# Please help! Silver Cell Problem.



## bencrazy_metals (Aug 3, 2022)

Hello All! 

I began my first silver cell operation about two weeks ago and came time (~10-12 days) to harvest. My electrolyte was ~350 g/L and then diluted with diluted H2O. I had her running at 1.20 amps nearly the entire time, save for a few exceptions when I was away for some time and came back to the amperage being around 0.5-0.7. When this did happen, I reloaded the cell with some silver shot, and occasionally some rounds I didn't particular care for and then the amperage would stay steady at 1.2. Anyways, I decided to call it at day 12 because I wasn't getting much growth from my crystals. What happened next is puzzling to me. As I was scraping off the "crystals" from the side of my stainless steel bowl (credit to @sreetips for my entire set, really), instead of nice crystals scraping to the bottom of the bowl, I had what looked like a large, but thicker, piece of aluminum foil with small (but still beautiful) crystals and some portions falling to the bottom of the bowl as expected. There were no particularly large crystals in the batch either, which I think had to do with the periods of amperage fluctuation. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!


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## Palladium (Aug 4, 2022)

What was the total amount of silver you put into the cell? You got the foil effect probably because you didn't feed it enough to get the crystals to build. What was your voltage during that time period at that amperage? The pictures won't load for me.


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## bencrazy_metals (Aug 4, 2022)

Palladium said:


> What was the total amount of silver you put into the cell? You got the foil effect probably because you didn't feed it enough to get the crystals to build. What was your voltage during that time period at that amperage? The pictures won't load for me.





Palladium said:


> My total amount was around 10 oz Troy. 5 oz shot and 5 of some rounds I didn’t care for.


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## bencrazy_metals (Aug 4, 2022)




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## Palladium (Aug 4, 2022)

You're still good brother. What happened was you didn't feed the monster enough!
You had a lot of cathode area with a low amperage and i would also gather low voltage, you haven't mentioned the voltage but i'm guessing so. If that bowl is the same size as sreetips shows you are a long way from feeding it enough. You really didn't do anything wrong. Your cell is just to big to your input. Scale it down some. If you used a beaker with a graphite cathode and run it low and slow like that you would have had some great looking crystals.


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## bencrazy_metals (Aug 4, 2022)

Palladium said:


> You're still good brother. What happened was you didn't fee the monster enough!
> You had a lot of cathode area with a low amperage and i would also gather low voltage, you haven't metioned the voltage but i'm guessing so. If that bowl is the same size as sreetips shows you are a long way from feeding it enough. You really didn't do anything wrong. Your cell is just to big to your input. Scale it down some. If you used a beaker with a graphite cathode and run it low and slow like that you would have had some great looking crystals.


I thought I was close to his general recipe on the electrolyte, though. What is also interesting is that I poured the remaining electrolyte into two separate large beakers with copper wire and I am getting an ENORMOUS amount of beautiful looking silver cementing onto it. This makes me think I probably could've kept running the cell had I still had some silver to load into it, but unfortunately, I do not . Am I wrong in that assumption?


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## Yggdrasil (Aug 4, 2022)

bencrazy_metals said:


> I thought I was close to his general recipe on the electrolyte, though. What is also interesting is that I poured the remaining electrolyte into two separate large beakers with copper wire and I am getting an ENORMOUS amount of beautiful looking silver cementing onto it. This makes me think I probably could've kept running the cell had I still had some silver to load into it, but unfortunately, I do not . Am I wrong in that assumption?


I don’t think the electrolyte was the issue.
You did not have enough fresh silver going in.
You could have kept the electrolyte as it was, it can be reused.


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## cejohnsonsr1 (Aug 4, 2022)

I agree that input is the problem. Not exactly a problem. Sreetips harvests around 1.5kg in about 10 days. So he’s probably feeding the cell around 1.75 of shot.


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## bencrazy_metals (Aug 5, 2022)

Yggdrasil said:


> I don’t think the electrolyte was the issue.
> You did not have enough fresh silver going in.
> You could have kept the electrolyte as it was, it can be reused.


I thought of reusing, but of course too late. I'll have a decent amount of cement silver that looks pretty damn good as it is, so I'm at an impasse here.


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## bencrazy_metals (Aug 5, 2022)

Yggdrasil said:


> I don’t think the electrolyte was the issue.
> You did not have enough fresh silver going in.
> You could have kept the electrolyte as it was, it can be reused.


