If I'm going to use it internally, I stop the electrolysis before there is any COLOR in the water. Ideally you want to stop the process while the water is STILL CLEAR, generally about an hour using an 8 oz water glass.

You need to watch the process from beginning to end. Once those two electrodes start imparting silver into the water from the bubbles forming on them, the process will speed up very quickly & you need to begin stirring with a wooden or plastic stirring rod. This stirring keeps the silver particles already in the water from being attracted together & becoming larger as more silver is being deposited into the water from the electrodes.

You have gone too long if you see the water starting to become white cloudy. Water that becomes white cloudy will turn light yellow a few hours after you've stopped the process. The yellow is caused by larger solid colloids than your body can use. After you have done this a couple of times, a little trial & error will tell you when you must stop the process before any color shows up. I think it took me half a dozen times before I learned it.

Yeah, that'll work too, or placing a current limiting resistor in the + electrode leadin wire from the battery, but that is getting unnecessarily complicated for most people, like as not they'll get the diode wired in backwards & nothing will work & they just become frustrated at why things are not working like they expected.