Be careful about using generic and do-it-yourself materials when it comes to making Colloidal Silver . I used to make my Colloidal Silver with such things. Initially the batch of CS that I made was of good quality but overtime they became bad. I began to notice this when certain cuts healed only to leave a greyish/brownish mark behind. Infact scabs remained in the skin. I don't really know how this happened, but I believe that either the silver rods that I bought weren't that pure (and degraded) or that I had faulty wiring. For the sake of making quality CS (as badly made CS might actually be harmful or have undesirable effects) use SilverPuppy or the other CS generators out there.