my first ano

[andrewjb]

i finally bought all the things i needed to get started, and i did my first run today
ill show you the results first...

as you can see most of rings didnt come out so well.
the rings are 1350 16swg(1.6mm) 1/4" saw cut with a 0.008" jewellers saw.
to wire up the parts i ran 2 pieces of wire down the middle with a few loops at one end so the 2 wires were being pushed away from each other... that probably made no sense, hmm think of it like a mouse trap.
i start of i degreased the rings with some dish washing detergent then i desmuted and deoxidized them for 3 min in the caswell desmut/deoxidizer
i tried to work out the surface area for the submerged wire + the 166 rings but im not sure how accurate it was though... because the run didnt go as i expected it to. the surface area i figured was about 36square inches so i ran it at 1.12amps and using the 720 calculator i expected it to reach it PAR at 11.25v and i was hoping to get a 0.40m coating so i was gonna leave it for 64min but when i started the run after 9 min it had already reached 11.8v and then it steadily rose until it reached 21v after 57min, and i left it for 5more min but it had stopped rising so i took it out , rinsed it in distilled water then dyed it in blue 4 A i noticed that the quality of the rings got better the closer they were to the end of the hanging wire and the hanging wire its self dyed quite nicely
i then sealed them for 30min in boiling water

im pretty sure the inconsistency between the rings was because of poor connections so if any one has any ideas on how to get getting connections for these rings i would love to hear them

also if any one could tell me what was happening with my volts then that would be great

and lastly does temperature matter much because i didnt use any heating for the dyes, my tank, or the deox-desmut? the temperature was a bit colder than normal, 22C (71.6F)

the results wern't great but i had a great time doing it and i cant wait to do some of the cool effects which i see all you guys doing
Andrew.

[cameraman]

Not too bad. If you'd heated your dye to 130-140° F you probably would have gotten better color out of those lighter ones (the ones that look like they did get some ano layer).

I think your two wire idea deserves some more experimentation - you might be able to get that to work better. You could try doing shorter strings, or put a spacer every x number of rings to hold it apart.

I think what I'd try, since you have a gap on each of the rings, is to cut a piece of alum sheet, maybe .032 thickness, and slide the rings onto an edge - any that fit loose, squeeze them together some more and refit.

To know the surface area of the ring, we need to know the ring's diameter (in order to calculate the length) - you listed the wire diameter, but not the ring diameter. If you were to straighten one of those rings out, it's a cylinder. You could either straighten one out perfectly straight and measure it, or use the diameter from center to center of the wire to calculate the circumference, which becomes your length, or height of the cylinder. So if you measure the diameter from outside to outside, subtract one wire diameter to get center-to-center. Here's a link to a bunch of surface area formulas:
http://www.math.com/tables/geometry/surfareas.htm

Use the formula for cylinders. If you try my idea of sliding the rings onto an edge of sheet aluminum, don't count the surface area of the two ends since they're not exposed and won't be anodizing. But don't forget the surface area of the sheet.


Looks like you're not too far from total success, congrats and good luck!

[andrewjb]

Thanks!
i realy like the spacer idea, i might try that out next time

the rings have a 1/4" Inner diameter.
to get the surface area i used "Ultimate Maille Calculator 2.0"
which is a program which is realy usefull for people like me
you can download it here https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/cschwar4/shared/UMCv2.exe
but the SA that the calculator gave me was not 100% acurate because i input the mandrell size and not the real inner diameter of the rings
"The Inner Diameter, more often than not, is larger than the diameter of your mandrel, due to springback of the metal. Copper for example has less springback than stainless steel, so copper rings and stainless steel rings wound on the same mandrel will not be the same size - the stainless steel rings will be larger."

sorry... im blabbering on about chainmaille on an anodizing forum

thanks again
andrew.

