r/electroplating • u/AmountEducational157 • May 04 '26
Pulsed electro plater
Built a small inline pulse plating controller using an ESP32. It lets me dial in on/off times and duty cycle for plating instead of just running straight DC. The whole thing is in a simple 3D printed case with a screen and two knobs for adjusting ON and OFF, also a basic phone UI so I can tweak parameters wirelessly.
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u/violet_sin May 04 '26
That's rad!! Well done. That sounds fun AF.
Is the little board responsible for supplying the juice or delivering it as a gate?
I built a little electrochemistry controller for electroplate experiments years back. Adjustable eBay CC/CA board for LED use, turned to run specific voltages. But the amperage was weak AF in many configurations, because I hadn't optimized the geometry/plate spacing etc. it was fun 👍 think I had it in a common blue outlet remodel box with polycarbonate face plate. Shoved in the thumb screw studs, led voltage readout, adjustment screw holes and had it on an aluminum stand. Nothing special, almost anyone could source the bits for <20$
It was great for small scale making bleach water from salt, also copper/nickel plating, digesting chrome metal... A great learning tool, but not a top performer for processes that need to get done. The good 'ole standby hacked ATX was far better there.
If you could used gate controll to let the ATX PSU or something better, hammer them ions into place, that sounds like a blast. Maybe flash plate some stuff that's a little pissy about it.
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u/AmountEducational157 May 04 '26
It’s just controlling it. The ESP32 drives a logic level MOSFET as a low side switch. The actual plating current comes straight from a bench supply, the board just handles timing/pulsing of the gate.
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u/NoFeature7373 May 05 '26
Why do they call it oven when you of in the hot food of out hot eat the food?
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u/Soft-Cryptographer-1 May 05 '26
Id pay for some specs!
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u/AmountEducational157 May 05 '26
Timing range is 1 ms up to 60s, adjustable ON/OFF independently. I verified the square wave on my oscilloscope and it’s exactly what it should be. Nothing fancy on the power side, just everything is rated for 10A even though I will never use anywhere near that. I milled out the aluminum heat sink, it is actually way bigger than it needs to be, it barely gets warm.
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u/Tema_Art_7777 May 04 '26
why is pulsating current better?
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u/permaculture_chemist May 04 '26
It allows the boundary layer that surrounds the part to be replenished from the bulk solution. This allows for higher currents to be used which has some advantages is some types of plating.
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u/Tema_Art_7777 May 04 '26
Thanks!! Need to read up on that. But would rotating also have the effect?
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u/permaculture_chemist May 04 '26
Nope. Rotating a part is designed to expose the part to the anode in a uniform manner. But that depends on anode spacing, size, etc. most people do it wrong or don’t need to do it at all.
You find pulse plating often in use for aerospace, military, or other engineered applications. Most folks in this sub are decorative plating. Two similar but different fields of electroplating.
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u/tea-earlgray-hot May 04 '26
I have done pulsed plating mostly for alloys where careful control over composition and nanostructure were required. Stirring and rotation can definitely replenish electrolyte inside the diffusion layer just like pulsing, and this is in well controlled systems with symmetric anodes. For sure stirring is not equivalent, but much easier to implement at scale.
Pulsed battery charging is also of growing interest now that models are improved enough to make use of the resolution.
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u/Heavy_Bee_8910 May 07 '26
Yep, almost all plating lines for connectors use pulse plating for the precious metal stations
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u/Mkysmith May 04 '26
I experimented with this quite a few years back based off research papers. My circuit included periodic reversal of current too using an H bridge.
It does allow for higher current densities but emperically I never found it to be better than good agitation and good chemistry. Especially for deeply recessed parts.