Large 4" washer build

[Bob]

Yah I was actually disappointed in the output as well, but that's the way it goes !  you never know what kind of output you are going to get out of a cell till you hook it up and run it !
I've made many cells and none of them compare to Randys 2" cells !  and I can find little to NO reason for that.... it defies logic actually !
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Bob...

[randy]

Strange, the temps around here have been in the 40s lately, the cell with 5 plates is pulling low amps, when I get off work at midnight the temps are mid 30s, it fires up pulling 16 amps, there is definately some warming occuring in the cell, by the time I get home it's pulling around 19 amps, I knew with it pulling low amps it wouldn't go through the water like it does in warmer weather so I hadn't checked the fluid in a while, today I checked it, the electrolyte looks like coffee??? can't see the plates through it?? so I drained it into a container and checked for sediment or goo, there wasn't any so I dumped it back in and called it good. I'm still going to add another plate in the near future so it will pull more amps with it being this cold around here, got that LED set up for freezing weather but haven't had a good freeze yet.

[Bob]

Coffee ? UGH !
when my cell did that it coated the plates real badly and I finally did the muratic acid wash out
to get it back to normal.... but I was using KOH not lemon aid ! ...I know I had some regular steel in my cell at the time ... I wonder if it was the steel tainting the electrolyte   I bet ya dollars to donuts you have some regular steel in there and its the Steel that caused the electrolyte to go brown on ya !
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 hope ya don't have to do the acid bath to get it clean again, but it is a bunch simplier than a complete tear down!
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Keep us posted on it please !
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 do you have that LED on a thermostat or just a switch ?
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Bob...

[randy]

after I drained the cell I could see the electrolyser, it was still clean, just have the led wired with an aligator clip, if it works I'll wire it up in a more permanent fashion.

[Bob]

the plates on my cell looked like bronze  they were so dirty ... but to their credit I ran it like that for probably a good month before I discovered the problem  so it had a good long time to bake in !
sense your cell is running cool-ish its a real good chance it hadn't baked on like mine did
... but i bet you got a steel nut or washer in there some where !
 I think it was Manta telling me at the time I probably had some normal steel in the cell because the KOH should not discolor otherwise.... and sense lemon aid just did the same thing I have to think now that manta was right  All along ... but don't tell him I said that...  LOL
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Bob...
 

[randy]

I'm 100% sure there's no steel in there, I think it's just the fact there's probably 10 or more packs of k-aid in that quart of fluid and just using it darkened it somehow.

[Bob]

hummm well that shot that theory down in flames ! LOL
 yah that is allot of Koolaide !  do you need that much ?  I thought you had purdy close spacing in there....
   using the current limiter I can see running it as strong as possable though.... ...kind'a sounds like there is a point of "having too much !"
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Bob...