it, with the exception of the hex controller. The PWM3 series was meant for bench testing and the hex controller for installation in a car (or boat). He doesn't want someone to take his hex controller design, patent it, and prevent it from being used by others in bona fide watercars, so he keeps it carefully protected.
That's the essence of what happened to him, although a few details have been omitted.- End
From the Trenches -- One Man's Experience with Free Energy
Bob Boyce tells about how he built a carburetor using hydrogen and oxygen split using proper frequencies.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bob Boyce" <theghost@realmcity.com>
To: <sterlingda@greaterthings.com>
Sent: Monday, October 07, 2002 8:38 PM
Subject: GTcontact
Hello there, I just read your response to the message from someone asking why you're promoting a fraud (Tilley) and I must commend you on your response. There are a lot of closed-minded and narrow-minded people out there, most of whom were highly educated in traditional schooling methodology taught at most of the universities and colleges throughout the world. They get this doctrine shoved down their throats that if it's not documented in books and/or upheld by popular theory, then it's just not possible. Any attempt to demonstrate such technology usually falls on deaf ears and blind eyes because they refuse to adjust their thinking to accept that maybe something may be possible after all.
I learned the hard way about how society treats those that dare to do something different. I'm not seeking publicity or recognition for any research I did, just wanted to privately relate my experiences with you and ask that you please not publish or share this with anyone.
I had an electronics business down in south Florida where I owned and sponsored a small boat race team through my business starting in 1988. We had a machine shop out back of my business for doing engine work, and I worked on engines for other racers and a local minisub research outfit that was building surface running drone type boats for the DEA.
I delved into hydrogen research where I was building small electrolyzer type units that used distilled water mixed with an electrolyte and I would resonate the plates for optimal conversion efficiency. I discovered that with the right frequencies, I was able to generate monoatomic hydrogen and oxygen, which when recombined, produces about 4 times the energy output of normal diatomic hydrogen and oxygen molecules since the process of combustion does not have to break apart the molecules first before recombining into water vapor. Diatomic hydrogen requires about 4% to air to produce the same power as gasoline, while monoatomic requires slightly less than 1% to air for the same power.
The only drawback was storage at pressure causes the monoatoms to start joining into diatomic pairs, and the mixture weakens, so it must be produced on-demand and consumed right away. I used modified LP carbs on the boat engines to deal with using vapor fuel. I even converted an old chrysler with a slant six engine to run on the hydrogen setup and we tested it in the shop.
I never published anything of what I was working on, and we always stated that our boats were running on hydrogen fuel, which was allowed, to avoid any controversy at the races. It wasn't until many years later that I found out what I had stumbled upon was already discovered and known as "Browns Gas", and there were companies out there selling the equipment and plans to make it. I had never tried to market anything, but I was plagued with trouble ever since I did the conversion to the old Chrysler and did a few test runs on it in the shop.
My shop, which had never had any major crime problems before, suddenly was getting broken into, and pieces of equipment related to the hydrogen project were getting vandalized or stolen. I thought it might be that one of the guys that worked for me might have leaked something to someone and they were trying to either steal the technology or stop me from working on it. I ended up shutting down the research, getting out of it all, converting the boat engines back to racing fuel and selling off the race boats. The break-ins stopped and I had no further trouble up until I totally closed the business and retired in 1991.
I was struck by lightning in 1995 and in 1997 I moved out of Florida, the lightning capital. I am now crippled with arthritis (which is common amongst lightning strike survivors), and recently I developed congestive heart failure/pulmonary edema. I may be weak in body but I am determined to try to stay as active as I can. I am currently stripping down an old 1984 dodge aries with only 29K original miles so I can convert it over to electric operation. I have been seeking all information I can find to be able to apply this unique charging arrangement that Tilley is using and to find out what type of electric motor would be best to use with it. I'm in the eastern TN area in the mountains so it must have enough power to climb the uphill grades and hopefully be able to regenerate on the downhill grades. So far I have found very little information on this. Any help you could provide to steer me in the right direction would be appreciated.
Thank you
Bob Boyce
Part II
Q. Would be willing to post your plans? I would be glad to host them for you if you are willing. (Sterling)
A.
