r/electroplating

Ignoring the dark spots, is this considered a success? Is THIS what a copper plate is supposed to look like???

So I followed a new cleaning phase, stirred a wire wrapped quarter in 91% isopropyl for 5 minutes. Dipped in distilled water, shook, then stirred in white vinegar for 5 minutes. Another dip in distilled water, shake shake, and immediately dropped into the copper plating solution. Turned on my power source, cap for voltage set to 5.00V, touched the prongs together and then attached red to the anode and black to the cathode. Immediately the setting went straight to the first pic when they normally start off in very low numbers. I stared, dumb founded by what I was seeing. Then i acted, manually changing the amps down to 0.016A and the volts auto dropped down to 0.15V to match it. Once I did this, I noticed the quarter was much darker than normal. I pulled it out and the second pic is what it looked like. I figured I’d let it ride to see what would happen. About 15 minutes later, I turned everything off and pulled the quarter out and saw that it got even darker, third pic, I tried drying it with a paper towel and noticed that it got smoother. After rubbing the whole quarter, it turned out as the fourth and fifth pics. Now, I’m still new to this hobby, but that’s copper, right? The whole quarter now looks like a giant penny. The last two pics are the copper wire I used to suspend the quarter. Before and after I polished with a paper towel. The stuff just comes right off and leaves behind what looks like dull copper. The quarter itself I almost totally fine minus some unplated parts where the copper wire touched the quarter and some very minor burning in one section. This is a little exciting! Doing new stuff and getting way unexpected results! Even thought I had a total failure til I said “fuck it” and kept going. So how was this? Failure? Success? My original goal is to successfully plate copper so I can have something for a nickel plate to properly adhere to. Obviously quarters are my intended target, they’re just serving as test pieces so I won’t waste time and resources spraying graphite paint on the actually pieces I wish to plate.

Im going to assume my part was not clean enough before I zinc plated and yellow chromate?

Further to my previous post about DIY-ing a pulse plating system, I put together a mosfet H-bridge with a microcontroller to drive forward and reverse pulses.

As suggested by helpful member Mkysmith I didn't try to control the current myself and just connected a lab power supply in CC mode to the input of the H-bridge system, in the hope that it will figure it out.

I made a brave and possibly questionable design choice and put a big chunky 2200uF low-ESR capacitor at the H-bridge input. The idea is that it helps keep the power supply happy between pulses and avoid confusing it, and also allow big juicy pulses to happen if I hold the output OFF for a few milliseconds. (Because the cap charges while the output is closed)

It has a wifi chip so I can reprogram the pulses quite easily.

So far I've tried the following:

• 2 ms FORWARD, 8ms OFF
  • Good results, seems to have less nodule growth than vanilla DC
• 4 x (3 ms FORWARD, 2 ms OFF), 1x (3 ms REVERSE, 4 ms OFF)
  • Burns the shit out of the part, not sure why, turned brown quickly lol
• 10 ms FORWARD, 1 ms OFF, 1 ms REVERSE, 2 ms OFF
  • Seems OK ish

Happy to hear your thoughts on possible pulse programs, and also whether or not the cap is a good idea?

Ok, so, something interesting happened this time around. I took the same quarter from last time. Washed it in simple green, washed in distilled water, let soak in vinegar for 5 minutes and washed once more in distilled water and dried with a paper towel. 69 degree bath and aquarium bubbler. When I turned on my power source and hooked everything up, the volts and amps basically were 1:1 it was only after a few minutes that the volts went up a little. I checked the work piece every 4 minutes. After adjusting the amps a little, the volts started increasing a little more. After about 32 minutes, the result was just a pink quarter(the one with the wrapped around copper wire). After taking the pics I immediately dropped the quarter in a small bowl of white vinegar. I left it to
Soak for about 6 minutes. Afterwards, I dried it with a paper towel and the last 2 pics are the final result. The darker parts are the result of the quarter sitting in simple green in the initial cleaning phase. So? Who’s got info on what changed? I’ve been trying to electro plate copper on various stuff for awhile now and this is the first time I’ve seen the volts and amps equalized like this. Was it cause of the vinegar that caused it? That’s the only thing I did different from last time. Is it a good or bad thing? I still have advice from the last post I made, but I’m trying to do things with what I currently have before I start buying more supplies and since what I did yielded new results, I’m just trudging through until I hit a brick wall or someone yells at me.

