Power - what are options?

[BasilFawlty]

I am in the "considering it" stage of possibly buying a Copy Cad system. Probably the largest part I would be plating is my brake booster servo, which is a round steel assembly that comes in two halves. I calculate the surface area of the larger piece to be around 225 Sq Inches. (its round, 7.5 in diameter and about 3 inches deep). So, I figure I will need the 3 Gal kit, does this sound about right? But for power, I estimate I would need 5-6 Amps, which would mean needing the larger 10-amp powersupply they sell here. With the cost of the kit, this would put the investment at over $500, which is difficult (for me, given the amount of use it would get) to justify. So, the question is, what are my options on power. Could I use a car battery for example? I would rather have something that has more control, but the more affordable 3-amp supply would not be big enough (at least not for the brake servo). Any thoughts on alternative power sources?

Thanks,
Basil

[dsalter]

A suggestion for you. I send the bigger items out to professional shop to be plated. The cost is way cheaper. I do the smaller items that are a nuisance to the professional shop and I don't have to worry about them losing the small items. You'll have a very hard time cost justifing the power source, chemical, equipment and time. I have the 3 amp source and if I have anything to do that's more than it can handle I clean it up and send it out.

[BasilFawlty]

Originally Posted by dsalter

A suggestion for you. I send the bigger items out to professional shop to be plated. The cost is way cheaper. I do the smaller items that are a nuisance to the professional shop and I don't have to worry about them losing the small items. You'll have a very hard time cost justifing the power source, chemical, equipment and time. I have the 3 amp source and if I have anything to do that's more than it can handle I clean it up and send it out.

Probably not a bad suggestion, but as I have three cars I'm restoring (eventually), I'd like to get something that will do most of what I need without the need to send out (very large items like bumpers excepted of course). Anyway, I may check my local surplus store for something that will suffice (and would be cheap like me).

Basil

[eprigge]

If you look hard enough you'll be able to find something cheap on ebay. There are tons of supplies for sale at any given time. I've bought a few, most recently an 8V / 50A supply for $45.

[moto-chrome]

If you want to be more adventurous, you can build a lamp controller for pretty cheap. I built a small one out of car lamps supplied by a 6 volt battery for about 30 dollars canadian. It can produce about 20 amps which is good enough for copper and nickel. For chrome I built two larger ones (30 car halogen lamps each) supplied by a 12 volt marine batteries. Together they produce 400 Amps. Construction cost about 400 dollars.