Electrolysis Rust Removal Question

zacker01 · May 16, 2013

So Im looking into making an Electrolysis Rust Removal tank for cleaning some parts. I know what I need to use and how it all works but One things got me confused. The Power Supply...
What size power supply to use for getting great results in the shortest time? I have seen on line, people using car chargers, cell phone chargers and even a computer power supply.

I saw a Video on You tube and the guy says he had his Battery Charger set to 40Amps and the cleaning was drawing about 20 Amps. So, do I need a bigger charger like that or will a small little 6 amp one do?

I just don't want to have to hook stuff up and wait 6 hours for it to be cleaned... lol

I see a lot of bigger chargers on Amazon that say they are 100 or 200 Amps but from what I can gather, its only for jump starting and they wont actually put out the higher amperage for any amount of time, and a lot of them also seem to have a safe guard where the higher Amps only kick in when the charger senses the current change when you turn the car over. Id like to get a newer charger anyways so Im looking for something that goes up to at least 40 Amps and can hold that for a couple hours and not burn its self out.
but it also cant be a $200.00 machine...lol the cheaper, the better. Or if you have any other Ideas of what I can use for a power source Im open to suggestions.

I also have a brand new power supply and charger for the Lipo batteries in my R/C Helicopter.. maybe I can use that? I just want to know the optimal volts and amps for rust removal vs. time it takes to work.

zacker01 · May 16, 2013

Heres the specs of the power supply I have

And this is the charger that goes with it..

930dreamer · May 16, 2013

If you do a search there's many threads on this, I just use the 2 amp setting but I'm not in a hurry.

jkwilson · May 16, 2013

I used my 40A battery charger. Worked perfectly and drew about 10A. What you are cleaning may change the current requirement.

Zeke · May 16, 2013

When using a battery charger, isn't it best to use a battery in line (?) with the load?

zacker01 · May 16, 2013

930dreamer said:
If you do a search there's many threads on this, I just use the 2 amp setting but I'm not in a hurry.

how long does it take to clean the item?

930dreamer · May 16, 2013

zacker01 said:
how long does it take to clean the item?

Using a piece of graphite as an anode, I'll leave the part in overnight. If you want fast= sandblast. I've used the 10 amp setting but anode placement is the critical issue here.

zacker01 · May 16, 2013

930dreamer said:
Using a piece of graphite as an anode, I'll leave the part in overnight. If you want fast= sandblast. I've used the 10 amp setting but anode placement is the critical issue here.

If I could Sand blast, I would... believe me..lol but I don't have a compressor except for the little pancake one which basically is used for an air brad nailer and to blow sawdust off the other tools...lol

I figured 4 pieces of rebar, one in each corner of the tank (Rubbermaid tote when I need the size) or 4 in a 5 gall bucket when I can use a smaller size tank.

I read something interesting about tank size though, they say the process is pretty much "line of sight" so if theres rust in little corners or crevices it wont get cleaned, someone said that they put a small part into a tank that was a LOT BIGGER THAN IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN AND THE PART CAME OUT CLEAN, INSIDE AND OUT.. SO THEY FIGURED ITS NOT SO MUCH LINE OF SIGHT, ITS MORE OF HOW MUCH ROOM THE CURRENT HAS TO MOVE AROUND AND BUILD UP IN THE TANK AROUND THE PIECE BEING CLEANED... LOL I GUESS THAT WILL (dam caps!!!! ) be tested at a later date...

Outlawmws · May 16, 2013

Electrolysis is a lot faster than Phosphoric acid, Molasses, or Vinegar, but not as fast as mechanical means. And faster is not necessarily better... Archeologists deliberately work slowly. I get decent results in anywhere from 4 -24 hours depending on how much rust and when the last time I cleaned the anodes, was. Clean anodes = Faster.

I generally use a 20A charger, but the setup only draws maybe an amp depending on part size. bigger parts, more surface area, more draw.