[destroyer125]

I have done rings before, they are very annoying to do unless their still in coil form, if you cut the rings yourself id suggest annodizing them then saw cutting them, since your are saw cut not much raw material will be showing

[andrewjb]

i did another run today but this one was a complete failure
i had prepared the rings really well, pent a long time degreasing them and i made sure that the rings had a fairly tight connection.
i started anodizing and after about 10min it had already shot up to 21v (no idea why ?)then 20 min into the run... by now it had settled back down to 19.5v and was hovering there. and then i started to hear a hissing noise and the tank seamed to be putting out some fumes i couldn't see anything so i left it going for another few minutes and then i got a little worried so i stopped it and too the rings out, but when i picked up the hanging wire it snapped off. after closer inspection the hanging wires had been eaten away.
i tried dyeing the rings but they didn't take the dye, the only part that did dye was the area on the hanging wires where they had been eaten away.

now I'm really confused? how come my first one worked...kinda and this one didn't?

[sswee]

Without some details, can't say for sure but it is most likely one of two things. Either a bad connection or too much current through too small of a wire. With both you will have a high resistance causing the voltage to shoot up trying to push the current through the circuit and excessive heat generated at the point of high resistance causing the burning or burn out.
You would not have gotten enough current past the point of the resistance to anodize. That is why your dye only took where it did. On parts that loose connection during a run, the hanging wire will take dye up to where the connection is lost.
SS

[destroyer125]

The hissing / fumes comes from the anodizing process itself, the more you put in the tank the higher rate of bubbles/fumes there will be

[andrewjb]

i tried again today and this time i made sure my SA calculations were super correct,i decided to try something easier that rigns so i tried to anodize some sheet aluminium, i drilled a hole in it and put a piece of wire through the hole and folded the wire up so it was crushing the sheet.
i connected the piece to my PS,turned the airation on, turned the PS on and turned set it to 0.36amps (4.50 amps/ft^2).
volts kept riseing and after about 30min it was up around 30v and thats as high as my PS goes so when it got to about 31v it clicked over to cv, and it flickered back and forth from cc - cv
im following the 720rule but my voltages arn't. does any one know whats happening with my volts

also.. ever since the wire was eaten up in my tank yesterday the water has got tiny bits of gunk floating in it, does this matter, if so how can i get them out?

(edit: thanks swee i just re read your post and realised that you were talking about the volts sooting up (im slow..), because i dont have any wire larger that 16swg (1.6mm) could i just use 2 pieces of wire twisted together? and to connect my parts and my cathode to the ps i use rubber coated copper stuff... could the problem be outside the tank where i connect the the parts to the PS (mind you no copper goes in the tank...lol)

[cameraman]

Originally Posted by andrewjb

i drilled a hole in it and put a piece of wire through the hole and folded the wire up so it was crushing the sheet.

errr, I don't think you're getting a secure enough connection doing that. Could you get hold of a nylon bolt and nut, or an aluminum bolt and nut to bolt the wire to the sheet?
If not, how about jamming a wooden toothpick alongside the wire into the hole?
16swg should be plenty thick enough for the current you're using - you can probably push 3 amps through it without any problem.

Just to clarify, you're using aluminum wire for the positive, and you're using copper wire for the plates but it doesn't get into the solution, and [hopefully] it's not even over the tank in the air? Since your voltage starts low and goes high that indicates to me that it's a problem with the positive connection, not the plates. If the copper is in the air but 'in the tank' it will eventually have problems from vapor/fumes but that shouldn't be an issue yet.

I had calculated something like 32 sq in for your rings, so the 36 you were using was close enough.

My tank has never hissed at me, and I've put 10 amps into 6 total gallons of 3:1 solution to anodize 400 sq in. I've seen enough 'bubble action' that I couldn't see to the bottom of the tank.

[andrewjb]

ill try to get a picture of my setup and some pics of my connections and wirings sometime tomorrow. nope no copper above or in the tank , i hang my hanging wires (aluminium) overthe edges of the tank and to the i connect my copper wire which goes to the positive. with my cathode in hangs over the side of the tank, i connect that to the negative with copper wire too.

im pretty sure the problems got to do with connections somehow so tomorrow (to late now) im gonna redo all the wireing and try again.

thanks for checking the double checking the SA cameraman

Andrew.