Electroplating bucket heater

[Maplehead]

Hi All
I understand this heater says it's good for all plating solutions but I just wanted to ask here if anybody is familiar with it and that these heaters, in your experience, will not contaminate flash copper or nickel plating baths before I bite the bullet and purchase two of them.

Product Page - industrialelectricheating.com

Heating elements immersion heaters bucket heaters stock tank heaters eleectroplating heaters flange immerison heaters knife sterilizer heaters

www.industrialelectricheating.com

 

[graham-xrf]

You don't have to evaluate phrases like "good for anodizing". You only need look for a heater that does not have any metal of any kind in contact with the solutions. Many immersion heaters have the element encased in a glass or ceramic tube to keep it electrically insulated. Lower temperature kinds like "heating belts" put around plastic beer fermenting bins are silicone insulated, so can also be good candidates to immerse (part of them).

The PH2000 looks like a standard kettle-style element, unless it has a non-conductive coating.
(It also looks somewhat overpriced - but that is just my first reaction)!

Heating elements constructed in a stainless steel tube, packed in chalk-like ceramic, folded up in many possible ways, is not what I would contemplate. Do not allow stainless steel be in contact with a solution running current, and never let the vessel also be one electrode. Anodizing is using electric current to force oxygen in dilute sulfuric acid (H2SO4) to join aluminum to make a transparent aluminum oxide (Al2O3) layer which can be dyed, and sealed. That same current will find and pull out hexavalent chromium from the stainless steel, making the anodizing solution something truly toxic, very dangerous, and difficult to dispose of.

Diluted sulfuric acid is pretty safe for the environment. It can be poured onto the ground, and you can grow plants there. Drain cleaners often contain it, so down a drain with some water is OK. Sulfur is in food, and plants, and your body. Chromium is not, nor is it safe! Search "Hexavalent Chrome" to find out why. Do not contaminate your anodizing solution from a metal interface heater element.

From what I have read, when the anodizing is for larger stuff, or many parts, the self-heating effect can mean one has to get up to cooling to regulate the temperature. For small scale stuff, many will use a fish tank heater, but one hopes the interface on those is also insulated from the solution. Many recipes I have seen are at the kind of temperature you could hold your hand in, so maybe a homebrew beermaker's heating belt may be enough. This I don't know. My anodizing experiment was at room temperature, and it seemed to work OK.

 

[Maplehead]

Hi Graham
Thanks for your reply. I am not annodizing. This is for flash copper and nickel plating.
Also, I tried a glash fish tank heater. It takes all day to heat up my 1.5 gallon buckets. Too slow for me.

 

[graham-xrf]

Hi Graham
Thanks for your reply. I am not annodizing. This is for flash copper and nickel plating.
Also, I tried a glash fish tank heater. It takes all day to heat up my 1.5 gallon buckets. Too slow for me.

You should be able to figure a way. Is the vessel some sort of plastic?
How hot do you want to get?
Would you be using something like a little PID controller?
Monitoring the temperature is another problem when one wants to keep the temperature probe not contributing to the chemistry, but I expect a good heater can be had, like maybe some of these stuck down onto the bottom.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_fr....m570.l1313&_nkw=silicone+heater+pad&_sacat=0

--> LINK

You could probably use a regular metal-probe low-cost thermocouple type probe if you covered it with enough lacquer paint.

I will be getting back to nickel plating in the not too distant future. The times I have tried it, the solution got hot all by itself.
I will be trying out the DIY plating bath hacked up from a piece of drainpipe with plastic ends salvaged from those round tube cardboard shipping cartons (+ some hot glue). This one is to lay on a very thin layer onto a spindle, only a couple of microns, for corrosion protection. I just hate rust!

 

[Maplehead]

I ended up biting the bullet for two of those PH-2000 heaters. The guy assured me they are compatible with my copper and nickel baths. I guess we'll see.

 

[pontiac428]

I think you just need a bigger wattage aquarium heater that will heat your solution faster. Glass body, immersion proof, thermostat, cheap... what's not to love?

 

[graham-xrf]

I ended up biting the bullet for two of those PH-2000 heaters. The guy assured me they are compatible with my copper and nickel baths. I guess we'll see.

That is not the same as assuring you they do not show a metal surface against the plating solution. Sure, you may get a good plating, while ignoring the deadly stuff you have may have been making in the solution. Professional plating shops use non-conductive plating vessels for a reason.

If the surface is stainless, you may end up putting hexavalent chromium into the water system, and it is not something that will just "go away". It is an inorganic chemical not subject to any biological degradation. Do not inhale any moisture mist. Beware of any dust from dried-out spills and deposits. Find a good place to dump it, or do something to convert it to chromium III in cleanup.

If the "2000" in part number meant 2000 Watts, that is kettle boiling power. I don't know of any nickel plating that needs such heat, though I do get it that you want it for speedy heating, or maybe for circulating larger volumes of solution. When you get some plating laid on, and it comes out nice, do show us a couple of pictures.

 

[aliva]

Have you considered a thermal well?