Also, my cell is in my garage and it has been unreasonably hot here lately, wonder if some evaporation (or the higher heat in general) negatively affected the production?


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## Yggdrasil (Aug 5, 2022)

bencrazy_metals said:


> Also, my cell is in my garage and it has been unreasonably hot here lately, wonder if some evaporation (or the higher heat in general) negatively affected the production?


Not sure.
Evaporation will increase concentration and reduce liquid level.

You are the one sitting on that info mate


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## bencrazy_metals (Aug 5, 2022)

Palladium said:


> You're still good brother. What happened was you didn't feed the monster enough!
> You had a lot of cathode area with a low amperage and i would also gather low voltage, you haven't mentioned the voltage but i'm guessing so. If that bowl is the same size as sreetips shows you are a long way from feeding it enough. You really didn't do anything wrong. Your cell is just to big to your input. Scale it down some. If you used a beaker with a graphite cathode and run it low and slow like that you would have had some great looking crystals.


The voltage at the start was 5v, as the amperage would start to drop the voltage increased to as high as 19 V. How high should the voltage, and for that matter, the amperage have to ideally be? Thanks!


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## bencrazy_metals (Aug 5, 2022)

Yggdrasil said:


> Not sure.
> Evaporation will increase concentration and reduce liquid level.
> 
> You are the one sitting on that info mate


You're absolutely right . I get that there was a degree of evaporation, for which I added some distilled water. I now realize how dumb asking that part was, long day at work lol. I do wonder if the higher heat does affect the crystallization process, probably negligible. Mind you, I'm no chemist or metallurgist, just a guy who loves to learn.


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## Yggdrasil (Aug 5, 2022)

bencrazy_metals said:


> You're absolutely right . I get that there was a degree of evaporation, for which I added some distilled water. I now realize how dumb asking that part was, long day at work lol. I do wonder if the higher heat does affect the crystallization process, probably negligible. Mind you, I'm no chemist or metallurgist, just a guy who loves to learn.


No problem you will learn more.
So far you are doing well.


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## Lino1406 (Aug 5, 2022)

The voltage should stay constant in order to get only pure silver. If the impurity is copper, a tenth of volt higher will reduce purity


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## 4metals (Aug 5, 2022)

bencrazy_metals said:


> Also, my cell is in my garage and it has been unreasonably hot here lately, wonder if some evaporation (or the higher heat in general) negatively affected the production?


I advise commercial refiners to heat Silver cells, not hot, but to 100°F to increase evaporation and allow the distilled water rinses to be fed into the cells to eliminate a waste stream. 

So l doubt the heat is your issue if you keep up with the evaporation.


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## Palladium (Aug 5, 2022)

I had an experiment i wanted to try one time, but never got to. It's on the list. lol
I wanted to put a silver cell bowl in a deep freezer and reduce the temperature as low as i can without freezing it and run some experiments on crystal development.


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## orvi (Aug 6, 2022)

Palladium said:


> I had an experiment i wanted to try one time, but never got to. It's on the list. lol
> I wanted to put a silver cell bowl in a deep freezer and reduce the temperature as low as i can without freezing it and run some experiments on crystal development.


I am curious to the resultt of this experiment. Freezing the solution will cause lower enthropy, so logically crystals could grow bigger if we assume this. But the viscosity of electrolyte would be higher in comparison with normal room temp. So less flow of ions in solution due to this. 
Two opposite phenomena. But if amperage and voltage will be low enough, I thnk this is fully possible to adjust and harvest some monsters


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## 4metals (Aug 6, 2022)

Ralph, please take a photo of the inside of your freezer before you start and than a second one when you are taking the freezer to the landfill. Silver cells do outgas NOx which your freezer may not appreciate!


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## Gwar (Aug 6, 2022)

I thought I was the only one with this issue..


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## Elemental (Aug 6, 2022)

So, you had mentioned higher voltages, from 5 to 19 volts. This is way too high as you will start plating out other metals as well. I keep my silver cell at 3.5 volts and have it set to variable amperage. The amperage will vary due to surface area of both cathode/anode, concentration of solution, etc. One thing of note, as you begin plating out crystals, you are increasing the cathode surface area, because now every facet of the silver crystal adds to it. So, you can only control the surface area of the anode (this is usually done by using shot instead of bars). Also, a higher solution helps a bit and I've found that by adding a few drops of conc. nitric acid it helps to keep the concentrate fresh. Attached is a picture of my power-supply, with my reminder of what to set the voltage too along with some of the crystals I've recovered with a similar setup to Streetips.

I'd have to double check my notes, but I recall at ~5 volts, copper will begin to plate out as well. (which is what I use to drop my silver from solution).

IMG_0383.JPEG - Lab Power Supply used
IMG_0052.JPEG - Shows the size of the crystal I grew at 3.5 volts. For reference that dish is about 6 inches across.
IMG_0142.JPEG - A newly designed silver cell that will move the solution. Behind it is some of my silver ready to be turned into plates for the cell and a 1L beaker with a vacuum filter bag for reference size.
IMG_0452.JPEG - My first attempt at a cell, I would hang the anode basket in the middle of the bowl, now (which I don't have pictures of), I have a nylon cutting board with a hole in it to hold my basket and prevent evaporation.
IMG_0453.JPEG - Power supply running and the in-line fuse shown to prevent the power supply from shorting out if the crystals grow large enough to make a connection to the anode.

Most of my initial design was based off of what I saw Streetips do. I've began trying my own designs out now as I better understand the concepts involved. For instance, my new cell design allows for multiple anode/cathode plates to be put in and swapped while the cell is running. So no more requirement to completely drain/scrape crystal, recharge, etc. Home-made slime bags made out of Dacron filters will be nice as well.

Hope this helps a little.

Elemental

Edit - You may note some bluish tinge on the silver crystal. That is because the clamp was touching the solution via the rim of the anode basket and started to plate. I put this crystal back in for a second run to clean it up more.


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## bencrazy_metals (Aug 7, 2022)

Palladium said:


> What was the total amount of silver you put into the cell? You got the foil effect probably because you didn't feed it enough to get the crystals to build. What was your voltage during that time period at that amperage? The pictures won't load for me.


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## Yggdrasil (Aug 7, 2022)

He asked what you put into the cell, and you answered with the pictures that did not load.
While interestingly enough, it does not give any information on how much you put into the cell.
This looks like what came out of the cell.
Neither does it tell anything about the Voltage at what Amperage.
You are not giving us much to help to help you.


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## Elemental (Aug 7, 2022)

So the contents of the bottom black dish look like dried silver cement after dropping using copper. I hope you are not adding that to your cell. It does not work well as an anode as I once found out. The silver cement needs to be melted together and poured slowly into water to make shot/“cornflakes”. Once you have pieces of large metallic silver, then they get put into the anode basket. 

We still would like to know what you are using for a power supply and the volt/amperage you are using. 

Elemental


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## bencrazy_metals (Aug 8, 2022)

Yggdrasil said:


> He asked what you put into the cell, and you answered with the pictures that did not load.
> While interestingly enough, it does not give any information on how much you put into the cell.
> This looks like what came out of the cell.
> Neither does it tell anything about the Voltage at what Amperage.
> You are not giving us much to help to help you.


I already answered his question before in this thread. I tried to post what I ended up getting from the cell and mistakenly replied to an old post. My bad. Total amount I fed into the cell was probably like 10-12 oz


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## bencrazy_metals (Aug 8, 2022)

Elemental said:


> So the contents of the bottom black dish look like dried silver cement after dropping using copper. I hope you are not adding that to your cell. It does not work well as an anode as I once found out. The silver cement needs to be melted together and poured slowly into water to make shot/“cornflakes”. Once you have pieces of large metallic silver, then they get put into the anode basket.
> 
> We still would like to know what you are using for a power supply and the volt/amperage you are using.
> 
> Elemental


Yeah that was the silver I cemented out from the left over electrolyte (which I realize now I shouldn’t have done). I know better to feed cement silver in the cell. I plan on making more shot with it today probably.


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## bencrazy_metals (Aug 8, 2022)

Elemental said:


> So the contents of the bottom black dish look like dried silver cement after dropping using copper. I hope you are not adding that to your cell. It does not work well as an anode as I once found out. The silver cement needs to be melted together and poured slowly into water to make shot/“cornflakes”. Once you have pieces of large metallic silver, then they get put into the anode basket.
> 
> We still would like to know what you are using for a power supply and the volt/amperage you are using.
> 
> Elemental


I’m using a DC power supply I got on Amazon. Set it to 1.20 amps and it generally was around 5 v until it (cathode) got low on silver then the voltage and amperage would shoot up and down, respectively.


