Black Zinc Coatings
Charles, thanks! I got them downloaded. Strangely, I had tried to search on "Surface area" and came up empty. Never thought to try "Excel files".
After reading your original post, I measured a bolt for myself, and sure enough, they have a lot more surface area than one would guess just by looking. A 1/2" shoulder bolt 2" long is almost 2" in circumference as well! at 4 sq." each, I would be at it for weeks, so I decided a hefty power supply is in order.
BTW, the little wall-wart power brick supplied w/the kit is a joke. Using a 2x3" piece of mild steel to initially purge the copy cad mixture, I got nothing from the system. No fizzing of the mixture, and no plating. So I hooked up the voltmeter, and found that having 12 sq." submerged in the mixture would draw the voltage down to 0.45v. I gradually raised the test piece out of the mixture, and watched as the voltage increased. When it reached anout 0.9v, the fizzing began in ernest, and reached a moderate level at about 1v. By this time there was only 1 sq." of material left in the mixture. I held it there for 10 minutes, and it did plate nicely, but clearly this wall wart is inadequate to the task.
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