Small tank anodizing

[destroyer125]

Thats what im doing now, was up til 2 in morning the other night cause it was cool, tank got down to 72 with the help of alittle ice

Will be glad when I have a chiller

Also, caswells fume suppressent works well for depressing fumes

[RedRiver]

Whether working indoors or on the patio, making an effort to suppress your mist is always a good idea. The tiny droplets of water carry with them sulfuric acid. This is something which should be taken into consideration if working in the garage next to the wife's new car.

Fruit for thaught.
Cheers!
- Dan

[cameraman]

I have mist suppressant in the solution. Beyond that, it's all I can do to keep it at 75°. With ambient air temp between 105° and 110°, some of it's leaving and that's all there is to it. And I don't have any "mist" per se, I can just smell it if I put my face down in the tank. The only other solution would be to have a chiller coil a few inches above the surface, or maybe a lid with ice packs in it.

The ano tank is a good 15-20 feet from the cars and it's all open air; I'm sure anything that escapes is sufficiently dispersed in that distance.

[sage]

Cameraman:
Two items
You were right about the metal (steel) shaft on the paint mixer being in the anodizing tank. After only a couple of minutes it started to get off-color. It didn't hurt the bath at all beciause it wan't part of the circuit. I swapped it for an aluminum one (1/4" rod). No reaction now and it works really well.
On the issue of the range hood. I do my anodizing in the basement only about 15ft from the return air there. I taped a couple of pieces of plastic sheeting onto the range hood which hang like drapes in front of and to the sides of the hood and table I work on, effectivly closing it in. When I used to really get the amps flowing and was producing a lot of fumes I just lowered the drapes which made the hood even more effective. I've never had any problem with fumes in the house. Now that I've reduced to about 6A/sqft the bubbles have gne down a lot and I don't lower the drapes at all any more. In fact My setup is only 5ft from my lathe and also steel gas pipes and I've never seen any problems with rust. I'd soon stop if I did. You could check the air flow easily with a smoke source like a burning show-lace. MAybe without the ano-tank running and just the fan of course!!

I finished that 11x7x1/2 plate yesterday but at 7.4Amps the bath was up to about 80deg after about 110 min So I cut it about 10min short. I was going for my usual 1mil finish but I think I probably got to .9 according to the 720 rule. The down side of small tanks I guess.
In any case it came out perfect. Mirror finish aluminum to start, now mirror finish black.

BTW. I never used to use the sealant and never had a problem. I thought I'd give it a try and you are right I don't like the fumes. I looked up Nickel Acetate on the WEB and because of the Nickel component it is clasified as Cacinogenic (sp?). (what isn't these days). But I never had any problem with just de-ionized water so I'm not sure I'll keep using the sealant.
Anyway, what I did was just remove my anodizing tank from under the range hood while the part was dying and put the sealing tank in it's place.
The beauty of the small setups. The range hood fixed that fume problem as well.

Sage

[cameraman]

Originally Posted by caswellsage

No reaction now and it works really well.

Cool

Originally Posted by caswellsage

plastic sheeting onto the range hood

Good grief - yeah, that would simplify it a lot - I was thinking about something on the order of a blast cabinet.

Originally Posted by caswellsage

Mirror finish aluminum to start, now mirror finish black.

Picture!

Originally Posted by caswellsage

BTW. I never used to use the sealant...

I looked at the MSDS for it and it looked like it was nasty stuff in powder form but not nearly as bad once it's mixed. Stuff gives me a headache when I get a whiff of it, although I don't seem to have a skin sensitivity to it [yet].
I did try boiling a part a couple of nights ago but I didn't scratch test it; I'll have to do some experiments.

I suppose I'll probably hem-haw all summer until it's not an issue.

[sage]

You wanted pictures. Here's a few to keep you happy, assuming I can get them attached. Here goes.
Here's the new tank. Note the electric screwdriver interted into a bracket that hangs on the rails. It turns the paint stirrer as mentioned earlier. I ave yet to hook it up to a power supply. I'll also need to rig something to hold the switch on (probably duct tape will do).

Sage

[sage]

Ok. I guess that worked. Seems theres a max of two pics per post. Here is the general arrangement with my homemeade CC power supply with timers, amp meter and voltmeter on the right. All made from junkbox parts. Also a picture of the plastic drapes I can pull down to eliminate the fumes if any and direct them better into the range hood which is mounted above.
Sage

[sage]

Note I use Mueller stainless alligator clips inserted into holes drilled at a ten degree up angle in the cross bars. There are about 16 holes placed evenly aound on the bars to put clips into as I choose. They stay in place really well and the weight of the piece holds them even tighter due to the angle. The cross bars are 1/2" square aluminum tig welded into this grid arrangement.
Also here's a picture of the plate, the first piece out of this new slightly bigger thank. It's really hard to take a picture of a black plate. It really is smooth and shinier than it looks in the picture.

[cameraman]

Cool stuff. Since the screwdriver [sounds like] is going to be dedicated, you could just solder a jumper across the switch contacts and then toggle its power.
That looks like some mighty fine welding on that grid - I can't see where the pieces stop & start.
The black part looks good; I can imagine the extra gloss.

[sage]

I always hesitate to "dedicate" anything. I'm forever changing my mind, but those are good suggestions. The screwdriver just happens to have a pretty straight nose on it and it is a easy press fit into the bracket I made so it is easily removed to become a screwdriver again. Although I never use it as such.
As for the welds - actually they were pretty bad looking so I ground and polished them flat. I haven't quite got the nice TIG "stack of coins" look down yet but I'm working at it.

Thanks for the compliments
Sage