5 Things to Know Before Buying Electric Plating Fluids

Electroless plating is metal deposition by a controlled chemical reaction. EN solutions require no external source of current to plate. Instead, a chemical-reducing agent is built into the bath. The process produces a continuous buildup of deposit because the metal being plated is itself a catalyst for the plating reaction. Source: Getty Images

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Electroless nickel (EN) can be a complicated, multivariable problem to solve for a plating shop. Many factors are needed to determine the correct bath(s) to run in order to accomplish the process goals. When it comes down to it, there are three categories that are the ultimate deciding factor: the deposit properties of the technology; tools and equipment necessary to run the solution; and the cost associated with the chemistry.

Deposit properties

Every supplier should have a list of deposit properties on its technical data sheet. Depending on the job and the application, some properties are more important than others. While some chemistries are specifically designed with one of these variables in mind, others try to excel at as many things as possible. Chemistries are commonly selected for properties such as alloy content and to the ability to provide desired melting points, hardness, density, salt spray performance (porosity) and electrical properties.

Consistency goes hand in hand with properties in a solution. It is imperative the chemistry is not different day to day and that, within all controllable parameters, the deposit is unchanging within tolerance. For example, the plating rate needs to be steady to ensure that thickness can be held to tolerance. Also, with thickness in mind, will the properties mentioned earlier change with thickness in a desired way? Common pitfalls (yes, that pun is intended) with thickness is that adhesion issues and inclusions on the surface will be a bigger problem with increased thickness. The alloy percentage, depending on the alloy, has been shown to vary with plating rate as the bath ages. Considerations need to be taken by both the supplier and end user to ensure this can be managed with addbacks.

Often, the correct procedure is the way one has been taught. If plating to a specification, there are hard limits on how things are run. It is critical to ensure the solution being used can be run in a way that is compliant with every specification that needs to be met. If this can&#;t be done across multiple conflicting specifications, there should be more than one bath. Sometimes this can be avoided with deviation letters from a supplier to run in a wider operating range.

Ultimately, vendor support is helpful when dealing with these concerns. It is best to ensure that everything that can be tested has a repeatable procedure and everything that can&#;t be tested can be handled via third party or by the vendor. This communication can make or break a relationship. Sample turnaround should be prompt, supply chain issues should be well communicated and data should be a two-way street because it is a partnership where everyone benefits from the plating shop&#;s success.

Table 1. One of the easiest ways to quote EN is by thickness multiplied by the surface area of the job, AKA mil-ft2. Source: Travis Johnson

Necessary tools

As with every EN solution, equipment is needed to run the technology and people must be trained to use it. While a lot of the tools are universal across suppliers, some solutions are easier than others when it comes to the specifics. Factors to consider are the equipment itself, staffing requirements, mobility, contingency, and legal and regulation concerns.

The solutions of EN plate uniformly, however, they should be applied with certain geometries considered. Surface-to-volume ratios (bath loading) might be more important for some applications, and tanks should be sized properly for the work being run through. Some deposit properties can be affected by overloading or underloading baths. Solution volume must remain steady in a bath as well to keep the concentrations tight, and addbacks should be designed with solution levels in mind. Too much dilution of chemical addbacks can take up more space and overfill a tank if they surpass evaporation. Ultimately, chemistry needs to be safe to work around; chemicals must stay in the tank or be vented away from operators.

The way the staff interacts with the replenishment and testing of the EN bath is critical. Staffing considerations for the bath can include or exclude an EN application from certain available options. Dialing in an EN bath takes expertise and an understanding of how it works. A big selling point is the easy addback system of the 1-to-1 ratio for a nickel source and a reducer. Some have even condensed this to a single all-encompassing addback component. Having someone trained in EN chemistry is valuable when properties are not in balance and need adjustment. A standard operating procedure (SOP) cannot encompass everything that can possibly go wrong; therefore, it is necessary to have someone who can troubleshoot. EN control can also be implemented electronically.

The ability to move your solution is another potential consideration for your EN line. EN has come a long way in terms of stability but eventually, if left in a container for long enough, unintentional plating surfaces (plate outs) might occur, which make the solution mobility a valuable tool. Examples of bath mobility are the pump over from one tank to another, adjustments to chemistry to account for the plate out, and ways to bolster the stability or lengthen a bath life from unexpected decants (overflows). Vendors can offer products such as chelation, stabilizer or other boost chemistries to extend bath life or minimize production loss.

Contingency for EN solutions can help quickly identify and minimize problems associated with this technology. A vendor can help with some of these issues by providing an FAQ page or other guidance accepted by the industry. In this way, platers learn how to manage problems and fix them in a timely matter without having to stop and wait for help from the vendor for every issue.

