After Stripping the original plating in the Acid Pickle and the "Jane Clean", I scrub any remaining corrosion and then rinse with water. It then is dropped in the blue solution - "Parts Clean". This removes any residual solvents, grease, oil and anything else prior to plating.
I then hook the parts with Copper wiring and drop into another container of just water. It sits in the water until the bath is ready.
Time to heat up the plating bath. I've found that the perfect temperature is 30 Degrees, so I heat to around 35-37 Degrees.
Bit high, but I have to do this twice as the pot is 10 liters, the bath is 20 Liters.
A small amount of Brighener is added to the bath. I add this each time I heat up the bath - every plating session.
These are the Zinc Anodes. There are 8 in the 20 liter kit. They hang in the both on the opposite sides of the parts being plated.
Here is the bath setup and ready to plate. The +VE end of the power supply is connected to the bars at each end of the bath. The Zinc Anodes are hung from these bars. The -VE end is connected to the parts we want to plate. Two - Three Amps of current is set at the power supply. I have to monitor the initial 5 minutes to see if this fluctuates.
Here is the Tilt Assembly ready to place in the bath.
Ready To Hang in the bath. As soon as it is dropped in - the power is switched on. The bath must be actively plating with the anodes hung in there. An empty bath will go "off" if not monitored.
The Plating Process begins. Set the timer to 45-60 minutes to plate. However, I have to monitor the bath to ensure it is plating - there will be minute bubbles when plating. If plating is not happening, the part must be removed or the bath can go "off"
Topic: Strangeway's Guide to Electroplating (Read 12620 times)
