Hi all,

My name is Peter. I became interested in the HOD when people started turning up at my workplace to buy (well, not so much buy, as "aquire") 20mm perspex offcuts. After a few discusions with these people about what they were doing, myself and a few workmates became very interested in the subject. But we are still just learning and haven't built anything yet.

I have the use of a large amount of machinery and materials at work and should be able to build quality cells. My aim is to set up a running engine on a stand-alone trolley, running on 100% HOD cells. I intend to power the system from many truck batteries (which will obviously go flat), and then try to optimise the system with different alternator setups, solar panels, or even just recharging the batteries when they go flat. I intend to use a small 1.3L Ford Fiesa engine with the Electronic Distributorless Ignition System (EDIS) and use a Megajolt Lite controller to set the ignition timing. I have used this system before on my 1979 Range Rover and i still have the complete removed system for the Rover V8 as well as the actual Megajolt controller.

I am a microprocessor programmer and i would like to try PWM to power the bank of cells, or possibly run a few cells at idle, and switch on more cells when more power is required.

I would love to hear your thoughts on my system idea (be nice, i'm new to this), and i will be looking at other people's systems for ideas.

Are many people out there running anything on 100% HOD, or is it all just HOD boosted? I have seen a few videos on here of small 240V petrol generators running 100%. But i want to go full scale, since i understand car engines a bit better than lawm mowers, etc. I have no problem with building 4, 8 or even more cells as needed, and i can get the batteries from a friend fairly cheap too.

Cheers,

Peter.