Link to Boraychem

Compliance with local, state and federal guidelines should not be taken for granted. The environment involving the laws and requirements for chemistries used in metal finishing processes is ever changing, and compliance with these regulations requires ongoing efforts. Because a lot of components in an EN solution are proprietary, it is crucial that vendors are equipped to answer questions about the unknowns in the solutions. Vendors may also be able to help with waste treatment and offer advice on how to get rid of spent chemistry.

Cost calculation

Pricing for EN is clearly an important choice to consider when choosing the correct solutions. However, understanding a quote and the costs associated with running the bath must be considered in the cost per gallon or liter received. I usually look at this last to make sure I have all the correct metrics in order correctly interpret the overall cost of running the bath."

Table 2. This is an example of a plating calculation. Source: Travis Johnson

Cost per mil-square foot (Mil-sq/ft.) is a common unit used for pricing a deposit with variable thickness. While the unit might differ depending on your preferences, the outcome is always the same. How much does the solution yield in surface area &#;x&#; thickness. This can also be thought of as deposit volume. An understanding of the deposit and how it is formed from the metal source and reducer is required to calculate this number. Consider that the yield of a deposit is dependent on the material in the bath itself. For example, a 6 g/L bath will have twice as much yield potential as a 3 g/L bath for the same volume of working solution. This doesn&#;t always mean that concentrated bath is less expensive though because addbacks will take more chemistry per metal turnover (MTO). Will running at 3 g/L double the MTO? This is why the Mil-sq/ft calculation should be used when considering cost. A vendor can supply the cost of a Mil-sq/ft and expected bath life.

The cost of quality for running EN is something no one enjoys dealing with. Does running a bath to 12 turns instead of 10 turns really save you money if it causes a reject occasionally? Pushing baths to an MTO has diminishing returns the further it is stretched. Depending on how expensive the makeup is, this might be more or less than expected. It is useful to run Mil-sq/ft calculations for 10 versus 12 turns to understand how much less that deposit costs. Identifying and fixing the causes of problems can reduce cost of quality and increase time pushing work out the door. Working with a vendor on failures can be a big selling point for the actual cost of doing business. Service does have value.

The importance of throughput is a consideration for the price of the solutions. It is no secret that getting more work done means making more money if all other factors are equal. If an EN tank can stay full of parts and it truly is the bottleneck of an operation, saving 10% on chemistry to do half as much work isn&#;t doing anyone any good.

Bottom line

If the goal of the process is to ultimately make the company more money or produce more parts for the operation, all the factors mentioned affect the bottom line of the company&#;s profitability in one way or another. Cost of chemistry, cost of operation, overhead and the ability to sustain it through a changing environment all can be affected by choosing the correct solution.

Post by ChrisC » Sun Nov 21, 4:25 pm

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You will find numerous videos on YouTube and you will hear lots of different views on how to best do it. I don?t suggest that my way is best by any means, I am certainly not a professional plating specialist, nor am I always successful. But people seem to be interested...



First off - its fun....

There are loads of variables to consider and much waiting to see what happens.

What I was really after is a satin sheen and not the brightness of modern day bolts (which are actually zinc plated because it is cheaper.

The picture above shows you the kit as delivered. There are several suppliers and I tried the kit from Gateros, Caswell is another well known supplier. The Gateros kit is smaller but cheaper.

The instructions are pretty simple to follow in order to produce the tub of Electrolyte. It should be remembered that you ARE playing with acid, it wont melt the skin off you but its better to be safe than sorry so I wear eye protectors, thick rubber gloves, clothing that is not my Sunday best and work in a ventilated area.

Apart from the basic kit, you really need a couple of other items. Firstly a small heater as the electrolyte must be heated between 20-50 degrees. I discovered after much reading that 32 degrees is pretty common so I simply used an aquarium heater and it has worked a treat.

Next the plating finish is smoother if the electrolyte is constantly moving. I can advise that it is a bit boring, stirring with a spoon for up to an hour. So.... I use an aquarium pump and a long air stone. The bubbles don't stick to the metal and spoil the finish and it keeps the fluid moving nicely. Very easy. Very cheap.

Initially I tried a 12 volt battery charger to provide the power but after a few weeks of plating I upgraded to a proper voltage regulator. You do need a level of adjustment because there is a power formula to plating.... in simple terms for each 1 square inch of metal to be plated you need 150ma. So round figures, 6 square inches of plating needs about 1Amp.

With the kit you receive a seriously basic voltage regulator (essentially a loosely wound coil of resistance wire strung between two bolts). To work out how much power you need, you add up all the surface inches to be plated (remembering that all items have edges and a reverse side!) Add up the milliamps then....... guess where that amount of power would be produced on the resitance wire and attach the crocodile clip. It works but its total guesswork. Yes you could put an Ammeter in series with the circuit but I didn't have one.

