[lintmann]

Sean,

"Your bath temp may be too high. Temp range for the original formula is 60-90º. 60's a bit too cold, but 70-80 works good for me."

Yes Sean my bath temp was too high. I set it around 112F as per the Caswell manual. Speaking of that manual...is it just me or are many of the instructions out to lunch? I mean it says that copy cad plates at about 1 amp per 40 sq" and this is way off. Had I known that it required way more current than that I would have bought a much larger power supply right off the bat! If 70-80 is about right then their bath temp is way off too and the temp controller that comes in the kit won't even go that low. The other thing that I have been wondering now is plating thickness. The manual says about .0025" thickness for every 15 minutes of one hour for .001" which is required for yellow chromate. Well I read someplace that as the fizzing slows, the part is near completion of the plating process so that was sort of how I was judging my hardware and brackets. Apparantly yellow chromate needs a minimum of .001" to work and I can say that some of the pieces that I chromated were plated for only 10 minutes or so and they turned out excellent! So either smaller items plate much faster or yellow chromate doesn't need anywhere near .001" to work...I'm just not sure which is right because I'm starting to have a hard time to believe much of the manual...

Anyways, I checked the wiper motor housing and it is 2.5" deep with a diameter of 3.25" and yes the inside was fully taped off with electrical tape. I forgot to measure the anodes but they are the standard ones that come in the kit...I think they are 4x8 but I'm not a 100% sure.

I did manage to plate some items today but it's clear that I'll need a larger power supply. I took the time to try and figure out the area of the largest item I should ever have to plate and it works out to 167 sq". Using the NEW solution what size power supply would you recommend for that size of a part. I figure that I might as well base my power supply requirements on the new solution rather than scrimp and then have to upgrade in a few years if I need to replace my current solution with the newer one.

"Commercial recommendations say no more than 1.5 to 1, part to anode size. I tried that once, a 36" part w/24" of anode. It did NOT work well. So I always make sure my anodes are at LEAST as much area as the parts I'm plating."

...this I didn't know! When you figure out the area of the anodes do you count both sides or just the side facing the part?

Thanks again Sean.

Greg