Obligatory “This is my first time electroplating.”

Substrate is 14g copper wire.

Electrolyte solution is Caswell Plating Zinc Nickel Plating kit 1.5gal.

I originally set the voltage to 6V like the directions said but my power supply switched over to constant current and wouldn’t go above ~4V and 3A.

That was definitely way too much current for 20min and resulted in coarse crunchy shell. The instructions for the kit were pretty bare bones with nothing to help troubleshoot so I referenced the plating directions in the Caswell handbook for just Nickel plating. In the handbook they recommended .07A per sq in.

For my second attempt I set the current set to .04A (going off of the nickel plating instructions) and let it run for 20min. Results were better but there is some uneveness in the coating. I 3D printed a rotating jig so help with “line of sight” and agitating the bath but I am unsure if it creates enough movement to “stir” the electrolyte.

The nickel plating instructions mention heating the electrolyte but the zinc nickel instructions do not mention this so I did not heat the bath.

Any insight/advice is appreciated. Thank you !

Adjusted the power setting to even lower than before. Voltage came out to 0.15 and amps were 0.022. Quarter was cleaned in simple green and washed in distilled water. Distance between cathode and anode was roughly 3.5 inches and bath temp was at 69 degrees. The images of the quarter wrapped in copper wire was cooked for about 8 minutes total and checked every 4. The last two images are the final result of letting the quarter cook for another 10 minutes and checking every 5. I noticed that at the first 4 minutes, the colts increased from 0.15 to 0.16 and the amps went from 0.022 to 0.021. It did this again on the third check with volts moving to 0.17 and amps dropping from 0.021 to 0.020. So what’s the verdict? Is it looking like it’s progressing smoothly? Does the slight shift in power settings have any significance? Is this the begging of proper plating or signs or early burning? This part is new to me, usually it just turns pink and then burns

I just found out I've been slowly contaminating my 5 gallons of 24k gold plating solution by using copper wires to string the earrings together. Does anyone have a solution for eletroplating lots of small stud earrings that uses titanium or something that wont contaminate?

Im comfortable with DIY, I'm comfortable doing a larger rack setup or barrel plating. Fwiw we do 100-500 earrings a day in 1L beakers so anything that could cut down on the tying would be awesome.

Ideas or examples?

So the quarter is my latest attempt. Clean it in simple green, used distilled water to wash it off and a paper towel to dry. Heated the bath to 77 degrees. The work piece and anode are roughly 3 and half inches apart aquarium bubbler near the work piece. Voltage ran at 1.19 and the amps were set to 0.408 and the wattage(figured I’d share this incase it has some bearing on the situation) came out to 0.481. Checked every 15 minute intervals. But it was the same results as always. The work piece would turn pink and then start to burn after the fourth check. I used a quarter since it’s metal as I suspected that the graphite paint I was using on plastic pieces maybe have been the culprit for failed attempts, but this little test proved that incorrect. What I had start to notice though is that after taking 320 grit sandpaper to the working pieces, the plastic ones in the pics, there was a thin layer of actual copper plating. I didn’t see this at all during the process. The first check didn’t show anything and the second check showed pink. After changing the solution, running the bath heated and at room temp, placing the bubbler near and underneath the work piece, running the current at 1.00 and 0.30 V, trying polished and unpolished graphite, I keep getting the same results. I’m running out of thing to try and hope someone here can lend me a hand. Is it the power supply? I’m using a jesverty SPS-3010. Or maybe I’m cooking it way too long? Maybe I need to shorten checks since I am finding copper under the crud? I’m primarily going off guides that say to check every 10-20 minutes, which have been stated by multiple guides. What do yall think?

Problem only in bottom part buuble is formed all other and upper part is good . Refer 2 images above

Has anyone in the group played with or experimented with electroplating biological matter in copper? I've been electroplating roses in copper but I'm still not able to achieve the finish I'm looking for and I would love to compare notes with others who do the same.

Hello. I’ve been doing copper plating for 8 hours using demineralized water, sulfuric acid, a magnetic stirrer, a sandwich-style anode setup, and a coffee filter to prevent sediment, all at 0.03A and 0.05V. So why isn't the plating smooth? There are lots of little bumps (though they came off when I sanded the surface and removed the copper wire). I really need help i don't know why i try so many time