The theory continues that you plate the metal for 30 - 60 mins but you cant (shouldn?t) take the metal out of the electrolyte until its finished. This means that its a little bit like guessing when a cake is done without opening the oven door - i.e. it is a game of experience... or you can take my advise and leave the components int he tank for an hour.

Enough of the theory, lets get on with it.

Good plating just like painting is all down to the preparation. Cleanliness is everything. After cleanliness comes the finish - matt / satin / shiny

1.Shot blasting the item before plating gets it clean and smooth and produce a nice matt finish
2.Following on from the shot blasting with a piece of wire wool gives you a satin finish
3.Completing the job with a rotary wire wheel in a drill starts to bring a shine to the bare metal.

The more shiny the bare metal - the more shiny the finish is.

In case you wondered... chrome plating is a three layer process. Nickel plating is done first first, then the item it is plated with copper which is then polished to a very high level, and finally its into the chrome plating tank. Its the polished copper that gives chrome its highly polished look. You can of course do chrome palting yourself as well - you just need the three different plating kits.

Personally i use a home shot blaster to clean (previously degreased) pieces. There is a wide range of blast media - I originally used aluminium oxide, but it produces a lot of dust so its quite hard to see what you are blasting. Now I use Garnett, a low dust, low cost media. I tried B&Q kiln dried sand for paving stones but it was absolutely hopeless - it just bounced off the metal.

Air pressure I set to 150psi. Professional blasters use a LOT more pressure than this but to be honest I don't blast anything over about 6? in size as the professionals are pretty cheap so I let them do it. Really I just plate brackets, bolts, linkages, washers etc oh and anything that I cant afford for the blaster or the plate company to lose!



There is a light inside the blasting unit - but a 250watt halogen lamp adds substantially more light and does not produce much heat.

In the picture below are the items that i will be plating. Apologies for the rubbish photo, I didn't realise it was out of focus until after the event. These are part of the front shock-absorber installation. Its the sleeve that sits on the bolt that the shock-absorber slides onto. I notice that one of the washers has a very large hole compared to the other one. I will need to replace that.



Out of the blast cabinet gives you this finish:



I thought I would do the shock-absorber top bolts at the same time so these were blasted too.

Next we come to the light polishing stage of the drill with a wire wheel attachment:
I run the drill at about half speed which is not painful when your fingers touch the whirling wires... I tried wearing gloves but a lot of the items I plate are quite small and fiddly.



After a quick clean with the wire wheel the components look like this
This took no more than two minutes an item.



Now the alchemy.....

Plating works by one piece of metal sacrificing its self when a current is passed through it. So you need pieces of nickel suspended into the electrolyte to be the sacrifice. Mounting them is simply achieved by drilling the nickel and passing some copper wire through it then placing the nickel block into the electrolyte but NOT the wire that it is attached to!

So you now connect the positive part of the circuit to these blocks of nickel. If you connect all the nickel blocks together on a loop of wire this connection is very easy. You must now suspend the items you want to plate into the electrolyte using copper wire 'hooks' and hang them from a piece of copper tube (see photo). The negative connection goes onto this copper tube.



So the current flows from the nickel blocks through the electrolyte to the components and back to the power supply. The current carries the nickel onto the component. Simple.

All that is left is the power... Egor..... throw the switch...

Although this picture is also blurred (sorry), you will see that about 1.75 amps is flowing.



Simplistically, the amount of time the item is in the tank for, will dictate how thick the plating is. Personally I leave them for an hour.



All that is left now is to rinse them off in plain water, dry very thoroughly and there you have the finished items. I usually wipe a coat of ordinary wax over them apparently it helps seal the plating:

