I am somewhat out of date as to the status of everything, been on hiatus from the world of creative chemistry. About six months ago, I was playing with the Fester
electrochem method with minimal success before I was so rudely abducted by aliens.
At that time I was using lamb skin condoms with no problems whatsoever, but I had rigged up a fairly effective ghetto CV/CC (constant voltage or constant current) power supply($100 from simple Walmart and Shack components). I had also begun digesting several hundred pages of papers and books on the various factors governing electro chem reactions... cell design, current density, temp control, circulation, cathode\anode selection and solvents were all significant to the outcome of the reaction.
I need to refamilarize myself with the subject for sure, but one thing stands out from what I gathered very distinctly; small or even unnoticed variations in the configuration can impact the results dramatically. Since the literature provides a number of frameworks to anticipate and calculate the impact of many of these factors, I would encourage you to sketch a few impact estimations for yourself to get a ballpark feel for the significance.
It is well documented that subtle variations can lead to highly diverse outcomes, with many interesting possibilities for additional research identified but as yet resolved. I learned first hand that propper control of the voltage potential, solution temp and monitoring shifts in the current flow were minimum ante for predictable results using this method. Getting a successfull result from a car charger, run blind with ambient cooling would seem as likely as picking a catalyst, reaction temp and solvents at random. It could happen... but not often.
I didn't mean to preach, and I certainly havn't perfected this strategy. But I did become aware of some of the loose ends that were being under appreciated.
TrickE
BTW, if anyone is interested in construcing a powersupply it is described in an older post. A $60 Shack multi-meter with rs-232 output is used to monitor the output of a PC driven power source. The power source is simply a cheep($35) 80 watt audio amp driven by a PC sound card. The amp delivers a modulated signal (AC), which is rectified and smoothed with a medium sized capaciter. Software reads the meter and adjusts the 'volume' of the tone output to make necessary adjustments. The software not only controlled the feedback loop, but as a bonus, plotted the effective conductivity using fairly basic factoring and estimation methods to provided helpfull clues to the progress of the reaction over time. (actually this wasn't finished, but fairly staightforward)
And on the eight day, God created Meth...
... and hasn't done much of anything usefull since!
