ELECTROLYSIS CLEANER
Have you heard about cleaning coins with an electrolysis system and wondered how you could build one yourself? Well here are the simple details of what it takes.
You only need four things to make the cleaner:
A DC power source. I use a 6 amp car battery charger.
A plastic (non-metal) container. The square Tupperware freezer containers work great and are just the right size for cleaning coins.
A piece of stainless steel. Anything will do. I have used the head off of a stainless spatula and a stainless hose clamp, just so it can be bent to be easily hung on one side of the container.
A couple of copper alligator clips.
Any kind of clip can be used on the positive lead but you should try to find a solid copper one for your coin clip. You can use a steel clip but it will soon be corroded. You don’t have this problem as much with a solid copper clip.
Now for putting it all together. Below is a rough drawing of what it should look like.
Don’t let the coin or the clip touch directly while you have the power turned on. That will create a direct short and could ruin your power supply.
Mix Baking Soda into the water in order for the current to flow between your coin and the stainless. I use hot water so the Baking Soda dissolves quickly. How much? If you have a pint container I would add a teaspoon or two. It’s not critical.
How long you leave the coin in to bubble depends on how badly it is corroded. Usually 30 seconds or so is all it takes to loosen the “junk”. The key word here is “loosen”. The final cleaning should be what you usually do to clean the coin.
That’s it! Pretty simple hey! It’s kind of fun too seeing years of oxidation literally falling off of the coins. Obviously, you can really expand on this idea and make a first-class setup that puts this one to shame so go ahead and do your own thing. Happy cleaning!
