Amperage requirements for plating

A. Hi, M. You go by square foot to be plated rather than tank size.
50 amps per square foot would be a good number to size for, and 40 ASF would be a pretty typical actual value in use.

A. Hi Jamal,
Since you said the tank capacity of tank 250 liter but you did not mention how many racks you are going to plate in that I mean what will be the area you will be plating, generally Nickel will be plated at 4 Amps/dm2, based on that you can plan your Rectifier capacity, e.g., 15 volts, 300 Amps or 12 volts, 100 Amps, etc.
Hope this will help you.
Good Luck
Mukesh

Panjala Mukesh
fashion jewelry mfgr.
Hyderabad, India

A. Hi, Dharampal. According to Watt's Law, P = V*I. So the output power of the rectifier is 12*2500, or 30,000 watts or 30 kilowatts.

Rectifiers are not 100 percent efficient, though; let's approximate at 67% until you actually select a rectifier and learn more detail about it. So the input power is about 30/.65 = 45 kilowatts.

Regards,

A. Hi Oscar. My experience is in industrial electroplating rather than hobby plating, and I've never heard of a "red line" or "surge mode" on an industrial unit. All the rectifiers that I used in almost 5 decades could safely be turned up all the way ... and in fact for most types of rectifiers it is best to plate at the high end of their capacity for the least ripple and the highest efficiency. Surely the vendor can explain their "surge modes" and "red lines".

The largely anonymous internet isn't the place to get brand recommendations, though. For one thing, salespeople pose as satisfied customers, and affiliate marketers get paid for "comment spam". Meanwhile negative comments attract pressure from the companies' lawyers and get removed, all resulting in disproportionately glowing recommendations. There are more reasons we don't suggest brands too ( huh? why?)

Please practice with your copper, nickel, black nickel, and imitation chrome on scrap parts for a few weeks or months if you want to learn this hobby. Plating is dead easy, elementary school kids can do it -- but consistent good plating on difficult substrates is very hard indeed.

I strongly advise you not to buy any chrome plating chemicals; they are toxic and carcinogenic, and billions of dollars have been spent in the last couple of decades cleaning up chrome contamination. However, when hobby plating suppliers offer "chrome" plating chemicals, it's usually not really chrome but some imitation. Good luck.

Regards,

A. Hi again Oscar. Everyone knows what a redline means in general ("Don't operate in this range!"), but only the vendor can tell you exactly what it means for his equipment. My guess is that the maximum capacity of the rectifier is actually at the redlines they drew, and that they simply used 'standard' 40-Amp meters and 20-Volt meters instead of having meters custom built for 36 Amps and 14 Volts.

I would size rectifiers for copper, nickel, and black nickel based on 40 Amps per square foot of surface area to be plated. You must get comfortable calculating/estimating the surface area of things you want to plate because surface area is at the heart of everything in surface finishing.

If you are using a proprietary imitation chrome you need to ask the vendor what current density is required for bright plating, but my guess is 40-50 ASF (real chrome plating requires 4X that much). Best of luck.

Regards,

A. Hi Todd. The nickel will need more current than the gold. The rectifier should probably be sized for 40 Amps per square foot of surface area of the work. 6 Volts would probably be enough; but you might as well have more flexibility and buy available 12V or 15V laboratory power supplies rather than go searching for lower voltage units.

Luck & Regards,