This is the voltage that is being dropped across the resister. The reading of four volts indicates that the current in milliamps is 0.1 ma. This is the maximum amount that is allowable in terms of how good your distilled water is. If it reads any more than this you need to find a better source of distilled water.

In order to speed up the process we have moved the electrodes closer together so that we might generate ions more quickly. The more ions in the water, the higher the conductivity of the water, and this allows more current to flow.

We will now allow the process to continue. You will be able to see in the following pictures the fact that the voltage across the resister continues to climb over time.

Once we build it up to a certain voltage 22 volts or so, we move the electrodes back to their original position, opposite one another.

When we do this we will see the voltage on our meter temporarily drops in value as there is more water to cross and therefore the resistance increases. The voltage will continue to rise as time passes. There are many variables involved in how long it takes for the solution to reach a level of maximum Ionic concentration. For one thing the temperature of the water is a factor. The resistance of the water will decrease as the temperature increases.

In any case, patience is now called for. Because we are using four nine volt batteries in series our voltage is thirty six volts. The reading across the resistor will continue to rise until we cannot generate any more ions. At this point the voltage across the electrodes will be approximately six volts. That means that approximately thirty volts will be across the resistor and will be shown on the voltmeter.

This is the point at which our red laser pointer comes into play. Actual particles will start to form now as the ions will start to cluster together and no longer exist as ions but clumps of silver atoms forming colloidal silver. If these clumps of atoms exceed a diameter of forty nanometers our water will begin to take on a yellow tinge. Long before this our laser light will detect the colloidal particles, as laser light has the ability to be scattered by even very small particles as it travels through a medium, in this case water. The less ambient light that is present, the easier it will be to see the presence of the particles. The whole purpose is to achieve the maximum amount of colloidal silver while limiting the particle size. Once the voltmeter approaches thirty volts start using your laser pointer, preferably in the dark.

As the process continues the beam will still be visible even in normal room light. At this point you will be done and you will have made a solution of colloidal silver as good or better than anything you can buy at any price.

At this point you may well be saying to yourself "I don't have the time to be constantly checking this thing with my laser pointer and my variable room light and so on and so forth so that I know when it's done. I do after all have a life to live outside of this colloidal silver business".

In the interest of putting your mind to rest we have allowed the process to continue for twelve hours beyond the point at which we would normally disconnect the electrodes, put very our colloidal silver in a suitable clean container, clean the electrodes, and get on with our life. As you can see in the following pictures the amount of actual silver in the water, judging by the intensity of our red laser beam, has very much increased.

Our water has also acquired a slight yellow hue. This indicates that we have particles in excess of forty nanometers but still small enough to stay in solution.

Before we had the advantage of a red laser pointer we continued the process until we saw the water turn yellow. That was the only way that we had to know that we were making actual colloidal particles as well as silver ions. The yellow colloidal silver made by this process was used very successfully and the particles were still of a size that will do no harm. We know that the Ionic portion of what we call colloidal silver is of the most direct benefit for many conditions. There are some conditions that only the actual particles of silver, not ions, will be effective to address. We will not go into any specifics in this regard as doing so will violate regulations imposed by the food and drug administration. The FDA are not a bunch of bad guys trying to limit our access to useful alternative medicine. They have a tough job to do, made tougher by many unscrupulous characters existing in the alternative medicine world promising miracles. There is a great deal of information available on the net about the uses of colloidal silver. You will have to use your own good judgment in perusing this. Keep in mind the maxim that "if it's too good to be true, it probably isn't". It is also a good idea to keep very much in mind that someone is probably trying to sell you something. Okay, back to our overcooked colloidal silver.

You can see that there is now quite a large build up on both of our electrodes. They will require a good scrubbing and we use some green scrubbing pad items that we buy at Home Depot.

You will notice that quite a lot of the silver was not able to stay in solution and has ended up plating some of the glass and as a sort of sludge beneath the electrodes.  

After we decant and filter our overcooked colloidal silver using an unbleached coffee maker filter and a funnel we will now need to get rid of the silver deposits on the glass. Please note that had we stopped the process at the proper time, this would not be necessary. We could simply decant it into a storage container. 

You will still need to rinse out this glass with distilled water before you make another batch. This was done simply to show that there is no need to worry about simply forgetting to stop the process. If you let it run for days and then we would suggest throwing it out and starting over. The colloidal silver that we made while taking these pictures we are keeping for our own use when we feel we need a very strong batch.