richard.cs
- Joined Mar 3, 2012
- 162
#12
The problem with the low voltage approach is that to get the electrode area you need many interleaved plates all connected together and it's a pain to make. It also requires rectification of very low voltages with is inefficient as the diode drops are comparable to the required output.
In a conventional high voltage design you stack stainless steel plates and spacers in a fish tank and connect to the two end plates only. With 61 plates you effectively get 60 cells in series with each plate (except the end two) being the anode of one cell on one side and the cathode of the next cell on the other. It's quite a neat way of doing it and with a small amount of leakage around the plates he electrolyte self levels and it all just works.
I would say stick with the high voltage design, it's got many nice attributes, but put some thought into having a variable power supply that you can wind between 1.8V/cell and 2.2V/cell say. This could be lamp dimmer or variac + a choke input PSU, or it could be a switch mode PSU of some kind, or even just a transformer with a few (say 4) taps for different voltages.
The problem with the low voltage approach is that to get the electrode area you need many interleaved plates all connected together and it's a pain to make. It also requires rectification of very low voltages with is inefficient as the diode drops are comparable to the required output.
In a conventional high voltage design you stack stainless steel plates and spacers in a fish tank and connect to the two end plates only. With 61 plates you effectively get 60 cells in series with each plate (except the end two) being the anode of one cell on one side and the cathode of the next cell on the other. It's quite a neat way of doing it and with a small amount of leakage around the plates he electrolyte self levels and it all just works.
I would say stick with the high voltage design, it's got many nice attributes, but put some thought into having a variable power supply that you can wind between 1.8V/cell and 2.2V/cell say. This could be lamp dimmer or variac + a choke input PSU, or it could be a switch mode PSU of some kind, or even just a transformer with a few (say 4) taps for different voltages.