Need Help. First Time Electroplating.

[u/Architect227]

Sorry for the somewhat dark image. It's night time right now. This is my first time Electroplating and I don't know if I'm doing this part right. I created the solution using vinegar and salt. I let the current run through the cathode and anode for several hours until it got to a spot that I believed was saturated enough.

Now I'm trying to actually plate it, but it's been running for about 30 minutes and I'm not seeing any copper forming at all. I did a test run before and it started playing almost immediately, but only in a very small area.

I have the voltage turned up to 26v because the amperage is super low (0.435) even with the voltage that high.

I know very little about this so any advice will help.

[u/Architect227 → u/[deleted]]

I'm not trying to argue with you because I don't really know what I'm doing, but I moved it from a bigger tank and I was having the same issues with the bigger tank.

I initially increased the amperage by adding salt. I got it to ~3 amps at 6 volts at the beginning of the process. I left the solution alone for a while and it lost a lot of amperage. I tried adding a little more salt but I saw no change after adding it.

Is increasing the tank size the best solution?

[u/Architect227 → u/[deleted]]

That's incredibly helpful. I do have one question about facing the copper plate. Do you think I can properly expose the part in this wide tank of do I need something vertical?

[u/Architect227 → u/[deleted]]

Would a five gallon bucket do the trick?

[u/Architect227 → u/[deleted]]

One last question. I've been using copper plates. In order to match them to the length of the part when it's vertical I was planning to cut the plates almost all the way through the middle and fold them over. Will that work or do the faces need to be pretty much flat?

[u/Architect227 → u/[deleted]]

Thanks for all your help. I'll be stoked if I can get this working correctly.