KClO3 power supply

[maliveline]

hey guys so I have an old dell power supply. Basically when I hook it up to a cell I'm only getting like 1 amp or so of current. It says on the sticker that the 5 volt power supply is suppose to max out at 22 amps so i'm getting really frustrated. I hooked up a car light bulb to the 12 volt line to see if that would help and I'm only getting like 1 amp out of those lines too. I'm thinking about buying a different power supply off craigslist or something but I'm not really sure if i'm doing something wrong. any replies would be greatly appreciated.

[MrB]

A PC PSU might have issues when loaded in certain ways. But it usually shows up in higher or lower voltages, not limited AMP's. What are you using to get the reading / how are you taking the reading?

 

How old is this supposed "old" PSU?

I'm thinking it might be providing standby power only, which might be limited to a / a few A. But thats a fairly recent development to PSU features, and is there to keep the PC from using more power to generate heat then it needs to stay in standby mode when hibernating and such.

 

Then again it's past 5 in the morning, i should be in bed, so i might not be thinking straight. Anyway, what did you do to the PSU to make it switch on?

B!

[maliveline]

I have like 10 red wires I wired them all together and a few black wires all wired together. This is my 5 volt power supply. I hooked up the green wire to my black wires and this allowed my power supply to turn on.

Basically If I hook up to my electrodes and I use my multimeter in between 1 electrode and the red wires I can get an amperage reading. I'm only getting a few amps at best no where near the 22 amps its rated for.

 

Also If I do the same thing with a 12volt lamp I can hook up my multi meter by hooking up one wire to the light bulb lead and the other wire to my 12 volt power supply and this gives me a reading of just a few amps which is far below the rating on the sticker on the outside of the box. I think the computer was purchase in like 04 or 05

 

so in summary neither my 12 volt power supply or my 5 volt power supply are putting out any decent amperage. I know for a fact even without my multi meter that my 5 volt power supply isn't doing crap because the bubbles on my cathode are not very vigorous at all. I have a 6v battery charger and the bubbles are much more violent and that is only pushing 8 amps or so.

Edited November 5, 2014 by maliveline

[Arthur]

Dud psu? Bad wiring? Have you measured 5v across the wires without the load?

Edited November 5, 2014 by Arthur

[Oinikis]

Ohms laws comes into play.It says that voltage divided by current equals ressistance, so if you want increase the current, you need to lower the resistance. If at 5 volts you get 1 amp, it means the ressistance is about 5 ohms. For 20 amps at 5 volts the ressistance needs to be 0.25 ohms. This can be achieved by making solution saturated (if it's not already), decreasing the distance between electrodes, and increasing the surface area between electrodes. Edited November 5, 2014 by Oinikis

[MrB]

I have like 10 red wires I wired them all together and a few black wires all wired together. This is my 5 volt power supply. I hooked up the green wire to my black wires and this allowed my power supply to turn on.

Basically If I hook up to my electrodes and I use my multimeter in between 1 electrode and the red wires I can get an amperage reading. I'm only getting a few amps at best no where near the 22 amps its rated for.

Oinikis is right. You might be having a problem with the spacing between the electrodes, and / or the size of them. Or the solution.

The reason the battery charger gives more bubbles is likely to be due to it having 50% higher voltage. The charger doesn't output 6v, it outputs 7-8v.

 

Also If I do the same thing with a 12volt lamp I can hook up my multi meter by hooking up one wire to the light bulb lead and the other wire to my 12 volt power supply and this gives me a reading of just a few amps which is far below the rating on the sticker on the outside of the box. I think the computer was purchase in like 04 or 05.

It shouldn't be new enough for being able to get stuck in a standby mode. But the reason your only seeing a few A is simply coz thats all you get through the lamp. Whats the rating on the light-bulb?

B!

[maliveline]

my solution is saturated, and actually my electrodes are less than 2 inches apart. My battery charger is actually running at about 5 volts at the electrodes but this voltage reading can vary depending on the concentration of the ions in solution. I'm pretty much 90% sure that this computer power supply is not functioning correctly and I'm probably going to buy a different one off craigslist next week its only like 10 bucks or something what the hell.

