Having become obsessional with my CS brewing after purchasing "Ole Bob's" switching polarity unit, I have finally put my TDS-1 to rest. Even after replacing the batteries at a cost of almost $10 -- what a waste!!
Let me start from the beginning -- having located a Sota/Beck unit some two years ago and graduating from a grey CS from ordinary tapwater, discovering distilled water and it went on from there. One is usually delighted with the often Chaddonay colored results. The following is very unscientific, just an observtion from an observer who has done a lot of obsessional observing!! Ole Bob's unit with switching polarity actually gives me clear CS after one filtering. After a four hours of brewing the TDS-1 reads "5". Yes only 5!! Keep in mind the TDS1 will always read between 0 and 1 in distilled water -- store or home made. Hanna's unofficial recommendation -- if they'll talk to you at all -- is take the TDS-1 reading and divide by a factor of 4". And then proceed to wave a headless plucked chicken over it!! If one takes the Sota CS results after an hour, one usually has a slightly graying or greying solution with good Tyndall dispersion. One filters the fluff or treeing out, or at least attempts to -- the resultant solution is still a little grey but the golden colour after a day is pleasantly sort of reassuring!! Now what have you got? You have CS of maybe 4ppm and a TDS-1 reading of maybe 14/16. I believe you are reading the amount of silver fluff or treeing that actually dissolves into the water/CS solution. If one brews for 4 hours, one has a TDS-1 reading of say 36 and who knows what PPM!! Maybe 8/9 ppm. The brew has become much greyer i.e. more fluff has dissolved into the solution. Remember the $15 TDS-1 is designed to measure dissolved salts and the like in water. That's all they claim it will do. And that's what it's doing -- it measures the minute particles of silver fluff in your solution and this fluff is not a colloid of silver -- please correct me if I'm way off the mark!! What finally convinced me is the reading of "5" after 4 hours with my polarity switching model in the clear brew results. The ppm being 10/12 as an educated guess! With a reading of "5" via TDS1, it appears unable to read a true colloid -- i.e. water and minute bits of silver and lots of space between the silver and the water!! After having used the TDS1 for so long one disbelieves the reading and assumes that the 4 hour brewed CS can't be the time related brewed ppm estimate. One then adds some previously collected fluff/treeing, stirs and dissolves liberally and Voila! -- the reading climbs and the more you add, the more the reading increases! I know, it's sort of reassuring -- dunking the TDS-1 in and taking a reading -- and pretending -- as I did for almost 12 months that I was taking a meaningful scientific reading. It wouldn't be for me to suggest that people should stop using the TDS-1 --it will continue to give them a good feeling as it did for me -- until one day along this their initiation/learning path -- this almost occult-like brewing ritual -- one becomes obsessed with and seeks a "Truer Path to Silvation", to feel the clear brew, its almost baptismal affect on one's silvered physche etc etc etc. Enough of all that!! Before one becomes too carried away and utters too many unscientific exultations with a silvery tongue. So what does one do from here?? One just carries on, enslaved to the dream, the task of brewing the ultimate silver nectar -- giving infinite wisdom and pleasure. Reminding oneself of the immortality one is promised -- should one stumble upon the "True Blue Brew". One stumbles on, tempted by postings of "the BIG CS Brewing Set-up". Yes!! I'll be sucked into a 10,000 volt power supply and hooking up multi electrodes. Producing prodigious amounts of CS, and to what end? Maybe I'll bathe in it, letting it silver my pores, thus giving me an extra sparkle. I'm already probing with my newly acquired trusty digital multi-meter. Don't quite know what all those zeros mean but it feeeels goood -- I just can't resist it!! Help me doctor!! Take care and don't become enslaved -- I'm doomed!! Douglas Haack, BeSilvered Streaker, enSlaved unscientific Tinkerer or is that Thinkerer? -- that's the trouble when silver get's into the pores of your skin and now lingers and clogs the brain, causing me to go on Silavating! PS: Should I survive, I hope to do it all again with gold. AgHHH!! -- The silver-list is a moderated forum for discussion of colloidal silver. To join or quit silver-list or silver-digest send an e-mail message to: [email protected] -or- [email protected] with the word subscribe or unsubscribe in the SUBJECT line. To post, address your message to: [email protected] List maintainer: Mike Devour <[email protected]>
