[hackerspaces] Copper Through hole plating

[Andrew Frazer]

I have just bought 10g from Green Technologys,  they had it listed on ebay, but i couldn't ship to NZ from ebay, but a bit of googling i fount them, contacted by email..
They have about 20,000 things in their catalogue!!

It seems that it is a really critical part of getting the electroplating to work well.

I am also resigned to the fact that i am going to do a rebuild of my anodes, so there is no air/electrolyte interface across them..   

Power supply design is almost finished.    I'm going to use a raspberry PI to do the control work for me..  Control via a web page..

I've got the load set up across a  H Bridge with four Fets..  The two N Fets in the lower arms of the H will be running in a linear mode to control the current. ( yes they will get warm, so they are bolted to a large hunk of alluminm heat sink ).. The top two fets are switched hard, so i can control the poliary.
This means i can do reverse current pulsed plating which apparently gives me much better control.

I think i probably should have just bought a commercial machine.. Lol.. but where would the fun be in that!





On 13/12/2012, at 9:31 AM, B F <bakmthiscl at gmail.com> wrote:

> Interesting stuff.
> FWIW Aldrich offers 32680-25G (25 g quantity) for <$30, but it's
> back-ordered right now (so they say).
> 
> More info at http://www.chemspider.com/68607
> 
> On Wed, Dec 12, 2012 at 9:46 AM, M <dblmca at gmail.com> wrote:
>> http://www.jim.or.jp/journal/e/pdf3/43/07/1593.pdf
>> 
>> It acts as a leveler... a brightener, in plating speak.
>> 
>> Cheers,
>> 
>> -M
>> 
>> 
>> On Wed, Dec 12, 2012 at 6:40 AM, B F <bakmthiscl at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I am a chemist, with limited experience in pickling and etching.  As
>>> such, I don't see what the green dye was for in the formula.  Does it
>>> play any active role?
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Tue, Dec 11, 2012 at 1:54 AM, M <dblmca at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> On Mon, Dec 10, 2012 at 10:25 PM, Andrew Frazer
>>>> <andrew.frazer at stellascapes.com> wrote:
>>>>> Hi NSL folks from New Zealand..
>>>>> 
>>>>> I was interested to see in your wiki, your THrough hole plating project   ( http://wiki.032.la/nsl/Through_hole_plating ).   I was wondering if anyone could help me with two questions?
>>>>> 
>>>>> (a) In your project you've Janus Green B as a brightener.  I can't find any reference to how much to use
>>>> 
>>>> Its a very small amount.. in the neighborhood of 10~50ppm.
>>>> 
>>>>> (b) Can anyone make a suggestion as to where i can purchase Janus Green B
>>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Its normally very expensive.. but it seems to be on sale at our local supplier.
>>>> https://www.spectrumchemical.com/OA_HTML/chemical-products_Janus-Green-B_JA110.jsp?minisite=10020&respid=22372
>>>> 
>>>> The solution works very well the first couple of times, but I had
>>>> issues with trying to keep the solution working properly over an
>>>> extended period.  I should probably have taken a pH reading when I
>>>> started and tried to get the solution to stay at that level.
>>>> 
>>>> A couple of months ago we decided to get a commercial machine.  It
>>>> didnt come with chemicals or anodes... so we will be hackerspacing the
>>>> materials for this new rig pretty soon.
>>>> 
>>>> http://www.flickr.com/photos/nullspacelabs/8096189458/
>>>> 
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> 
>>>> -M
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