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I have started this thread to rationalize the wildly varying information about making colloidal silver. The earliest experimenters used silver coins and 3 9 V batteries. This method, though wonderfully simple, has some problems that we will detail here. The worst thing was that many people added salt to the distilled water to speed up the process. That was the method favored by the "blue man."
I was fortunate as a little kid to have an uncle willing to spend time answering my endless questions. Uncle Bill was a science writer working for the National Institute of Health, and his job was to take the work of scientists and explain it so that it was intelligible to the nonscientist. A little over 15 years ago, when I retired as an electronics design engineer, I visited Uncle Bill in Florida. He was in his 80s but still in good shape and sharp as a tack. I had come across colloidal silver to fix my sinus problems and had become a believer. Not trusting anyone to make it for me, I had, as a hobby, spent a lot of time researching and experimenting with ways to make a potent and stable product. I had designed and arranged to have made a line of laser pointers of high quality. I used to do a lot of lecturing and was annoyed that I could not find a reliable, high-quality laser pointer. I had already begun selling these on eBay with some success. I had almost accidentally discovered that my laser pointers could be a valuable aid in the manufacturing process of colloidal silver.
When I met with uncle Bill, he asked me what I was up to and my plans for my so-called "retirement." I told him about the laser pointers, gave him a couple of them, and then told him about my colloidal silver experience. I intended to set up a small factory and start manufacturing, bottling, and selling it. He replied, "Arnold, I never thought of you as a "snake oil salesman."
I was quite taken aback. This comment was from a man who, throughout my life, had done nothing but encourage me in everything I had attempted. He would never say anything to me in a mean way. He said what he said with the best of intentions. It was time to think things through. I had spent my entire working life, from my teens to the time of my retirement, in electronics. As a technician, field engineer, and design engineer, and finally did original design work in complex systems. Upon reflection, I never had to sell anything. The Air Force told me what they wanted me to do. When I was with NASA, it was obvious what we needed to do, and we just did it. As a consultant to large corporations, it was just a matter of the phone ringing and someone asking for help and organizing my schedule. No one questioned my work or my expertise.
So now I'm going to go out and sell something? Colloidal silver? It helped me a great deal with my sinuses. It quickly healed any infection or burn. Made properly, it could do no harm. Yes, I knew this and that it was true for me. Was I prepared to tell others it will cure something they believe ails them? No, of course not. What are the other people selling colloidal silver telling people? That's the problem. I would inevitably be tarred with the same brush. Am I willing to take this? Is my skin thick enough? Do I feel an irresistible urge to save the world by sprinkling colloidal silver over it? Do I need the money? The answer was no. I decided to go ahead and have the 9999+ wire made. Since I had to buy 2000 ounces to do the deal, I started offering it to people like myself who worried about purity. My offerings of very simple generator kits came about due to so many customers of the silver wire asking for advice on how to use it.
I believe we have covered everything that the do-it-yourselfer will find helpful in setting up to make their colloidal silver. Some areas of refinement will result in a more effective and stable product. Still, these methods are not practical for someone who wishes to use a voltage source, a current limiting device (resistor), and pure silver in pure water. An example of this would be the act of reversing the polarity of the electrodes periodically. That not only evens the wear but also eliminates the hard-to-remove silver oxide build-up on the cathode. It preserves a smooth finish on the electrodes and reduces wastage. The electrodes also become very easy to clean, requiring only a quick wipe with a paper towel instead of a plastic scrub pad. I incorporated a double pole double throw switch in my larger generators to accomplish this, but it's too much to ask people to use. As a result, most users flip the switch from one batch to another, even the wear factor.
Any further efforts to improve the process would involve developing an "expert system" incorporated into an automatic colloidal silver generator. The so-called "automatic" generators on the market are cut off with a timer or a particular voltage level at the electrodes. There are now many people offering "automatic" Colloidal Silver Generators. I find amusing their habit of creating their own "forums" in which their products are favorably reviewed and others' products canned. Why don't they come here and tell us how their electrons have more energy, their ions can jump higher, and their particles are smaller than anyone else's?