From: "Bob Boyce" <theghost@realmcity.com>
To: "Sterling D. Allan" <sterlingda@greaterthings.com>
Sent: Tuesday, October 08, 2002 3:34 PM
Subject: Re: from the trenches -- one man's experience
Sterling
I doubt if I can find the drawings for them after this long but the device is fairly simple to duplicate. It requires a lot of plates made of 316 stainless so it will withstand the more exotic electrolytes that are more efficient, a plastic box to contain the plates, 1/8" spacers to keep the rows of plates apart, the electrolyte, and an adjustable frequency modified psuedo-sinewave inverter can be used for the drive electronics. I used 61 of the 6" square plates to give a large surface area and scoured the surfaces with coarse sandpaper in an "X" pattern to give a fine crosshatch grain to add fine sharp points. I found this improved efficiency as well. The top of the box had two threaded ports, a small one for injecting replacement distilled water, and a larger one for extracting the vapor.
Under the top cover sitting on top of the plates I cut a piece of plastic matting to prevent sloshing. It's very important to keep the total electrolyte level at or below the tops of the plates to prevent voltage from bypassing any cells and creating excessive water vapor. I placed a 5 PSI cutoff switch in a tee on the water injection port that shut the drive electronics down when the pressure in the unit hit 5 PSI.
This allowed the unit to be able to supply on demand without building up too much pressure in low demand situations. I built a bubbler from a large home cartridge type water filter housing to prevent any backfire from traveling back up the fuel feed to the unit. Without some sort of bubbler you run the risk of the unit exploding if a flame front from the engine flows back to it. I have seen copper mesh screens designed for welding gasses offered for use on plans I seen years later online for similar devices, but hydrogen has a much higher flame propagation speed so the copper mesh may not be reliable enough to risk using. Place the unit close to the engine to limit the amount of monoatom loss to diatomic recombination and feed the fuel vapor to the vapor portion of an LP carb system.
The carb will have to be modified for hydrogen use (different mixture rate than propane) and adjusted with the system running for best performance. The best electrolytes I found to use were sodium hydroxide and potassium hydroxide. While sodium hydroxide works well, it's much easier to get (red devil lye in most department stores) than the much harder to get but slightly more efficient potassium hydroxide. Whatever you do, be very careful of materials! Make absolutely sure they are compatible with the electrolyte used. Never use glass containers for mixing or storing potassium hydroxide!
I never had the chance to drive the test Chrysler on the road with this system. I had the rear end up on jackstands and ran the engine under no-load conditions in drive just to dial the system in and get an idea of how well the engine held up on the hydrogen fuel. I was going to get into more testing and eventually road testing but the first break-in happened. The control electronics unit was stolen and the chamber with the plates was smashed. I had 3 boxes built from Plexiglas so I was able to rebuild that again, and I replaced the control electronics with a modified inverter since most of the experimenting had been done and I had a pretty good idea of what I was doing and needed for frequencies and waveform by this time. I didn't even get to finish the re-assembly when the second break-in occurred.
This time they took the new chamber with plates before it was even finished AND the modified inverter, and they smashed the last remaining Plexiglas box that was on the bench. It was at this point that I gave up. I pieced the remaining Plexiglas box back together with solvent and set plates into it (I had enough plates cut for all 3 prototypes) but I never tried putting electrolyte into it for fear of leaks. Since I no longer had a working unit, and it was obvious that someone did not want me to continue with this research, I converted my race boats back to racing fuel carbs and eventually sold them off. I had spent many thousands of dollars in materials and farmed out machine work that I did not have the equipment to do and just walked away from it all.
I put the repaired prototype away in storage for safekeeping in case I ever decided to make a new box for it some day and I'm glad I did. We had one final break-in and nothing was touched, guess they couldn't find anything of interest, and had no more break-ins since, up until I retired and closed the shop. I brought the repaired prototype with me when I moved. Maybe I can find where I stored it and take a few pictures of it for you with my el-cheapo digital camera. I have no desire to start up with this project again. I prefer an all electric approach.
Bob Boyce
Part III
From: "Bob Boyce" <theghost@realmcity.com>
To: "Sterling D. Allan, Coordinating Managing Director" <sterlingda@perentech.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 10, 2002 2:19 PM
Subject: Re: Bob Boyce info
Hello Sterling
Since your posting I have been deluged with emails asking for more information, which I have tried to respond to individually. Most are pretty much the same questions, frequency, waveform, and physical layout. I will try to clear up some of these points.
The unit does not use "normal brute force" electrolysis when operating in high efficiency mode. It relies mainly on a chemical reaction that takes place between the electrolyte used and the metal plates, which is maintained by electrical energy applied and stimulated into higher efficiency by the application of multiple harmonic resonances which help to "tickle" the molecules apart. I coined the term "electrochemical reaction" to describe the process and I called the chamber an "electrochemical reactor".
