# Disenchanted with depleting cell



## tom341 (Jun 28, 2007)

Not to be a jerk or anything but the super duper depleting cell does not do to well for me. I made the copper basket and my battery chargers am meter stays paged and over heats at 6 volts 10 amps manual setting some gold depletes but the copper basket completely gets eaten away. It’s almost like I might as well clamp the negative and positive leads together. That is how it acts as long as there is any kind of metal dipped in the sulfuric/glycerin electrolyte. I have tried to deplete single items on the end of an alligator clip and the am meter still pegs until all gold plate, and base metal is gone. I connect my negative lead to the lead and positive lead to the depleting material. It must be the Colorado altitude or just me I guess. I was under the impression that the am meter drops as the gold depletes leaving the base metal to disguard. ..THX..<*\\\><..TOM


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## goldsilverpro (Jun 28, 2007)

One possibility is that your sulfuric is too weak. The weaker the sulfuric, the more the base metals will dissolve.


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## tom341 (Jun 28, 2007)

Hello GSP,
The acid is from a 5 gallon acid batch I purchased today at Napa auto parts.


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## tom341 (Jun 28, 2007)

I have had moor trouble with deplating pins and gold plated metals. To tell you the truth I have not recovered any gold from these types of electronic scrap. I have had no trouble getting gold from CPUs and Fingers. I just put them straight through A/R with no trouble, but these pins and really a pain.


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## lazersteve (Jun 28, 2007)

Tom,

The NAPA sulfuric acid is 35% concentration, the cell electrolyte should be greater than 90%. Check out this post by Catfish on concentrating the NAPA sulfuric:

Concentrating Battery Acid

The drain opener acid mentioned in the tutorials (Rooto brand) is not as clear as the battery acid , but it's greater than 90% right out of the bottle.

Sorry you're having difficulties.

Steve


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## goldsilverpro (Jun 28, 2007)

The NAPA sulfuric is battery acid and is less than half the strength of the drain cleaner sulfuric that most everyone else is using. If you're not heating the battery acid first to get rid of the water (see catfish's and Steve's method for doing this), this is surely the reason you're eating the base metals. You need to go to the proper threads and videos and re-study them.


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## PhillipJ (Jun 28, 2007)

Hi Tom,

Napa's acid is only 33% acid and 2/3 water. Try boiling off the water before using it in the cell.

When I use my cell hard & heavy it heats up quite a bit too. I put my cell in a shallow pan filled with water to dissipate the heat from the cell.

I had your trouble when I tried the copper mesh also. It pegged the ampmeter even with full strength acid. I am thinking maybe it needs a bigger power supply?

I haven't tried the copper mesh after that.

Hey. Try hooking it to a car battery once & see what happens?


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