I decided to try electrolysis to clean the rust off an old plane blade. I bought a 6/2 amp 12 volt DC battery charger at home depot. I set it all up and ran it at 6 amps. While the results were good on the first blade, the charged seems to have already totally shot its wad and won’t do another blade. Has antone had this problem? Do mI need to get a better charger? If so, any suggestions?
Discussion Forum
Get It All!
UNLIMITED Membership is like taking a master class in woodworking for less than $10 a month.
Start Your Free TrialCategories
Discussion Forum
Digital Plans Library
Member exclusive! – Plans for everyone – from beginners to experts – right at your fingertips.
Highlights
-
Shape Your Skills
when you sign up for our emails
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. -
Shop Talk Live Podcast -
Our favorite articles and videos -
E-Learning Courses from Fine Woodworking
-
-
Replies
Pete,
A small battery charger is designed with the expectation that, as a battery is charged, the current flow is limited by the basic physics of lead acid batteries. Inexpensive chargers usually don't have much in the way of control circuitry or over current protection.
Hooked up for electrolysis, the battery controlled limitation on the current flowing through the charger was lost and the higher current probably cooked the charger's diodes which are very sensitive to overheating.
John W.
Pete, I limit the current on my battery charger by putting a 12 volt turn signal bulb into one of the wires from the charger to the load, so that the bulb is in series with the load. The bulb acts like an electronic valve and limits the current to about 250ma. This allows me to charge motorcycle batteries w/o frying them and also I do a little electroplating this way using a Variac to control input voltage to the charger.
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled