Fred Walter wrote: > > I finally tried making some colloidal silver last night. > > I used a coffee carafe with 10 cups of distilled water in it, > on a hot plate designed for coffee carafe's. > I don't know how hot the hot plate gets the water. > > My 99.9% pure, 16 gauge round wire, silver electrodes are 6 inches long, > with 1 inch folded over so that I can hang them over the side of the carafe. > > I used three 9-volt batteries in series, producing slightly more than 28 VDC, > as the power source. I used a multimeter, on the DC Amps setting, to measure > the current draw, and I let it 'cook' until it reached 8 milliamps > (per someone's suggestion on this mailing list). This took around one hour. > > During operation, only one electrode produced bubbles. But both > electrodes had black stuff on them after I took them out of the water. > I thought only one electrode would have this stuff on it... > Any comments?
Discoloration of both electrodes is common, if both are silver. It may be that the oxygen that is evolved at the anode reacts with the surface metal of the solid silver electrode, (but maybe not with the ions of silver free in the solution... subject for further research.) As the concentration of silver in the water builds, some of the silver ions make contact with the cathode (the negatively charged one) where they loose their + charge, and are reduced to silver atoms , a "plating out" effect; as this continues, you end up with the greyish 'sludge' accumulating on the surface of the negative electrode. Once this silver has lost it's charge, it is probably not as biologicly active against pathogens: this is the stuff you want to eventually filter out. > How small of a flashlight do you need to see the 'Tyndal' effect? > I shined a light through the CS and I didn't see anything, except a few > flakes of silver. Any comments? > > What coffee filters/other filters are safe to use to filter out the > big chunks? Some filters are treated with chemicals, and I don't want > to use those... Any suggestions? I don't know which coffee filters are treated with chemicals; I'm using some 'Mr Coffee' filters for now... if I get around to working on the Synchrometer design, maybe they could be tested... Lab grade filter paper is pricey, and for filtering the product of this DC process, should not be necessary. They do filter finer, but are quite slow - the finer the filtering capability, the slower the flow. > The plans, for the CS generator that I built, included a 28 VDC 40 milliamp > light bulb, but none of the local electronics stored carried one of these. Fred, the bulb is acting as a simple current limiter - this is the maximum amount of current that will be allowed to flow through the circuit if it gets to the 'incandescent' state, but lets lower currents pass through (below where it starts to glow) without restricting it. > Anyone who knows what they are talking about know what would make a good > replacement? Could I just use a normal LED? How much current do these normally > draw? An LED will not give the same current limiting effect- it will continue to conduct until it burns out, which is why a current limiting resistor is always used in series with an LED; if you need the over-voltage protection, the bulb with the 40mA rateing is probably the best bet. MOUSER Electronics has 28V 40mA bulbs listed, but if you will send me a small tough envelope with your address and the return postage paid to get back from here in Colorado to you, I'll give you one to use. If you actually watch your current meter, and end the process before the current ever reaches 40mA, the bulb isn't necessary; it was designed in for those who would not monitor and limit the current in other ways, and in that reguard, is an elegantly simple way to do this for under a buck. To make more CS faster, you would probably want to use larger electrodes (more surface area), and then you could allow more current to flow through the system. Another technique you might try is to use some sort of cover over the coffee caraffe, with the silver electrodes running straight down from the middle, keeping them 3/4" apart all of the way; this should increase apparent conductivity. I wouldn't try running to higher currents with the electrodes too close together without going to a pulsed system, because the constant current will promote the crystalized silver growth between the electrodes, while the pulsing seems to keep this from happening in the same way. At 27 volts, with longer silver electrodes (even though they are farther apart than mine at 1/2" apart, 3-1/4" in the water), you should be running to more than the 8mA current; I'd guess more towards 15 mA cutoff at 27 volts to end up with the same CONDUCTIVITY I'm seeing at 8mA at 15 volts.I still do not have a PPM meter in yet, either, so I can't give you hard and fast figures yet. I'll build out a page on my website when I do, at http://web/idirect.com/~showcase/althealth/makecs.htm There's already some of my thoughts on CS there, including using pulsed DC, rather than constant steady current to keep from having the "crystalized silver growth between the electrodes" forming- I don't see that happening. Lots more detail on these thoughts. > > I don't (yet) have a TDS-1 yet, so I can't (yet) measure the PPM of the CS > that I have produced. > > Thanx, > fred Hope these ideas give you some good "food for thought! Email me if you still want the bulb after considering all of this info, and I'll get you my mailing address - it's also on the website somewhere... Bruce K. Stenulson -- The silver-list is a moderated forum for discussion of colloidal silver. To join or quit silver-list or silver-digest send an e-mail message to: [email protected] -or- [email protected] with the word subscribe or unsubscribe in the subject: line. To post, address your message to: [email protected] List maintainer: Mike Devour <[email protected]>
