#1 - While denting the plates with center punch, they deformed a bit. I straightened them out in a vise but there is still some variation in plate spacinig when they are in the array. Is this going to be a serious issue? serious enough to take it all apart and scratch & dent new plates?

#2 - when conditioning and testing the booster, do you just hook it up to a stand-alone car battery and run it down? or is there a better way.

Thanks in advance, I am quite excited to be a part of this!

I am not trying to take away from anyone's ideas, but I have built a couple of Smack's boosters, and I didn't dent the plates. Maybe they work better dented, I don't know for sure, but I took someone else's idea and cross sanded them with 60 grit belt sander on the concave side and I worked them on the concave side with a semi-pointed grind rock in my Dremel tool. I am very pleased with the results. Mabe denting is better, but these work very well. Hope this helps.. Garry

Also, I use a 12v power supply for testing, you can hook to a 12v battery to test it, might have to put a charger on the battery, but that should work

Like Garry Said, you should always cross sand also. But the plates will be fine. Just put it together and "eyeball" the plates. Bend them with some needle nose pliers to get them as even as possible. This is not a series cell so Exactness is no necessary.

As far as Conditioning goes, if you are going the Battery Route you will definetly need a charger hooked up to it. Try and keep your amperage below 10 AMPS for a day or two before moving up. This is a good amperage to draw all the impurities out of the metals, and get a good base "Conditioning".

Pre Heat Your Distilled Water Before adding KOH so you have an accurate baseline Amperage with heated electrolyte. Put a "GOOD" Inline fuse or a 12V Breaker on this if you plan on running it unattended (Not Recommended).

After conditioning process is complete should the electrolyte be discarded and replenished with new refreshed elements?

thanks for the replies, I have been having great success so far with conditioning my new smack.
The plates are starting to take on a nice bronze tone, lot's o bubbles too.
I have been running it off a deep-cycle marine battery for a few hours @ 10A, then recharging it, which leads me to a new question:

- My deep cycle battery charger can put out up to 12A, if I were to start with hot electrolyte, hydroxide balanced for about 8 or 9 amps, how risky would it be to skip the battery and just hook up the smack to the battery charger?

I wouldn't....I have burned up about 3 different chargers that way in the past. Just hook the charger and charge while in use. Like in a vehicle with the alternator doing the same thing. Then while running around 10 Amps you should be OK. Also DONT Forget the inline fuse or Breaker!

Also I have found the Older type Chargers work best. You know the Old non Digital type that hum while they are on?

I built a Smacks as well and did not "ping" the plates. Instead I cross-sanded them and also used a pencil engraver (very heavily I might add). My plates did not distort at all. Afterwards I used a strong aviation cleaner/degreaser and followed up with isopropyl alchohol before placing the cell in electrolyte for conditioning. When all was said and done, using the submerged coke bottle method, the green cell produced 1L in 55 seconds (or 1.09L/min) which means I built it very close to the Smack's specifications. Per his video's/documentation, his green cells do 1.1 to 1.2 L/min.

To answer the other question regarding conditioning, I used a charger that was hooked to a standalone battery as well as an in-line fuse. My amps were initially set to 7 and slowly climbed to 9 during the conditioning process. It took quite a while before I started to see the coloring of the plates. When they are properly broken in, the cell should put out in the neighborhood of 1.5 L/min. Good luck!

One thing to keep in mind when assembling a Smack Booster is that you have 8 pairs of plates in the plate array. To get the best alignment for each pair, it is a good idea to clamp two plates together in such a way that you can drill them at the same time, and drill both holes without changing your clamping. Then keep each pair separate from the other pairs you drill. If you don't follow this drilling method then you will end up with a lot of plates that don't align very well, and you will need to look for the best match for each pair by placing plates together, and turning one upside down, etc., until you find the most suitable pairs. I decided against centerpunching the surface of the plates for two reasons. First, it tends to deform the overall shape of the plate. Secondly, it can bring the plate pairs too close in some places. The plates already have a close gap of just 1.5 mm, and could even end up touching at some point if they are distorted. And since the plates have angled edges, you can't see the actual gap between anything but the edges. Coarse sanding alone, in a criss cross pattern will do just fine to help increase HHO production. It would be nice if we could talk the stainless wall plate manufacturer into manufacturing plates with 5/16" holes and a textured surface. Hmmm.... I think I'll fire off a letter to the manufacturer advisiing them that a lot of plates are going to be utilized for HHO boosters, and that it would be great if they could manufacture them to our specs. They probably have no idea at all that thousands of their plates are being utilized in boosters every week. Preparing the plates is the most time consuming part of the build process, so it would be great if the manufacturer will comply. It's worth a try, so I'll do it.