I used multiple cells in series to lower the voltage per cell and limit the current flow in order to reduce water vapor production. It relies on the large surface area of the total number of cells to get the required volume of fuel vapor output. In my first prototype of this design, I used a custom built controller/driver that gave me a lot of adjustability so I could experiment with multiple frequencies, voltages, and waveforms individually and compare performance.
The result was a pattern of 3 interwoven square waves rich in harmonics that produced optimal efficiency. When I had the basics figured out I realized that I could just replace the custom controller/driver unit with a modified inverter much easier than building one from scratch. When the original controller was stolen at the first break-in, I then experimented using a 300 watt pseudo-sine wave inverter that had been modified so the base frequency could be adjusted between 700 and 800 hz. The stepped sine wave output was fed through a bridge rectifier which turned each stepped sine wave into two positive stepped half waves.
Each of these half waves had 8 steps, so a single cycle was turned into 16 steps. The resulting output, while not consisting of intermixed square waves, was still rich in harmonics, and I found it much easier to dial in resonance than trying to tune 3 separate frequencies. The frequency range can change depending on the number of steps in the pseudo-sine wave of the inverter you choose since not all inverters are created equal. The desired effect is caused by the multiple harmonic resonances in the inverter output at higher frequencies. You will know when you hit resonance by the dramatic increase in vapor output. The frequency does vary a bit as to what electrolyte is used, the specific gravity of the electrolyte solution (how much electrolyte to water is in the mix), electrolyte temperature, water purity, etc.
Keep in mind that my electrochemical reactor tank was large enough to hold 61 plates of 316 grade stainless that were 6" X 6" each, spaced 1/8" apart, to create 60 cells in series, with the 130 VDC power from the inverter, through the bridge rectifier, applied to the end plates only. That gave 4,320 square inches of surface area, plenty of surface area to produce enough fuel for an automotive engine. The best electrolyte I found for efficiency was potassium hydroxide, and the electrolyte level must be kept below the tops of the plates to prevent any current from bypassing the plates and creating excess water vapor through heating. Distilled water was used to prevent contamination of the electrolyte which would result in reduced performance and efficiency.
I never finished the second unit for any engine run tests because the shop was broken into again and the second prototype and inverter were both stolen. The only testing I had managed to complete before the theft was the tweaking of gas flow while dialing in the inverter frequency. When the theft occurred, the pressure switch and water pump were not yet installed and the water injection port was blocked off with a 316 grade stainless plug. If the thieves tried to use it as it was, the pressure would most likely have built up to the point of the chamber exploding from overpressure, since there was no feedback installed yet to shut down the applied power at 5 PSI. I certainly would not liked to have been around when that much hydrogen and oxygen as well as extremely nasty electrolyte let loose!
Now on to the mechanical details. On my unit I had 316 grade stainless wires tack welded to the tops of the end plates, and tack welded to 316 grade stainless bolts that were through holes in the ends of the container, with rubber o-ring gaskets inside and out, above liquid level. If I remember right cost was over $1000 on the 4' x 8' 316 grade stainless steel sheets and having them sheared into the 6" x 6" plates by the vendor. That was for enough plates to build 3 prototypes plus some extras to make up for the rejects that are typically unavoidable when trying to obtain precision cut material from a supplier. Inverter output was to be switched on and off to the plates by a 5 PSI pressure switch on the side of a tee at the water injection port.
There was a PVC spray bar attached on the inside of the chamber to the water injection port with tiny holes drilled along its length on the underside to supply replacement water evenly to the cells when the water pump was switched on. A backflow prevention valve on top of the tee would keep the gas from flowing back into the water lines. It was originally planned to add an electrolyte level sensor arrangement to automate the addition of replacement water but that point was never reached. Water consumption was fairly slow so it was not hard to keep track of manually.
There was a mat of interwoven plastic fibers (air conditioner filter material) cut and fitted on top of the plates to help prevent sloshing. Make sure to use plastic and not fiberglass mat, which could cause a severe reaction with some electrolytes, like potassium hydroxide. I made up this crude top view sketch with notepad. Each horizontal bar is a plate and the | + and - are the container walls except for the | in the ends which denote the electrical connections from the end plates to the outside of the chamber. You may have to paste it into notepad for the ends to look right.
Bob Boyce
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