Outlawmws · May 16, 2013

Zeke said:
When using a battery charger, isn't it best to use a battery in line (?) with the load?

Only really needed with the newer "Smart" chargers, because they want to see part of a charge... :wtf:

I only use Copper wound transformer power supplies... :rocker:

zacker01 · May 16, 2013

so then its basically the part being cleaned and the amount of water / solution you are using that decides the current draw? So if I put a charger on 40 amps it may only draw 1 or 2 so in theory I could set the charger to 1 or 2 amps and get the same results in the same time as the 40 amps? Hell with it, im gonna try my little charger and if it works, fine! lol

G_P · May 16, 2013

I use a manual charger on the 10amp setting. It rarely draws over 5 amps and that's only with super clean anodes and a large part being cleaned.

Sent from my C5120 using Tapatalk 2

trbomax · May 16, 2013

Electrolysis cleaning works best when the input voltage does not exceed 8 vdc.Above 8 volts the base metal will start to plate off along with the rust.This is why computer power supplys work well.A batt charger is fine if you can find an old "dumb" 6 v unit. RediStrip franchises use 8v power supplys. Back in the 70's I helped a friend set up a RediStrip business in toledo,building tanks and power wash equipment. His tanks are 20' long,big enough for an entire car body.The power supply on the deruster is 400a @8vdc.I built a small one here useing a 200 gal plastic stock tank and 4 - 30 a power supplys,but it was too cold in the shop this winter to run it and it got put outside for later. The solution will not work below 65 deg,70 -75 is ideal.

edit) the solution strength and makeup is important as well.A weak solution will not transfer well,this is why a 40a power supply is only running at 2a.The most efficient solution (what RediStrip uses) is 1 lb caustic soda/gal,1/4lb glutinate/gal. They also add1lb cyanide/100gal as a brightener. The basic rule for power with this solution is 40a/100gal. You do not need the cyanide,but it will eliminate the black "****" and the parts will come out brite and shiney.

SlappyWhite · May 16, 2013

I use a 6a charger, never had an issue.

trbomax · May 16, 2013

SlappyWhite said:
I use a 6a charger, never had an issue.

You wont. you could use 2a and it will work,it just takes a lot longer.

G_P · May 16, 2013

Today I switched from this charger

To this big charger

Its now pulling 16 amps through an old rusty crowbar. Should be clean as a whistle when it comes out.
Sent from my C5120 using Tapatalk 2

zacker01 · May 17, 2013

I bought a small 50A charger, should be here today, then when I got home I looked at my little charger I have and guess what? Its also a 50A charger...lol well, guess ill try the old one first, if it works I will send the new one back to Amazon...lol

So, whats the best solution of Washing soda per gallon to use? I heard some say 1/2 cup per 5 gall bucket all the way up to 3 cups per 5 gall bucket. I have a 13 gallon Rubbermaid tote. I wired together 4 1/8 thick x 11/2" wide buy 8" long pieces of steel I had, put one in each corner, then used some rod across the top of the tub to hang parts on. I am de rusting an old Cardinal Speed vise so right now I have the handle / front jaw assembly hanging from one rod and the rear jaw is hanging from the other rod. They are suspended by small steel bar that I bent into "S" hooks, then I wired a piece of copper wire from one hook to the other so both parts should get powered up by the charger.

G_P · May 17, 2013

I use baking soda. Just put it in the oven at 300 or more degrees for an hour. Guess the heat changes it.
.50c a box at the dollar store and I use about a cup per 5 gallons and it works great.

Sent from my C5120 using Tapatalk 2

zacker01 · May 20, 2013

Ok.. So I got all my stuff in, Charger and Washing soda... I then used a 13 Gal. Rubbermaid tote as a tub, used a strip of like 11/4 x 8" long x 1/8 thick sacrificial steel in each corner and wired them all together with copper wire (I think it was like, 20 amp wire from when I was rewiring the shop...) I then suspended my parts, added the water and soda and put the charger to it. My old charger I got for 5$ wasn't working so I used the new one... On 50 Amps with the charger in "Start" mode, that water was boiling... so I put the charger on the 10 amp quick charge settings and left it there, still it was fizzing like mad... after 3 hrs., the charger quit...lol so I put the old one back on and put it on the 50 Amp start mode and the water was fizzing and after about 5 minutes the charger started smoking like crazy so I shut it down and said "Screw it... Im done!"