Best regards to all,

Rickoff

Has anyone here besides myself taken the SS light plates to a belt sander and taken down the curved edges? Mine are pretty much flat plates. When I did the "fill a coke bottle test" on output, I achieved 1 Liter in 55 sec's or 1.09L/min on the green cell (not broken in yet). Personally I think it helped evacuate the bubbles more.

I'm in the middle of a build, but not using the regular outlet plates... I picked up a box of 4"X4" junction box plates that are square and flat. They only had holes on two of the corners instead of upper and lower center, but they should be fine. I'm waiting for the machine shop to get and correct an error with my other plates, so I thought I'd do this in the meantime. I have to do a little at a time between work and taking care of the baby, so progress is slow right now. I'll get to it more on the weekend.

Later...

Those sound like galvanized covers. Are you certain they are ss? What will you set them in...

I have never seen S/S box covers but they do make zinc plated ones. I would hook up 1 each and test it frist(1 + 1-)jus to be sure. If they are 304 plates I want some LOL

Sorry, didn't mean to imply (though rereading it does kind of imply) that the outlet covers are SS. They aren't. They're the zinc-plated covers. I haven't found any SS plate covers in my home centers... not even single covers as they show in the smacks design.

My "real" plates got messed up by the machine shop and they're replacing them. They said it would only be a couple of days... last Monday. Anyway, I was trying to put together a set of plates with these covers "just to play with" this weekend, but it's been raining here and "life" has been happening to much for me to get anything accomplished.

Again, sorry for the confusion... I have a PWM setup that I want to try and I've got about 4 mods to it that I would like to test (one at a time) to see how they effect the H2 generation, sooooo... I'm anxious to get the plates to setup. I also want to put the plates into a few different configurations and test those as well. Just need to get the time to do all of this... between working 1 FT and 1 PT jobs and having time for the baby and family.

Hi! I.T.Field-
Don't know what the machine shop charges but you can get 316L s.s. (or other grades) from discount metal warehouse in Louisville, Ky. pretty reasonable( For example 4"x 6" x20 ga. for $3.25 @ + shipping: excellent rating on E-Bay & they will also cut to any size in any grade. E-mail is sales@metalforless.com) I wouldn't use those switch plate covers even if you find them. They are low grade 302 stainless. I think that is why people using them are having various problems and they would throw your results off because of so many impurities.
You have enough on your plate without that. Al.

ITF,

Do what antiquer is saying and use the stainless steel. The better the grades the better the results...

Other metals will be a waste of time. Like using Baking soda and other wrong elements can be dangerous as well.

W

I've seen them at Home Depot a little pricey at $1.59 each but not sure of the grade of S/S

I got mine from lowes @ 1.29.

Fun thing to do...take a picture of the item code/price on your cell phone, take it over to competitor and show them. They will beat the price by 10% usually.

Yes, mr. peepers, the Lowes plates are what I used too. They are 302/304 stainless blanks. They are made by Cooper Wiring Devices, who also manufacture 2, 3 and 4 gang stainless blanks, as well as a coax plate that has a center hole of 5/8" diameter. You can see more info on their plates here: http://64.239.63.88/catalog/pdf/Q%204.pdf Incidentally, I wrote a note to Cooper Wiring Devices to ask if they would consider manufacturing plates already prepped to the specifactions for a Smack Booster (roughened surface with sharp ridges, and 5/16" holes). I pointed out the fact that a lot of people are going to be building Smack Boosters, and other boosters that also use the stainless blank wall plates. When I hear back from them, I will post a note here, and in the "Smack Booster" thread as well.

Best Regards to everyone,

Rickoff

Great initiative Rickoff. Thanks!