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Re: Copper plated toroids: is it practical?



Original poster: "Nick Andrews by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <nicothefabulous-at-hotmail-dot-com>


Why not plate an aluminum-tape toroid?  It will be rigid enough and 
conductive.  You could use a couple of car batteries as the current 
source...that is how some of the el cheapo home-plating outfits do it.  As 
for connecting the power, I think they use a piece of wire mesh wrapped 
over the object to be plated.  I was looking at getting the triple show 
chrome kit from Caswell for plating chrome onto motorcycle parts.  It 
plates first copper, then nickel, then chrome onto metal.  That kit is not 
the cheapest, however, and requires a special dip to clean oxidation from 
the aluminum and protective-coat it.  The coating is stripped when the 
copper goes on.

Nick A





>From: "Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
>To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
>Subject: Re: Copper plated toroids: is it practical?
>Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2003 00:15:07 -0700
>
>Original poster: "David Speck by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" 
><dave-at-davidspeckmd-dot-org>
>
>Scott,
>Actually, it might not be all that difficult -- remember bronzed baby 
>shoes -- all the rage 40 years ago?
>
>see:  http://www.finishing-dot-com/faqs/organic.html
>
>I understand that they were made by electroplating copper onto the leather 
>(nonconductive and soft) shoes and laces after brushing them with graphite 
>powder.  They could be plated thick enough to be hard as solid metal.  The 
>"bronze" was just a final coat, with copper being the majority of the 
>metallization.
>
>Getting thick layers is no problem at all.  Consider that electrolytic 
>copper refining involves moving hundreds of pounds of metal from cast 
>billets of raw impure smelted copper to finished pure copper output 
>pieces.  Careful selection of working voltages and current levels causes 
>the impurities to settle out at the bottom of the tank.
>
>In copper plating, the CuSO4 solution is just a transfer agent to move the 
>copper from a sacrificial electrode to the workpiece.  You could use old 
>copper house wire, old flashing, or pieces of old copper water pipe from 
>the scrap dump as a copper source at next to no cost.
>
>Getting a foam template submerged would be a bit of a trick, though, given 
>its buoyancy.  You might be able to weight it down with a wood board to 
>get most of it below the surface, and then flip it over periodically to 
>promote even plating.  Actually, if you put a piece of copper circuit 
>board or roof flashing between your weighting board and the foam 
>workpiece, you would get a useful contact point to make your electrical 
>connection to the workpiece.
>
>There should be lots of web sites on electroplating.
>
>See: http://www.finishing-dot-com/faqs/getstart.html
>
>  The electronics are not difficult -- just a few volts at lots of amps. 
> You could probably make a custom nigh current transformer from a MOT core 
> less the original secondary and rewound with 8 or 10 turns of the 
> heaviest wire you can find.  One high current rectifier would give you 
> half wave DC (or two with a center tapped secondary for full wave and 
> double the plating speed) would get you going.
>
>It will be interesting to hear how it works.
>Dave
>
>Tesla list wrote:
>
>>Original poster: "Scott Hanson by way of Terry Fritz 
>><teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <huil888-at-surfside-dot-net>
>>
>>Although its simple to electrolytically apply a very thin layer of copper 
>>on small metal objects, its quite a different task to apply a heavy, 
>>uniform plating of copper to a large non-conductive object.
>
>
>