I pulled out the parts and wow, in just 3 hrs. the rust was almost completely gone! Yeah there was still a little here and there that came off very easily with a small wire wheel in my drill... but the last time I cleaned this vise was at about the very ending of last summer but I never coated it with anything so it was just rusted up pretty good. as for the paint...and any paint still on, came off when I hosed it down. One thing, everything came out of the bath with a white haze on it.. what is that?

So... After awhile, I checked the new charger, it works again, I guess there's maybe some safety that shuts it down either after 3 hrs. or if it gets too hot. Sadly, the old one was shot, even on 50 amps, it hardly lit up my test light...lol so now its stripped and anything good from it is in a box, the rest is in the trash!

What's everyone else using? This ones go no fan in it so maybe if I point a fan at it, it will work? Its a small one I got off Amazon.

Anyhow, here's the Pics of the parts.

Before 1

Before 2

After 1

After 2

The Handle in this last shot is not that rusty.. lol the photo makes it look it. Its got that "Checkering" pattern on it for better grip and I had painted it black so between that, the shadows, the black paint that's still on it after the bath.... lol it just looks bad. The vise is together now with a fresh coat of the rustoleum self etching primer and looking good... will have to take a pic tonight.

zacker01 · May 20, 2013

Oh yeah, if anyone has any old jaw plates laying around for a 6" cardinal speed vise... let me know!

zacker01 · May 20, 2013

G_P said:
Today I switched from this charger

To this big charger

Its now pulling 16 amps through an old rusty crowbar. Should be clean as a whistle when it comes out.
Sent from my C5120 using Tapatalk 2

so how do you keep the charger from overloading and blowing out?

bran1har · May 20, 2013

Is electrolysis worth the time? I personally can't justify the time it takes. Is it better than mehcanical means? I do wonder.

G_P · May 21, 2013

zacker01 said:
so how do you keep the charger from overloading and blowing out?

My small charger has a "start" positon that is 75amps. It is only meant to be left on in that postion for a very short time to jumpstart a car. Leaving it in "start" mode will more than likely smoke the charger. I also added a 12v computer cooling fan to the small charger. I had to put a resistor on the fan to lower the voltage to 10v as the charger puts out 13-15v and that kills the computer fans. You can also hook the charger to a spare battery and then run jumper cables from the battery to the electrolysis tank. The battery can help provide additional amperage when it is needed helping to keep some of the strain off the charger. Just be careful not to short anything when working with a battery. Without a fuse you could either melt your cables and part being cleaned or possibly have a battery explosion!

The big charger has a large aluminum blade cooling fan inside. and has a timer knob to turn it on/off.

Both chargers have been run for 8+ hours straight and never burned up. I suspect you may have had the parts being clean touch the sacrificial anode steel creating a dead short. Open the charger up there is probably a fuse inside that blew. Mine has an auto resetting breaker that will pop open if there is a short but it will cool off and reset itslef a minute or so later.

My big roll around charger is meant to charge at up to 50amps I believe. So it is not even breaking a sweat running at 16 amps for hours on end.

zacker01 · May 21, 2013

cool... I think I need a fan on mine. The parts didn't touch the Anodes.. I think the charger that got smoked was just too cheap and poorly made. it was an older Harbor Freight charger.
The inside actually looked OK when I took it apart. I think the smoke was from one or more wires beginning to melt...lol I also suspect the new charger shut itself off after 3 hrs due to it pushing 10 amps that long... it probably has a safety or something on it. Im wondering if it will stay on all day in the 2 amp, slow charge mode? 10 amp, quick charge may have a time limit. Some of the new, bigger ones I have seen in my price range don't seem like anyone I could use. from reading reviews on them they sound like they are the one I have, just set into a big case with wheels. then I saw a couple that had some sort of safety when in the 40 AMP mode that it wont put out the amps until it senses a drop in power, like when you try and start the car.. then it will kick in the amps. and it wont stay in that mode for more than a few seconds at a time. Maybe Ill just point my garage fan at my small charger next time, see if that helps. if not ill try the 2 amp mode.

