[chgraves]

I finally set up my anodizing system and I have a real problem and need your help. I have set everything up as per the manual. I have digital thermometers in my tanks so I know the temps are correct. I am using destilled water (tech support told me that was ok as that is all I can get here). I am trying to anodize aluminum yoyo halves. We have been trying one half at a time which has a total surface area of 12.57 sq in. I tried to get 8 mils at a 6 ASF. According to the 720 calculator I set my amps at for 60 minutes. I tried this also leaving it in up to 120 minutes when it wasn't working with lower numbers. I also tried varying the mils and AFM with different halves all to no avail. When the amps are set less than 1 the peice doesn't anodize or take any die at all (or tiny spots of color). When we accidently set the amps to 2 instead of .2 the peice did appear to anodize, but instead of turning black it turned a metallic purple color. When we tried the same thing again and left it in the die longer (25 min) it turned a blue green color. What am I doing wrong? The only thing that I can think of that is different from the instructions is that we are using a steel bolt attached between the aluminum wire and the aluminum yoyo half. I haven't been able to find a way to attach it to the string directly. Could this be the problem? Please help.