Electro-Cleaner in the Electroplating Process

In this video, we talk about the electroplating process and how Electro-Cleaner fits into it.
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Electro-Clean Solution: www.goldplating.com/collectio...
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Wet out Video - • Wetting Out for Brush ...
Plating a Hubcap Video - • Gold Plating a Hubcap ...
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Website - www.goldplating.com/
Channel - ‪@GoldPlatingServices‬
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Timecodes
0:00 - Intro
0:22 - What will be discussed
0:36 - Use Electro-Cleaner with these metals
0:55 - How to use
2:28 - Tips
4:20 - Contact us

[@grahamdwells]

hello what chemical do/can I use for this? I would buy the one linked but it costs $95 for shipping to here.

[@gaulix69]

thank for all your tips videos, very useful ! I have One question I copper plate steel parts before nickel plating. I use and alkaline and an acid copper plating solution. I obtain a smooth fine grain and leveled copper layer, but I can't get bright. I use: 200g/L CuSO4 and 65g/L 98% H2SO4. 0,5g/L of Sodium Lauryl Sulfate dish soap (as a ionic surfactant/wetting agent) 0,5g/L of SDBS laundry (as a anionic wetting agent) 1g/L of urea (as leveling agent) 0,5g/L of PEG (as a brightner agent) 0,15g/L NaCl (90ppm) so, it need a little buff of my copper plating with scotch britte and buffing compound. but I have try to cathodic electrocleaning my copper plated part before nickel-plating, and I had see that the electroclean can remove the copper plating... I make my own Electroclean solution : 80g/L NaCO3 40g/L NaOH 50g/L NaCitrate (complexing agent) 15g/L DBS 5g/L SLS Do you think is it possible to safely electroclean copper plated parts? I think I had use to much current (the same as non plated part), and maybe my solution is too strongly alkaline? or is it the hydrogen bubbles that inevitably strip of the plating?

[@GoldPlatingServices]

We electro-clean our copper strike parts all the time and they are fine. It could be that you electro-clean is too concentrated. Try a new smaller bath of electro-clean at 5V and see if that works.

[@mcin71]

Im new to this and just bought the cleaning solution. So the metal to be cleaned is hooked to negative and anode is hooked to positive is that right?

[@GoldPlatingServices]

Yes, your anode should have the positive going through it and the negative should be connected to the item that needs to be Electro-cleaned.

[@oscarsalazarsosa5173]

Can you gold plate guns with the jewelry master kit ?

[@GoldPlatingServices]

It depends on the size of the parts you are plating the working dimensions of the beakers are dia. 4.25" x depth 4.5". It also depends on your surface area you are plating on as well.

[@SDPickups]

I have no way to heat this product, can I use a microwave to heat it up before cleaning?

[@GoldPlatingServices]

yes you could heat it up in a microwave or even in a pan but just make sure you are only using them dedicated for chemicals only and not also for cooking food.

[@grahamdwells]

you could boil water and then place the container of solution into a pan with the boiling water.

[@Te4mUp]

Isn't it also possible to electroclean 6061 aluminum?

[@GoldPlatingServices]

Its possible to plate onto aluminum but it is done on a industrial level and our solutions are not able to plate onto aluminum.

[@SDPickups]

HOw do you tell when the solution is too dirty to use anymore?

[@GoldPlatingServices]

There is a few ways to tell. One is the color is off and it looks gross and it is building up a layer on the top of the solution. Another way is that it is not working as good as it use to work. It could be that the amount of time it is taking for your part to wet out. It should not take anymore than 2 minutes for an item to wet out.

[@SDPickups]

@@GoldPlatingServices Thanks for the reply! Greatly appreciate that. Since this is reversing the two electrodes will it strip any of the metal while doing the cleaning? Or leave any kind of marks on a mirror polished flat piece of unplated nickel silver? I did buy some of this to try out, so I guess I'll find out. I have been plating with Caswell nickel electroplating for years, but lately I've not been able to get a perfectly clean surface to plate on to. Instead of a perfect mirror plating job, I get some haziness and strange marks sometimes. I never heard of electrocleaning before, so am hoping this will be the final fix for my problems. A water check before I plate and the water just sheets off, so what I'm doing isn't making the work piece hang onto the water.

[@GoldPlatingServices]

You are welcome. We have heard that a lot of customers are having problems with Caswell products. For our products the electroclean is not necessarily a solution to clean your item of any dirtiness, your item should be prepared/polished to what you want the end result to look like. What the Electocleaner does is preps your surface so it can be plated properly. It makes the surface hydrophilic which makes liquids stick to the surface instead of be repelled. This then makes it so when you are plating in your solution the solution will want to stick to your surface of your item evenly so it will plate properly and leave you with a even plated surface without hazy marks or defects in your plating.

[@SDPickups]

​@@GoldPlatingServices The best nickel plating source I've experienced is I bought all the chemicals to make a nickel bath from scratch, but the brightener I used came from China. I bought several gallons of it and it was pretty affordable for me, since I am only plating small products I make myself. When the brightener finally died, I went back to buy more, but the English speaking contact was gone and replace by some woman who just couldn't communicate at ALL. I have tried to buy American made brighteners, and frankly there seems to be some universal agreement to NOT sell to small scale entrepeneurs like me. One of them said we have a minimum order of $250 and I said that fine, I'll take $250 worth. Then they turned around and said it was too big a deal to give me an ACCOUNT, that I never asked for, and that they wanted nothing to do with me. I have never even gotten replies from brightener manufacturers in the USA, they only deal in huge orders and snub the small companies like me. In fact he was rather rude to me and stopped answering my emails. This is WHY people buy from China, because they are welcoming instead of blowing people off because some of us aren't rich. I tried to make my own brightener using as much information as I could on how to do it, it almost worked but not good enough for a commercial work. So, I was forced to go back to Caswell and just started having all these weird marks showing up on my plating. I am hoping the electrocleaner will solve my problems. I DO polish my nickel silver products to a high mirror shine. After that I used my big ultrasonic machine with Naptha to get all the polish off, then would use Caswell's SP degreaser and still am getting failures. I am switching to strong Simple Green in ultrasonic machine, then well rinsed in distilled water then into your electrocleaning method, hoping thats the final end to this nightmare. In the beginning I never had any problems with Caswell's nickel plating kit for years. I know Caswell is having problems, they are understaffed and it takes a minimum of two weeks before getting your orders. Their nickel plating bath just seems kind of weak. I even bought a new DC power supply because I was also getting failed adhesion to the nickel silver! The one I bought from them, was underpowered and the fan was coming on all the time, so I bought a cheap Amazon DC power supply thats ten watts, and its fan never comes on. I've been tearing my hair out for MONTHS just trying to get a perfect plating......

[@GoldPlatingServices]

That sounds like a nightmare. Hopefully you figure out your nickel so it can start working again. If you are interested on getting our nickel we have a lot of great videos on it and tons of examples of it plating on different items and best of all it comes ready to use. That is if you are wanting to try something new. Its up to you.