Slipshine wrote:I was just thinking about a way to compress the hydrogen so you could inflate on site somewhere.
I used to fly satdium blimps baloons and even a steamship. Was just curious if you always fly at home.
Thanks again for the project. Make sure to be extra careful with the milk jugs. You have had quite the rund of bad luck lately.
I just fly them for fun at home, but don't want to spend big bucks on helium to do it. I decided to spend big bucks and hundreds of hours designing and building a personal hydrogen generator instead
Actually I was originally just going to buy commercial hydrogen since it is about 1/5 the cost of helium, but the supplier was giving me a hard time about buying it. They wanted to know what I was going to use it for and have a guy come out and inspect my place (yet I can go buy a tank of propane or acetylene no questions asked). I just didn't feel like dealing with their hydrogen phobia and decided to make it myself. I probably spent at least $1500 developing this generator, but it was a pretty fun project that sort of turned into a hobby within itself. I have a more detailed thread on the whole history of the project on the blimp forums at rcgroups.com if you want to read about the failures that led up to the final 3D printed solution:
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2537905
BTW regarding my bad luck, I ran the final finished machine this morning for two hours straight and everything was going great, then the pump hose came off and was squirting sodium hydroxide everywhere. It lost half a gallon before I could even get it shut off. It's not a super strong solution so it doesn't burn when it gets on you unless you don't wipe it off right way. But it burns if you get it in a cut, and I cut myself on the radiator fins while trying to remove it during cleanup. And of course a radiator cut is several parallel cuts in a row. So yeah, my bad luck is not just limited to 3D printing. Although this wasn't bad luck, it was negligence-- I didn't install the hose clamp on the hose that came off, even though I had bought one specifically for that connection and had it in the room. Doh!
Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted.