Making a homemade electrolysis setup

welcome Kirk, scroll down to Floaters shark pit thread and click on his hyper link you'll be amazed.


HH Mark
 

Kirk here is the link to the machine and then come back to this Forum and read some of the experiment topics especially conservators and The Sharkpit ones. All good info. If you have a specific question you can PM me and I will try to answer. I am no expert conservator but for the basics we can all help ya out. By the way Welcome to the Treasure Net.




http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,10898.0.html
 

Floater thanks for your link. Last night I hooked up a 12v transformer directly to a crusty old quarter and also to an old Saint Christophers medal that I found on the beach. I used a stainless steel spoon , a pint canning jar , distilled water with 2 teaspoons of salt and 1 teaspoon of lemon juice. It took about an hour to clean up the quarter enough to make sure that it was not a sliver coin and the silver medal cleaned up nice within 20 minutes. My biggest concern, so far, is how hot the transformer gets. The first one I used I had plugged in for about 40 minutes and it got really hot and stopped working. Thanks again for the help.
 

Kirk the voltage is not the issue the amperage is, also the container may be a little small. What is the amp output on the transformer or doesnt it say. I recommend any thing below .5 amps or below 500mA. Let us know and remember always watch. never leave unattended and always do this outside or in a well ventilated area.
 

I know, hes been mia for a while, i dont think his work would take up All his time? but maybe hes been hired to conserve a really important discovery or something...just hope hes ok :-\
 

I looked at the converter and under output it says 600 ma. Is this too much?
 

Kirk. 600mA is ok on coins in good condition but if you want to really be safe I would recommend a 200mA or so. You can experiment with different conditions and types of objects. It is really important to just watch what you do and make some notes so you can start to tell the difference in the type of cleaning your doing and so on. Slower is better. Show us some pics of your cleaned items and before and after shots. HH
 

This is is something I typed up in another thread about cleaning coins, so I just copied and pasted cause this info could be useful to you. Along with the great info you should have gotten from Floater already this just kind of puts it all together and I show you a very cheep power unit that just perfect for a home machine to do your detecting finds. This Is like a what&why to use and some options along with some suggestions of were you can find some of them and cheep if your on a clad budget.
I don't go into making the machine Floater taught you that along with some other things here this just spells it out and a few tid bits thrown in.

1: use distilled water (if you use any other water it is conductive because all of the iron and minerals in it they will deposit on the coin and make it all kinds of dirty and even electro plate it this stuff that makes it conductive is called microsiemens)

2:electrolyte you can use. ( you need an electrolyte because believe it or not water is not conductive its the minerals and metallic crap found in water that is but there is none of that crap in distilled water so you need an electrolyte to make it conductive without introducing metals and minerals that will give you problems)

-salt (not iodised it could give you a problem)

-baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) I'd say this may be best over the salt if your just trying to use stuff around your house

-Soda Ash (sodium carbonate) This is what I use and is what floater moved on to using as far as I know. You can get this fairly cheep at a pool supply store I use "Aqua Clear brand (but brand dose not matter) pH increaser" and the ingredients is what is important look at the ingredient's you want it to see
"ingredients: Sodium Carbonate......................100%"

-There are other things to use but this should be enough info for you.

3:a non conductive container like plastic or glass (plastic folgers can right Floater someone posted to you about they tried it with a metal can and they or there buddy touched it and got shocked)

4:anode and cathode I'd say the cheepest and easiest is Stainless Steel other metals can give off stuff that can deposit on the coin or eat it away. There is other stuff like the conservitor uses platinum wire (not cheep or easy to find)
I make cool things out of stainless at work cause I'm a machinist but for you the easiest thing is to get some silverware that is made of stainless steel try the dollar store, good will, or some type of thrift shop to make it really cheep

5:power unit the rectifier is awesome and I'll be getting one in a few weeks when I might have the money (thanks Floater) But this here in the picture below is a great cheep reliable unit you can pick up at radio shack
here are the specifics on this unit in the picture below:
-the name of it is, Lead-Acid Lantern Battery Charger (radio shack brand) it plugs into a standard 120vac house outlet
The output is 6 volt DC and 500mA
cost here in PA is $6.99 thats what i payed for the last one here in the picture
and the ends are the alligator clips that is how it comes I did not modify in any way at all.

500mA is on the high side for electrosys but factor in the variables like the electrolyte consentration and type, the size of the object, and the distance of the cathode and anode I always check mine with a digital multi meter (radio shack also) and in the solution I can get anywhere from 200mA up to 350mA that shown on the multi meter is what the coin is actually cooking at I just play around and get it were I like.
This unit works very well and is very cheep so you may want to buy a few and cook a few coins at one time all in separate tanks and if you get cheep SS silverware you could get extras also. do not do more that one coin at a time if you do not know what metal it is the more noble metal will eat away the less noble metal this will leave you with an eaten away coin and another that is plated with the metal of the now junk coin so that plating will make that one pretty much junk also. this setup i give you here should be cheep enough to have a few electrolysis set ups going at one time to clean single coins each and get done faster. Your coins are encrusted so knowing the metal comp is not really happining some one at a time is your rule to fallow (or one per setup right?)
Good luck and let us know how you do and will help with all of the ?'s. If you have a problem not understanding something when you read it just ask no problem just ask.

HH
Uber
 

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Thanks for all of the help. When I go grocery shopping this week I am going to pickup a Folgers coffee can. My pint jar set up is just not working that great. I get lots of crud in the water and it looks like my stainless steel spoon is taking more abuse then my bubbling coins. I will post pictures later. For now my digital camera is not compatible with Windows XP and I have been to cheap to buy a card reader. My son is looking at gettina a new digital camera so I am holding out for that. Spent one evening at the beach this week for a grand total of 67 cents. Did find 3 wheat pennies from the 1950's.
 

Okay I got a question. I have built a unit similar to Floaters. The question I have is can I use a piece of stainless screen to cover the bottom and just connect it to both bolts. Then use both bolts, one as the positive one negative?
 

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