A "New" electro question...

[fatfutures]

Maybe new... I dont' remember seeing anything posted about this before.

I had a fun incident this weekend. I was cleaning a few pieces for a friend... took an 8 skillet out of the cooker and put in a 10. Hooked it up, turned it on...and WOW! Charger made a bizarre noise and the gauges were topped out! Of course I shut it down immediately. Craig asked if it was possible that the skillet was touching the bottom of the tank. Nope... not possible. I checked. It turns out that I've got to much metal filled gunk at the bottom of my tank. When I raised the piece a bit, I was able to resume normal "cooking".

So, the question is this... anyone know of a way to remove said gunk without dumping the tank. I never change out the water, don't see any point in it. I just top it off as needed.

Do you think reversing the charge would remove enough of the gunk?

I need more coffee... I don't think I'm making any sense.

[C. Perry Rapier]

Michelle, I don't presently have a tank set up, but when I did I scooped that junk off the bottom every now and then and just pitched it, you don't need to change your water, just get something like a fine mesh net and scoop it out.

[fatfutures]

 [smiley=eek2.gif] Perry doesn't have a tank set up?????

Ok, I was wondering if a fine net would work... and, now I know that it does!

What I REALLY need to do is get my bigger tank out of storage and swap them out. The smaller one is big enough for pretty much everything but, I've got a ham boiler that needs attention and I'm sure it will require the bigger tank.

But, to make the switch I'll need hubby's help and he is buried with work right now... SO, a-scooping I will go!

[C. Perry Rapier]

Nope Michelle, don't have one set up right now. Going to be setting one up though, I have had a couple three set up, tryin different things with it and all that, but took it down. No bad luck I'll have another one up and running sometime soon though.

[Al Andrews]

Michelle, I use a short length of garden hose and siphon the gunk off the bottom.  Yes, you have to replace some water but that is no big deal.

Al

[fatfutures]

Thanks Al! That's what I was thinking of trying...seems much easier that trying to scoop it out!

I don't mind replacing some water, just didn't want to replace ALL of it  ;)

[Jeff Friend]

Michelle,

You can siphon off the sludge into a 5-gallon bucket, let the contents of the bucket settle out, then decant the electrolyte back into your cooker.  Or, you can just dump the entire bucket.  In my opinion, it is a good idea to "blow down" the electrolyte every now and then.  Some undesirable ions, like chloride, build up and need to be purged periodically.  Chlorides and stainless steel do not get along together.  A rule of thumb is dump 1 or 2 gallons for every 10 gallons of water added to replace what has evaporated.

Jeff