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Zinc plating Materials
Updated: 2009 Jul 22
Here are the materials I use:
- Long rubber gloves that go part way up my arms.
- Goggles with an elastic strap that fits around the back of my head.
- Face shield.
- Shoes, socks, long pants, long sleeve shirt, etc. Cover yourself well.
- A strong electric fan to blow the fumes away from me.
- Containers for the electroplating baths: four, 5-gallon buckets with lids that have O-ring seals. Smaller containers could certainly be used, but 5-gallon buckets can safely hold 4 gallons of liquid and some pretty large parts.
- Wires for dipping parts and hanging them as cathodes in the electroplating bath. I used solid copper wire I removed from standard household electrical conduit (Romex). If you really get a small run going, you'll want a couple dozen pieces.
- Bar on which to hang the wire in the electroplating bath: a length of copper pipe long enough to sit across the top of the 5-gallon bucket.
- Zinc Anode: A 99.9% pure zinc anode used on salt water boats. These are inexpensive and readily available in marine stores. I purchased a large anode for USD $13.55 delivered on ebay.
- Power supply: I used a 12 volt battery with a battery charger continually connected and charging. It works okay, but I really want a constant amperage, constant voltage power supply.
- Thanks to Jason Telford for sending me the following information. Jason has much more knowledge in this area than I do.
I just use a 3 V 500 mA wal wart power supply as the current source. It costs USD $4.00 from PartsExpress and anything above ~2V is wasted anyhow. I can plate about 0.5 g nickel per hour with it and there is not much waste due to electrolysis of water.