 

In the mean time I have a battery charger running a cell at about 5 volts at the electrodes and 8 amps. I'm waiting to see if any crystals are going to form and I am keeping my hopes up. If can't get a different computer power supply to work I guess I will consider myself to stupid to be messing with potassium chlorate.

[MrB]

At 5v it would at best discharge a 6v battery, so i don't know whats going on there.

Size of the electrodes?

B!

[Oinikis]

2 inches is quite far, I think you should try 1/4 to 1/2 inches apart. I suggest you hooking up the meter to meassure the ressistance, and adjusting untill you get like 0.25 ohm. At 5 volts it should pull up to 20 amps (depending on the ressistance of the whole system). That might be too much, so check if it is not overheating.

[maliveline]

omg I'm still sturggling with this. I just bought 2 more power supplies and its basically the same deal.

 

Let me put it this way. I'm not having issues with resistance. forget my 5 volt lines for now.

 

My 12 volt lines are rated to be maxed out at 20 amps or so. When I hook up 1 wire to a light bulb and hook 1 wire of the multimeter to the light bulb and the other to the power supply the 12 volt lamp turns on. There is little to no resistance in a 12 volt lamp. I'm getting an amp reading of like .5 amps which is WAY less than the rating. If this was truly a 20 amp 12 volt power supply it would probably blow the light as soon as I hooked it up. There has to be a way to get this damm power supply to kick out the maximum wattage can someone please help me

[MrB]

I don't think you understand electricity...

 

A 12v light-bulb that draws like 0.5A is a 6w light-bulb. If you hook a 6w light-bulb to a 5MW 12v power-source, it's still only going to pull 6w, and light up just as intended. You could light a metric ton of them light-bulbs and not dent the power-source capacity, but your not going to blow light-bulbs by connecting them to a given voltage that they actually are specified for.

 

To get the 20-22A the PSU is rated for, you need to hook it to something that actually uses the 20-22A. I'd prefer a 250w TEC, and get me a chilled drink while testing.

 

You could try hooking a higher wattage lightbulb to your 12v leeds, i'm thinking car headlight, 50-70w, standard. But thats still 4-7A or so.

As these PSU's of yours are slightly older, they wont really enjoy cross loading that much. You might actually need a reasonable load on the 12v leads to get the 5v stuff to perform as intended. Without it voltage might start climbing, or dropping, and then the over-volt protection should make it cut out, and you sit there wondering why nothing is happening, and why the fan isn't spinning...

B!

[maliveline]

actually I think something clicked. I did the math. So basically I'm pulling .295 amps and getting 5.6 volts so If I do the math that means my lightbulb is like appx. 19 ohms. also this is putting out about 1.65 watts of power.

 

so since W = V^2 / R and my power supply can supposedly do 150 watts. lets do this....

 

150 = 5.6^2 / R , then R = 5.6^2 / 150 = .21

 

so if I went to radio shack and bought a .21 ohms resistor and hooked it up and checked the amperage I would be getting like

like 26.7 amps however that would toast the pussy ass resistors from radio shack because they aren't rated for very high wattage.

 

So If I build my cell and put my electrodes ridiculously close together that would pretty much simulate that type of resistance giving me the current I'm looking for.

 

I know this was mentioned earlier on to put my electrodes really close together but I haven't dicked around with circuitry for quite a while and I had to slam my head against the wall for a while until the lights came on

Edited November 6, 2014 by maliveline

[maliveline]

now I guess my question is can I hook 2 computer supplies up in parallel?Because everytime I try one of the power supplies shuts off. anyone have any advice>?

[MrB]

As far as i know, you cant do that, and get it working, reliably. You should be able to get away with using high current diodes, but that is just theory, never seen it in practice.

Just build more cells instead. 2 in series feed by the 12v line gets 6v each or so.

B!

[Col]

It can be done but you have to lose the earth protection so its not a good idea. More cells in series (with seperate supplies) as B suggested is a good idea, you can stagger the starts and if one cell goes pear shaped you dont lose the lot.