A short while ago David asked that I write a few words about home electroplating, so here is the dummies guide... Please let me know if anything is unclear and I will amend the text so to that it makes sense to you.----------------------You will find numerous videos on YouTube and you will hear lots of different views on how to best do it. I don?t suggest that my way is best by any means, I am certainly not a professional plating specialist, nor am I always successful. But people seem to be interested...First off - its fun....There are loads of variables to consider and much waiting to see what happens.What I was really after is a satin sheen and not the brightness of modern day bolts (which are actually zinc plated because it is cheaper.The picture above shows you the kit as delivered. There are several suppliers and I tried the kit from Gateros, Caswell is another well known supplier. The Gateros kit is smaller but cheaper.The instructions are pretty simple to follow in order to produce the tub of Electrolyte. It should be remembered that you ARE playing with acid, it wont melt the skin off you but its better to be safe than sorry so I wear eye protectors, thick rubber gloves, clothing that is not my Sunday best and work in a ventilated area.Apart from the basic kit, you really need a couple of other items. Firstly a small heater as the electrolyte must be heated between 20-50 degrees. I discovered after much reading that 32 degrees is pretty common so I simply used an aquarium heater and it has worked a treat.Next the plating finish is smoother if the electrolyte is constantly moving. I can advise that it is a bit boring, stirring with a spoon for up to an hour. So.... I use an aquarium pump and a long air stone. The bubbles don't stick to the metal and spoil the finish and it keeps the fluid moving nicely. Very easy. Very cheap.Initially I tried a 12 volt battery charger to provide the power but after a few weeks of plating I upgraded to a proper voltage regulator. You do need a level of adjustment because there is a power formula to plating.... in simple terms for each 1 square inch of metal to be plated you need 150ma. So round figures, 6 square inches of plating needs about 1Amp.With the kit you receive a seriously basic voltage regulator (essentially a loosely wound coil of resistance wire strung between two bolts). To work out how much power you need, you add up all the surface inches to be plated (remembering that all items have edges and a reverse side!) Add up the milliamps then....... guess where that amount of power would be produced on the resitance wire and attach the crocodile clip. It works but its total guesswork. Yes you could put an Ammeter in series with the circuit but I didn't have one.The theory continues that you plate the metal for 30 - 60 mins but you cant (shouldn?t) take the metal out of the electrolyte until its finished. This means that its a little bit like guessing when a cake is done without opening the oven door - i.e. it is a game of experience... or you can take my advise and leave the components int he tank for an hour.Enough of the theory, lets get on with it.Good plating just like painting is all down to the preparation. Cleanliness is everything. After cleanliness comes the finish - matt / satin / shiny1.Shot blasting the item before plating gets it clean and smooth and produce a nice matt finish2.Following on from the shot blasting with a piece of wire wool gives you a satin finish3.Completing the job with a rotary wire wheel in a drill starts to bring a shine to the bare metal.The more shiny the bare metal - the more shiny the finish is.In case you wondered... chrome plating is a three layer process. Nickel plating is done first first, then the item it is plated with copper which is then polished to a very high level, and finally its into the chrome plating tank. Its the polished copper that gives chrome its highly polished look. You can of course do chrome palting yourself as well - you just need the three different plating kits.Personally i use a home shot blaster to clean (previously degreased) pieces. There is a wide range of blast media - I originally used aluminium oxide, but it produces a lot of dust so its quite hard to see what you are blasting. Now I use Garnett, a low dust, low cost media. I tried B&Q kiln dried sand for paving stones but it was absolutely hopeless - it just bounced off the metal.Air pressure I set to 150psi. Professional blasters use a LOT more pressure than this but to be honest I don't blast anything over about 6? in size as the professionals are pretty cheap so I let them do it. Really I just plate brackets, bolts, linkages, washers etc oh and anything that I cant afford for the blaster or the plate company to lose!There is a light inside the blasting unit - but a 250watt halogen lamp adds substantially more light and does not produce much heat.In the picture below are the items that i will be plating. Apologies for the rubbish photo, I didn't realise it was out of focus until after the event. These are part of the front shock-absorber installation. Its the sleeve that sits on the bolt that the shock-absorber slides onto. I notice that one of the washers has a very large hole compared to the other one. I will need to replace that.Out of the blast cabinet gives you this finish:I thought I would do the shock-absorber top bolts at the same time so these were blasted too.Next we come to the light polishing stage of the drill with a wire wheel attachment:I run the drill at about half speed which is not painful when your fingers touch the whirling wires... I tried wearing gloves but a lot of the items I plate are quite small and fiddly.After a quick clean with the wire wheel the components look like thisThis took no more than two minutes an item.Now the alchemy.....Plating works by one piece of metal sacrificing its self when a current is passed through it. So you need pieces of nickel suspended into the electrolyte to be the sacrifice. Mounting them is simply achieved by drilling the nickel and passing some copper wire through it then placing the nickel block into the electrolyte but NOT the wire that it is attached to!So you now connect the positive part of the circuit to these blocks of nickel. If you connect all the nickel blocks together on a loop of wire this connection is very easy. You must now suspend the items you want to plate into the electrolyte using copper wire 'hooks' and hang them from a piece of copper tube (see photo). The negative connection goes onto this copper tube.So the current flows from the nickel blocks through the electrolyte to the components and back to the power supply. The current carries the nickel onto the component. Simple.All that is left is the power... Egor..... throw the switch...Although this picture is also blurred (sorry), you will see that about 1.75 amps is flowing.Simplistically, the amount of time the item is in the tank for, will dictate how thick the plating is. Personally I leave them for an hour.All that is left now is to rinse them off in plain water, dry very thoroughly and there you have the finished items. I usually wipe a coat of ordinary wax over them apparently it helps seal the plating:

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