Re-Screening the "basket" every 8lbs was becoming a pain. Once the acid gets hot the corrosion on the copper prohibits good electrical contact. Plus I had to fidget with the pins frequently to get them lined up to remove the gold from the hollows on the ends. Vertical seems to be the ticket. So I built the above holders. The one in the top photo looks like it would be really unstable and the pins would fall off if you looked at it wrong but it's really very stable.
The problem is there are 4 types of pins in the bucket. The first is really small ones. I hate them, fortunately there are very few of them; I might grab one in every other handful. They'll end up getting processed in the basket at the end. No pic of those - because I hate them - they're not worthy of being photographed.
The other three types....
Pins are in the same position in all three pics.
One end...
Other end...
Top view...
The chunky pin on the left has hollows on each end, in the above pic the top end is deeper than the other and the hole diameter is a "red one" narrower than the other end. The holder is made to hold the pin in this orientation. There's also a very small hole in the side of the pin at the "top" of the bottom hole, I'm hoping that this orientation helps the gasses escape (it seems to be working)
The other two types of pins will go on the goofy looking "spider" holder. The middle pin has deep hollows at both ends and often goes full potato in the deplater oxidizing to copper very quickly. Side edit: I bought these pins as gold plated brass for another project. There is no brass here. It's all some kind of gold plated copper. Not pure copper, it's very slightly magnetic and kinda looks like dirty brass, and not super conductive like pure copper, maybe beryllium?
The pin on the far right is completely hollow with plating all the way through, it has the most gold. It also is very light weight. These typically deplate very quickly and very thoroughly.
I also recast the cathode into a more stable shape and so that it will sit above the pins. I read that helps and I'll take all the help I can get. It's obvious in the video that the mystery grey goo that took days to settle is definitely lead.
Random shots of the holders.
More video goodness. Video should be done processing on youtube around 12a 5/5. Video editing is a RPITA, I don't know how those guys who make their living on youtube have time for anything else - this little video took about 2 hours to edit (text, speed, slicing...)
ETA: At 5:19 you can see the third pin from the left didn't de-plate at all. It just sat there. This video is made from two clips near the end of this run. There is a very distinctive sweet spot in the acids temperature, around 80-110 degrees. When I started this run it was around 50 degrees and v-e-r-y slow with much less amp draw. The first batch took about 10 minutes. Deplating starts to speed up as the acid warms up. Once over 115 deplating becomes very erratic, incomplete, and very frustrating. Also forgot to mention, I weighed everything, I'm about 13 lbs into the 38+ with ~25 to go. I might be done by June - BUT I only get out there for a few hours every few days,