Some observations I made.
1. The spark from an ignition coil will not jump across a gap underwater.
2. If the electrode touches the other side underwater, the coil will short out and either blow up the ignition module or the coil or both.
3. The spark ignition system is large Voltage, but low amperage.
After blowing up my ignition rig, I decided to try hooking up a 12v battery and sparking the electrodes underwater.
As long as the 2 electrodes were moving and the wire was not allowed to stick to the drum, there would be a blue spark and hydrogen bubbles were produced.
If the wire stuck to the electrode, it would quickly heat up and short out the battery.
In the patent diagrams there is a "large capacitor" missing. This supposedly goes between the ignition coils and the electrodes.
I believe the way to replicate this would be to run the device using a large 12v battery to produce the spark at the electrodes, but also with a pulsed high voltage spark from an ignition coil.
After blowing up my rig, I gave up on this project. It does have some merits, but all in all, I think it is ultimately doomed to fail due to the price of aluminium.
I also began to try and think up ways of modifying this to run on scrap aluminium, which would be great if it could be done. Open the lid and chuck in some scrap aluminium engine parts, top it up with water and shut the lid.
It could be done, but the energy required to run the system would be similar to what is required to run an arc welder... Big hint here. This device is basically an underwater welding rig.
Think about it.... 
Statistics: Posted by biggeorge — Sun May 20, 2007 6:15 pm
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