The warmer base provides a hot spot to induce a thermal updraft in the
center bottom of the container.
Warm water rises, reached the top, spreads out and contacts the cooler
sides of the container and sinks back to the bottom.
Ideally, the amount of heat the water absorbs will equal the amount of
heat shed as the water contacts the container sides and it won't get warmer
overall.
The result is a doughnut shaped stir pattern that works quite well and
isn't so vigorous as to make silver particles impact the electrodes.
Too fast a stir velocity makes silver particles impact hydrogen bubbles
on an electrode and they get trapped in the surface tension of the bubble
making a semi solid / semi conductive coating [ A "beard"] that grows and
grows into the direction of the water current.
The downside to that system is that the water can cool, spread and sink
before it gets to the top if the container is tall.
Placing a chimney over the warm spot increases the velocity of the
updraft and keeps it centered and channeled so taller containers can be
used and still achieve the desired stir pattern.
A possible downside to that is thermal buildup in the chimney base.
Temperatures over around 110 deg F makes particles collide with enough
energy to merge.
Easy Solution: Use a cooler bulb, 4 watt rather than 7 watt.
Upside..no moving parts to ever break or wear out. [And it looks pretty
glowing in your room]
Accidental upside: The CS almost completely stabilizes as it's being
made. [Conductivity drop the day after is reduced by about 80%]
More recently discovered nicety: Using that thermal chimney setup with a
slow cycle low voltage AC generator reduces sparklies and suspended
electrode crud chunks better than any other system tried. [Not quite
eliminated, but dramatically reduced]
The more recent stir system is like a lab stirrer where a magnet spins
under the container and couples with a magnet inside the container.
In order to keep the stir velocity down and prevent the bearding effect,
a low RPM motor is used. No commercially available lab stirrer will spin
that slow.
The stir pattern is a cyclonic one...a slow vortex that stirs from the
bottom [where the electrode aren't] and up.
Both systems work well and one hasn't superceded the other, but the
magnetically coupled system will stir more water at the proper velocity and
that velocity can be easily adjusted with spinner size.
Downside: It does have moving parts that could eventually wear out. [and
it's more expensive]
Stirring from the top down requires a high water velocity to make the
vortex reach the bottom in tall containers.
Stir too fast where the electrodes are and you get a lot of bearding.
It also exposes the stir motor to water vapor that tends to corrode the
motor bearings after a year or so. [As I found out the hard way]
With the magnetic system, that's not a problem at all.
Some people use bubblers and they work OK. Bubbles go from bottom to top
quite nicely.
Downside: Any air borne contaminants dissolve into the water quite well.
High levels of sulphur dioxide can be a big problem with silver. [tarnish]
A small problem is carbon dioxide acidifying the water a little and
possible light sensitive silver carbonate formation.
ode
At 12:12 PM 1/9/2006 -0600, you wrote:
I too bought a Silverpuppy a couple of years ago but am still not clear
about the stirring issue. Mine is one of the light-bulb-warmer base
units. I see that now there's a more recent evolution that has a magnetic
component to promote circulation. My question is whether there's a
difference in efficacy in these two methods. Why the change?
DByron
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