Edited November 6, 2014 by Col

[maliveline]

I think for now I'm just going to go with 1 power supply 1 cell because I dont have anymore platinum andoes and I'm kind of low on space. but just for clairifcation. So say I wired the 2 power supplies I have into series giving me like 10 volts or something how would I wire the actual cells up

Edited November 6, 2014 by maliveline

[Oinikis]

So if I understood correctly, you use a bulb in paralel with the cell. I think the bulb might be causing too much ressistance. The bulb is needed if cell's ressistance is way too low. With correct spacing you could connect the cell to the supply without the bulb. So, space the electrodes so the ressistance is like 0,3 ohms, and try it without bulb. However be carefull, make sure the ressistance is not too low so the supply wouldn't heat or be damaged.

[Arthur]

While you are having issues with the PSU and your cell. try making chlorate with a MMO electrode and a Ti electrode. Bad choice of PSU, current, voltage or voltage ripple will cause a Pt electrode to fail while you watch -then try selling the solution back to a bullion dealer.

 

Previous successful calls have started with Ti and MMO electrodes til there is a fair pile of chlorate salt. When that is running well then you can look at the ingredients and electrodes and conditions for a Perc cell. It's too easy to kill a Pt electrode -especially a thin clad one.

[maliveline]

While you are having issues with the PSU and your cell. try making chlorate with a MMO electrode and a Ti electrode. Bad choice of PSU, current, voltage or voltage ripple will cause a Pt electrode to fail while you watch -then try selling the solution back to a bullion dealer.

 

Previous successful calls have started with Ti and MMO electrodes til there is a fair pile of chlorate salt. When that is running well then you can look at the ingredients and electrodes and conditions for a Perc cell. It's too easy to kill a Pt electrode -especially a thin clad one.

so what exactly are you saying its better to use mmo electrodes instead of a pt clad one?

[Arthur]

A Pt electrode is very sensitive to conditions in the cell and cab erode the thin Pt coating in seconds if mistreated. SO for a beginner yes it's cheaper and easier to make your chlorate cell mistakes on a MMO electrode. When you have a working cell and some experience and some chlorate then try to make perc from chlorate with your Pt clad electrode. The Pt cladding is desperately thin so there is almost nothing there and certainly too little to make mistakse with.

 

Bare in mind that platinum erodes rapidly in chloride solutions.

[maliveline]

I will probably get some titanium mmo anodes thanks for the advice.

[Arthur]

Destroying an electrode is expensive but destroying a platinum electrode is severely expensive.

[maliveline]

well I got my cell going and my electrodes are probably like 1/4" apart and I'm still only pulling like 6.5 amps with my computer power supply which is a far cry from 30 amps. I have a 6 volt battery charger that is basically putting out the same amperage but a little more probably because of a little extra voltage. Anyway I guess I'm not going to get much more amperage. I guess its just because thats all the resistance of my solution is going to let me have. I dont get it because I watched a guy on you tube use a MOT on his perchlorate cell and he is getting like 20 amps or something but I dont see how that is possible if the resistance of the solution will only let you have so many amps. Maybe there is a way of making my solution less resistant to current flow?

[Arthur]

Start small! if you try to drive too much current then you risk damaging the electrodes. How much chloride did you get into how much tank solution? It's the chloride that conducts and makes chlorate. Was it fully saturated at it's working temperature. From memory you need about 300g of chloride in 1 litre of solution at about 50 - 60 celcius. Heating losses in the solution will keep the temperature up enough. What temperature is your cell running stably at?

 

What size are you electrodes?

[maliveline]

my anode is like 2" x 3" and my cathode is about 1.5 inch by about 4. I didn't really weigh out the chloride but the solution is like 1 gallon and its super saturated. Not exactly sure what temperature its at but I heated the water up on the stove before I added the chloride. I dont know its working so I guess its not a huge issue I just wanted to push it with a crap load of amps. Right now its taking me like 3 or 4 days to get the chorate crystals to form.