Tuesday, November 7, 2017

Power for electroplating

Electroplating need DC power source that can supply DC electric current in stable flow. For industrial company this may can supply by high power system that already make with perfect electric circuit, so DC electric current is not a problem anymore. For small uses like home industry this can be problem because their electric circuit sometimes is not perfect so that the current flow is not stable, in our country this always problem because electric source that supply from government still don’t stable the range is too far for example from 170 volt to 210 volt, this can make difficult to arrange even use current controller.

The quality of deposit coated metal such as in chrome plating is very dependent on the electric stability. The brightness and the regularity of thickness can be not even if the electric source is not stable flow. For small part may can result in evenly coated thickness but for wide part this can be problem if electric current flow is not high enough or less from the limitation. The DC current electric source should be able to supply electric current 5 A per sq ft of object to coat by chrome ion. If the electric current up and down to wide span, this can be difficult to arrange.

So the problem on chrome plating itself is not just from the preparation of base metal such as electropolishing but also from the DC current electric flow also should be stable. If any certain disturbance while running process the chromium deposit can be very brittle or too soft, out of the standard quality.