Here's another question: when I hook the leads up to the tank, the little gauge on the charger pegs all the way up... should it do that? this is the charger I have.... http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000AM8BF4/?tag=atomicindus08-20

thanks!

PCO6 · May 21, 2013

bran1har said:
Is electrolysis worth the time? I personally can't justify the time it takes. Is it better than mehcanical means? I do wonder.

I dip parts in a product called "Rust Remover" which is basically phosphoric acid. It's a bit easier than electrolysis in that there is no set up time - basically dip, wait and rinse with water. I also sand blast parts in my cabinet and occasionally outside of it.

Dipping and blasting both have their advantages. One big one with dipping is that it is less labour intensive. When I have things in my tank I can do other things during the waiting period. I have actually dipped and blasted different parts at the same time. If I'm in a rush for something and there is no advantage to dipping that part vs. blasting it I would usually choose blasting as you suggest.

zacker01 · May 21, 2013

Here's the finished product!!!

zacker01 · May 21, 2013

bran1har said:
Is electrolysis worth the time? I personally can't justify the time it takes. Is it better than mehcanical means? I do wonder.

it is if the object being clean isn't something you need cleaned right away. like I did the vise parts, I put them in the tank then went about my business doing other stuff... that's why a lot of guys will do it overnight... put the parts in at night, wake up the next day, take them out...done. Whose going to be sandblasting and wire brushing parts during the overnight hrs when they should be sleeping? lol..

Its safe to say, different things call for different ways to get done. if you have the time and want to do it while you work on something else, dip, if you are in a crunch or don't have anything else going on, you can take the time to do it manually... I don't mind using the wire wheel and sanding and such but it can get time consuming.

spongerich · May 21, 2013

bran1har said:
Is electrolysis worth the time? I personally can't justify the time it takes. Is it better than mehcanical means? I do wonder.

Depends on what you're de-rusting. I've done lots of large vises. By the time you disassemble them, degrease, sandblast, and clean all the #$%* blasting media out from all the crevices, you've spent a couple of hours.

With electrolysis, it's dunk it in the tank and forget about it for a day or two. Then disassemble, dunk it some more, hose it off and it's ready for paint prep.

I've also had more than a few vises that wouldn't come apart until they've spent some quality time in the tank.

zacker01 · May 23, 2013

Does anyone know? I found an old Laptop charger, the output says its: 19.5v 7.7A, will this work? I also found a computer fan, it says: 12V dc, 1.40A can I hook this fan some how to the laptop charger to keep it cool? or can I hook the fan to the charger to keep that cool?

If so, How? I know the wires on the Laptop charger has the hot and the ground and the third wire that supposedly is just some sort of extra, non used wire... then the fan has 4 wires, a hot, a ground a wire that goes to some type of thermostat and a wire for some sort of communication between fan and cpu(?) do I just used the + and - wires and tape off the other two?

trbomax · May 23, 2013

I use Dell server power supplys. They have a built in fan,a 12vdc and 5vdc tap. The 5vdc tap is good for 30a continous draw,this is the side I use.They are 100% duty cycle, and you can ususly get them cheap on fleabay,arounf 15-20$ shipped.

edit) racingtadpole is the member that turned me on to these and figured out how to connect them. I have 4 for my big tankthat I have not yet built.When ganged together I will have 120a potential at 5vdc.This will be for engine blocks and such and have a 200gal capacity. A rubbermaid stock tank is the vessel of choice for this.

