Friday, October 23, 2009

Colloidal / Ionic Silver constant current - Part 1

I've had some requests recently asking for a simple "poor man's" colloidal silver generator. I have seen a bunch of companies selling them online and they are all pretty expensive. I have seen a few hundred dollars or more. There are some cheap ones and plans for just using three 9 volt batteries, but those are dangerous. They don't make safe colloidal silver because they aren't constant current.

What happens is that you start with 27 volts and silver electrodes in the distilled water. As the ionic silver is formed in the water it causes the resistance of the water to drop. This makes the current increase and this causes larger particles of silver to form. As the resistance continues to drop, the current goes up and up. The body can't get rid of larger particles of silver. Small colloids and ionic silver atoms are easy to flush out though. The trick is to limit the current to less than a milliamp or so. I've developed two very simple circuits that limit the output to 40 volts and less than 1 mA (miliamp).


The above picture is the AC version that runs off of normal house voltage of 120 volts. The idea is really simple. You just need 3 identical resistors (all 47k or all 56k) and one small AC capacitor rated at 39nF (nanoFarads). The circuit is just a voltage divider and we are tapping into a 40 volt section. Just use two resistors in series in the R1 position and the third resistor in the R2 slot. You are supposed to use two resistors, but it is easier to get three 47k resistors than it is to find one 94k and a 47k for example. You could use the following web page to calculate different voltages if you need to:

http://www.raltron.com/cust/tools/voltage_divider.asp

If you have 240 volts for example, you could use a 270k for R1 and a 47k for R2. This gives a 35 volt output at no more than 0.7 mA before the capacitor. Try to use a total of 150k or a little more for 120 volts and use about 300k or a little more for 240 volts. This means about 0.2 watts and most of the small resistors are 1/4 watt.

The capacitor is calculated by using the following equation:


the AC capacitor equation.
A=amps
f=frequency in hz
c=capacitance..24 MFD is 0.000024 (you can use capacitance in MFD and divide by 1,000,000)
v=volts

A=2*PI*f*c*v

OR

c = A/(2*PI*f*v)



example with 220 nF (nanoFarad) at 120 volts 60hz
A = 2 * 3.1416 * 60 * 0.00000022 * 120
A = 1 mA

example with 39 nF at 40 volts 60hz
A = 2 * 3.1416 * 60 * 0.000000039 * 40
A = .59mA


The DC version is simple. You need three 9 volt batteries and a special type of diode called a current regulating or current limiting diode. HERE is a 0.75 mA version that only costs $1.94. And HERE is data sheet for a few others.

A typical 9 volt battery has about 350 - 500 mAH of capacity. At 1mA or less, the rating would go up quite a bit. But at 5 hours to make a batch of colloidal silver at 5mAH total each time, the batteries would die of old age before they actually run down.

But, in either case, AC or DC, you will need the following:
  • a very clean glass, final rinse with distilled water
  • two 99.9% or better silver wires or coins
  • alligator clip wires
  • distilled water
  • glass for storage that keeps the light out (or put in a dark place)
  • a AC appliance timer or some other reminder to stop the "cooking" process
When you do the first batch, have a multimeter hooked up to the silver probes as well. This way you can measure the initial resistance between the silver probes. It should be fairly high. Then set meter to voltage and turn generator on. You should see the correct voltage. After a few hours check back to see if the water is starting to turn slightly yellow. You can set the glass on a white sheet of paper to help see it better.

Your goal should be to have it mostly clear but with a slight yellow tint to it. Then turn of the generator and check resistance again. It should be much less than when you started. This way you know it was working. If that process takes 5 hours for a given volume, for instance, then next time you can just set the timer for about 4 hours.

The colloidal / ionic silver should be good for a couple of months if you keep it in a very dark place. Some uses are:

  1. spray for disinfecting surfaces
  2. mouthwash
  3. cleaning wounds
  4. use with a nebulizer to inhale
  5. body spray and sponge bath in a emergency situation
  6. eye drops
  7. ear drops
  8. hand sanatizing
  9. killing mold
  10. soaking toothbrush and brushing teeth
  11. good article and many more here
There is a lot more I could talk about, like testing with a laser light for colloids. Using a set distance and size of probe to come up with resistivity and equating that to conductance and then to a rough ppm number. But that is another day. It is late and I'm off to bed. This weekend I'll take some pics of my AC ionic / colloidal silver generator. I just had the parts lying around.

Richard

On to Part 2 -------->