Greetings Earthlings,
Well, here I am... another "wannabe anodizer" looking to get his act together so he can make cool stuff...
My main interest is as a "hobbiest/artist" doing small to mid sized pieces, from a couple square inches up to maybe as large as 4 sq. ft surface area.
I'm still working my way through all the old messages, but I think I've got a pretty good handle on the basics of the process, and I (think I) understand the 720 rule and most of that good stuff pretty well
I'm looking towards starting with about 8 gallon dye tank capacity, but would like to be able to easily upgrade to maybe 20 gallons or so if things work out well.
I'll build my own CC power supply, probably about 25 amps at 20 volts max (based on some of the parts I've got lounging around) and if I'm feeling ambitious when I build it, I may build in some data logging capacity to record voltage and current periodically so it can be coughed up (along with temperature data) into an excel spredsheet later for examination. I'm a pretty firm believer in keeping good records on time, temperature, etc in order to be able to fine tune (or troubleshoot) a process...
Anyhoo... I've got MOST of my equipment figured out I think, except for the problem of cooling my anodizing tank. Here in CA in the summer it can be triple digit hot in the shop, so I can't just rely on having a large tank with a lot of thermal mass to keep temperature rise at bay. I will need a more active form of cooling to bring the acid temp down before I start anodizing, and to keep it down during anodizing.
I've got a nice magnetic drive Little Giant pump that's rated for "Nasty Duty", and I will use that to provide circulation in the acid tank and hopefully be able to come up with a clever (?) heat exchanger to use with it. My best cooling options are probably a heat exchanger that uses well water to cool it (about 55°F) to cool the tank, or else use an old window style air conditioner to do the job some how.
If anyone has any good (and cheap) cooling methods they'd like to share, I'd love to hear from you! I'm afraid a nice slick titanium heat exchanger is out of my budget.
Also, somewhere liked to this site (I think),I found a good chart that rates how "worthy" different materials are in different nasty (acid) solutions. I can't find it now to save my butt... can someone gently steer me to it please?
Once I select my tanks (gotta go to Wal-Mart and Home Depot this week and look at plastic tubs and sinks) I'll know exactly what my fluid capacities will be and I'll be able to order a few dyes and some chemicals (strippers, desmut, etc) from Caswell. I'll probably have to invest in an RO filter also.
Thanks for any good advise you've got for me, and for all the good stuff that's already archived in this forum. It looks like there's a very impressive knowledge base here!
Well, here I am... another "wannabe anodizer" looking to get his act together so he can make cool stuff...

My main interest is as a "hobbiest/artist" doing small to mid sized pieces, from a couple square inches up to maybe as large as 4 sq. ft surface area.
I'm still working my way through all the old messages, but I think I've got a pretty good handle on the basics of the process, and I (think I) understand the 720 rule and most of that good stuff pretty well
I'm looking towards starting with about 8 gallon dye tank capacity, but would like to be able to easily upgrade to maybe 20 gallons or so if things work out well.
I'll build my own CC power supply, probably about 25 amps at 20 volts max (based on some of the parts I've got lounging around) and if I'm feeling ambitious when I build it, I may build in some data logging capacity to record voltage and current periodically so it can be coughed up (along with temperature data) into an excel spredsheet later for examination. I'm a pretty firm believer in keeping good records on time, temperature, etc in order to be able to fine tune (or troubleshoot) a process...
Anyhoo... I've got MOST of my equipment figured out I think, except for the problem of cooling my anodizing tank. Here in CA in the summer it can be triple digit hot in the shop, so I can't just rely on having a large tank with a lot of thermal mass to keep temperature rise at bay. I will need a more active form of cooling to bring the acid temp down before I start anodizing, and to keep it down during anodizing.
I've got a nice magnetic drive Little Giant pump that's rated for "Nasty Duty", and I will use that to provide circulation in the acid tank and hopefully be able to come up with a clever (?) heat exchanger to use with it. My best cooling options are probably a heat exchanger that uses well water to cool it (about 55°F) to cool the tank, or else use an old window style air conditioner to do the job some how.
If anyone has any good (and cheap) cooling methods they'd like to share, I'd love to hear from you! I'm afraid a nice slick titanium heat exchanger is out of my budget.
Also, somewhere liked to this site (I think),I found a good chart that rates how "worthy" different materials are in different nasty (acid) solutions. I can't find it now to save my butt... can someone gently steer me to it please?
Once I select my tanks (gotta go to Wal-Mart and Home Depot this week and look at plastic tubs and sinks) I'll know exactly what my fluid capacities will be and I'll be able to order a few dyes and some chemicals (strippers, desmut, etc) from Caswell. I'll probably have to invest in an RO filter also.
Thanks for any good advise you've got for me, and for all the good stuff that's already archived in this forum. It looks like there's a very impressive knowledge base here!
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