Rinsing
I have found that what works best is distilled water throughout. When you consider how many times you will immerse a part just rinsed, still wet, passing waterbreak (hopefully), into your plating solution, whatever's in that rinse tank will end up in the plating tank. The pro's call this "drag in." It is unavoidable.
You don't want tap water in the plating solutions.
I use two rinse tanks after cleaning and two after the pickle tank, but only one after the plating. I rotate the pre-plate tanks so I only have to replace one at a time. I use the top off technique described above. No plating solution goes down the drain. The system I have is 2/3 of the triple chrome; that is, I don't use the chrome step. But everything else is exactly the same. I'm getting results that are 100% and the solutions last through 100's of parts.
Ken
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