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## Lino1406 (Aug 8, 2022)

I think anode is meant, and better to set voltage than amperage, when the resistance of the bath is low (anode close to cathode) 3.5 v is enough. I know a bath that works on 2.4v to keep purity at 99.9


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## Palladium (Aug 8, 2022)

Pictures of the cell would help. Need to see the color of the solution as well as the anode placement in reference to how deep the anode basket sits into the solution. If your basket is not deep enough in the solution then even if the basket is full you don't have enough anode area touching the solution and the voltage has to be raised to push amperage. This leads to a whole nother set of problems including heating and contamination of the crystals when voltages rise in a solution with higher percentages of contaminates. 

You can usually get about 5 lbs in the bowl cell before you have to break it down.
10-12 oz in a cell this size is just enough to get it started good.


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## bencrazy_metals (Aug 9, 2022)

I don’t have any pictures of the cell in operation (any good ones anyways). I did notice once I filled it up from some initial evaporation with distilled water I filled it a little further than I initially loaded it and was getting better numbers that way. Thanks again eveyone!


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## bencrazy_metals (Aug 26, 2022)

I am going to restart my cell again in the next few days. I will upload pictures of everything. I am including a 3 amp inline fuse and I will have the liquid nearer to the top (anode, more submerged) this time. I do have a question, though. What is an ideal concentration for the silver nitrate electrolyte? Sreetips seems to use about 600g.


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## delboy9891 (Aug 26, 2022)

I use 150g per litre so if its a 4 litre cathode 600g would be about right


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## bencrazy_metals (Aug 31, 2022)

Palladium said:


> Pictures of the cell would help. Need to see the color of the solution as well as the anode placement in reference to how deep the anode basket sits into the solution. If your basket is not deep enough in the solution then even if the basket is full you don't have enough anode area touching the solution and the voltage has to be raised to push amperage. This leads to a whole nother set of problems including heating and contamination of the crystals when voltages rise in a solution with higher percentages of contaminates.
> 
> You can usually get about 5 lbs in the bowl cell before you have to break it down.
> 10-12 oz in a cell this size is just enough to get it started good.


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## Palladium (Aug 31, 2022)

I use clear plexiglass so i can see what's happening in the cell. With a fresh solution you can jack that voltage up to about 5 volts. After the cell starts to build crystals in a day or so and the amperage starts to rise you can lower it down to about 3.5 for production. If you want beefier crystals lower the voltage more and let them grow slowly.


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## bencrazy_metals (Sep 6, 2022)

Palladium said:


> I use clear plexiglass so i can see what's happening in the cell. With a fresh solution you can jack that voltage up to about 5 volts. After the cell starts to build crystals in a day or so and the amperage starts to rise you can lower it down to about 3.5 for production. If you want beefier crystals lower the voltage more and let them grow slowly.


Damn that’s a good idea! I guess I stuck too much to sreetips’ blueprint.


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## bencrazy_metals (Sep 14, 2022)

This is my second attempt at a silver cell. I used roughly 750 g in my electrolyte and have been loading her with about 800 g of shot. This is day 7 or 8.


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## 4metals (Sep 14, 2022)

Is that a stainless bowl with holes drilled in the bottom used as an anode basket?


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## orvi (Sep 14, 2022)

4metals said:


> Is that a stainless bowl with holes drilled in the bottom used as an anode basket?


Hard to see, but I think those lighter coloured places could be etched :/ strange setup, if it is a SS bowl. I certainly wouldn´t arrange it like this


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## bencrazy_metals (Sep 14, 2022)

4metals said:


> Is that a stainless bowl with holes drilled in the bottom used as an anode basket?


No. It is a plastic tupperware container with holes drilled in it. Sorry the picture wasn't great.


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## 4metals (Sep 14, 2022)

I think you would do better with more open space. Just enough to support the anodes weight and lined with anode bag material. I’ve seen assay labs who make their own silver for parting use stainless bowls and a downspout screen from Home Depot.


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## bencrazy_metals (Dec 18, 2022)

4metals said:


> Is that a stainless bowl with holes drilled in the bottom used as an anode basket?


No it was a plastic tupperware container, like the ones used by Sreetips


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## bencrazy_metals (Dec 18, 2022)

4metals said:


> I think you would do better with more open space. Just enough to support the anodes weight and lined with anode bag material. I’ve seen assay labs who make their own silver for parting use stainless bowls and a downspout screen from Home Depot.
> View attachment 52217


love this idea. I will definitely be trying this next time! Thank you!


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