The green scale fell off the nickel long before the resistance started
changing.
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Based on voltage and current measurements, the resistance of the control
cell is steady at approximately 80 ohms.
-
The active cell stayed constant at about 160 ohms until about 12 hours
ago when I first noticed the drop. It is now down to about 130 ohms and
appears to still be dropping.
-
It would be very interesting to know what is causing the drop in
resistance. I would have expected any film that might develop on the
nickel to increase the resistance.
-
I started off with approx 400 milliliters of water in each cell and each
one is down to about 350 now.
-
I had originally expected to equalize the resistance between the control
and active cells by varying the distance between the anode and cathode,
but I found that the spacing had relatively little effect on the resistance.
-
The temperature in the control cell is running about 2 degrees below
ambient. The temperature in the active cell is running about 1 degree
below ambient. The difference is almost certainly due to the higher
resistance of the active cell which results in a slightly higher wattage
being dissipated.
-
I crimped the nickel to the copper wire as originally described, and the
connection is covered with liquid electrical tape from home desperation.
-
The graphite electrodes are built using some generic motor brushes with
the wire crimped to 14 gauge solid copper wire and the copper and the
connection sealed with the same liquid electrical tape.
