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Silver Generator
Silver Generator
market. A local friend of mine bought one and it cost her $300 over 10 years
ago. She allowed me to take it apart to see how it was built. Its' primary
component was a common LM741 op amp IC which was configured as a
constant current source. It also used a few transistors along with various passive
components. I felt it was greatly overpriced, but at least it was well constructed,
far better than many on the market that rely on you timing the process to
determine the PPM (parts per million) potency.
The Design
I designed this "CS Generator" with 3 primary concepts in mind: 1) It must use
a very controlled amount of current for electrolysis, 2) It must provide a way to
circulate the solution during production and 3) It must shut off automatically. I
had just moved, and most of my supplies and tools were still packed away, so
the construction is not the best example of my work. Nevertheless it has served
me well over the years and I suspect it will for the rest of my life.
IC1, Q3, P2, R5, R6 comprise the monitoring and shut off functionality. The
open collector LM311 compares the voltage on the non-grounded silver
electrode which reflects the conductivity of the solution and thus the
concentration of silver in it. Resistor R5 pulls pin 7 of IC1 up to near the supply
voltage when the comparator is off and R6 provides a small amount of negative
feedback to prevent oscillation during sw itching.
Once the voltage on pin 2 of IC1 goes more positive than the reference voltage
on pin 3, set by potentiometer P2, the comparator turns on bringing pin 7 to
ground, turning off the constant current source. This also causes the cathode of
LED2 to swing negative to light the "Complete" LED, as well as turning off
transistor Q3 which disables the stir motor and "Active" LED1. Diode D3
protects Q3 from any back EMF "kickback" that may be produced by the
inductance of the stir motor. Capacitor C1 filters any noise that might trigger
premature completion.
The stir "motor" is a little vibrator device I pulled from an old cell phone. It's
the little round thing dangling between the two electrodes by a very flexible
wire, and helps to circulate the solution while electrolysis is underway. You can
actually see the wire is blurry in the picture of the electrodes.