zacker01 · May 23, 2013

lol..we got r dell servers here at work... think they will notice if one isn't working after lunch?

actually, the charger I found here is also a dell... and the fan came out of a dell XPS desk top. I can actually grab the power supply from it too as the computer died two years ago and has been sitting in the warehouse since. Hmmmmm...lunch time project? lol plus we have a few more non working desktops I can use if need be. 3 of them are older but still work well but two had mother board problems so... ill post back if I take the power supply from that XPS..

trbomax · May 23, 2013

You can hook all the outputs together,it will only put as much current as the tank potential will support. I have a bunch of old sw ammeters out of KW trucks that I am going to put on each powersupply,just so I can moniter what is happening.

zacker01 · May 23, 2013

is there or will there ever be a time when the tank will try and pull more current than a power supply can put out and cause it to have a melt down? Like, what happens if a tank wants 10 amps but the supply can only put out say, 5 amps? does that matter?

zacker01 · May 23, 2013

So I got the Power supply from that XPS box... Man there are a lot of wires... how do I figure out what is what and what goes where? lol

here's the specs on the sticker on this baby!

trbomax · May 23, 2013

zacker01 said:
is there or will there ever be a time when the tank will try and pull more current than a power supply can put out and cause it to have a melt down? Like, what happens if a tank wants 10 amps but the supply can only put out say, 5 amps? does that matter?

The tank is like a dead battery.It has electrical potential,but no hard connection between + & - , so it will only take what the source can supply. As the iron oxide is removed from the part,the potential will decrease. When the part is totally clean the draw will be 0 because iron to iron doesnt have any electrical potential. This is why if your solution is right, you could leave your parts in there for a week and nothing will happen once they are clean.
All the above said,you guys are useing a soda solution,and thats not how the professional de rusters work,this is also why you are getting flash rust. I can pull a part,rinse or pw it,then dip it back in the solution for 30 seconds,pull it out and put it on the shelf for a month and it wont rust. When I'm ready to paint I just pw the dried solution off and its good to go.

trbomax · May 23, 2013

zacker01 said:
So I got the Power supply from that XPS box... Man there are a lot of wires... how do I figure out what is what and what goes where? lol

here's the specs on the sticker on this baby!

As a rule,the larges connevter will be gnd.You want the 5v rail,and @ 16a thats a decent supply for a tool and small parts tank. Post up a pic of the rail on the end.I will try to get the tadpole in on this.

zacker01 · May 23, 2013

the rail? do you mean the ends of the plugs? there's like 6 or 7 leads coming from this.... lol..

Ill have to post those tonight, I already stuck this in my car at lunch time today... lol ill post it up later on...thanks much!!

Outlawmws · May 23, 2013

trbomax said:
SNIP
All the above said,you guys are useing a soda solution,and thats not how the professional de rusters work,this is also why you are getting flash rust. I can pull a part,rinse or pw it,then dip it back in the solution for 30 seconds,pull it out and put it on the shelf for a month and it wont rust. When I'm ready to paint I just pw the dried solution off and its good to go.

So what is this magical solution?

zacker01 · May 23, 2013

I think I finally found the pin out chart for my power supply... ftp://ftp.dell.com/Manuals/all-prod..._xps_desktop/xps-710_Service Manual_en-us.pdf

pages 61 to 65

now what to do with all these wires? lol

trbomax · May 23, 2013

zacker01 said:
I think I finally found the pin out chart for my power supply... ftp://ftp.dell.com/Manuals/all-prod..._xps_desktop/xps-710_Service Manual_en-us.pdf

pages 61 to 65

now what to do with all these wires? lol

You will have to power up the fan from (I would assume) with a wire from the 12v pin since there is no computer telling it when to come on. If you are really worried about an overload,get a 15a automotive circut braker or a fuse and wire the + side thru it.You are only going to use 2 of those wires,+5vdc to the anode,and gnd to the cathode ,plus what ever you power the fan up with.

Electrolysis Rust Removal Question

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