tank heaters

[clydes]

has any one had any luck with the clepco heaters? hanging from a tank bar in larger tanks. process technoligys will build custom built heaters for your tanks at a comparable price with controls out side of the tank to avoid wetting out due to condensation. its worth a look. any feed back on this issue is welcome. clydes

[dadkar2]

I'm not sure many of the folks here have your tank volume. I believe Caswell sells a new heater and controller combo for 15 gallon tanks with an outside electronic controller?

No reason you couldn't use one of Caswell's in your setup. Chances are it would be more cost effective than a custom design.

Alternatively you could probably do the same thing with an off the shelf used temperature controller module and a Caswell heater. You could put the thermocouple in a small glass tube and seal it with RTV. Then you could immerse it in your tank safely. If I go to a larger tank (5 gallons max for me!) this is what I plan to do.

I appreciate that temperature control is somewhat more important than it might seem at first. The resistivity of the solution is very strongly a function of temperature. That's why when people start referencing "volts" between anode and cathode, it is meaningless without knowing first what the tank temperature is.

Ken.

[Fibergeek]

Ken,
You do have a working knowledge of Ohm's Law. Its no surprise that you are a successful plater.
Now, if we could only get the rest to stop resisting this (no pun intended) our jobs would be considerably easier.

BTW, its equally meaningless to talk voltage without first knowing the tank volume, anode & cathode surface areas, and anode/ cathode spacing.

All of this applies to anodizing too.

[dadkar2]

Thanks for your complimentary words.

Absolutely. That's why one person's successful plating voltage is too often another person's burnt plate.

Better safe than sorry--stick with constant current.

Do you use titanium baskets with nickel rounds or s-rounds, or do you just stick with the plates?

Ken

[Fibergeek]

Neither. I deal with the anodizing forum. As you've noticed I field some of the electrical questions over here.

Both anodizing and electroplating are governed by Faraday's Law, that means the math and physics are the same, just the numbers are different.

Mike wants me to start messing with plating, I will eventually. This would consist of taking the formulas and techniques guys like you use, and reducing them to the governing math. All verified by actual controlled plating experiments of course. Why? It will make electroplating as predictable and sure as we made anodizing, works every time (if you follow the directions). Mike and the accomplished platers here would be instrumental in this, I'll need to start by picking your collective brain.

[dadkar2]

Glad to help. My profession is computer-based automated measurement. Bet we could set up some interesting experiments.

Ken

[jmerson]

formulas

O.K. Geek,

I'm refering to the post talking about formulas for plating. I'm using the 6 gallon tanks but sometimes there may only be 3 or 3.5 or maybe 4.5 gallons of liquid in a tank. I use the anodes that came with the Triple Chrome Kit and try to heat to the temperature listed in the Caswell's Plating manual. I try to plate HOT and I'm using an 18 volt, 100 amp CC plating rectifier. Ken has been helping me in the past and also George. They have both been very helpfull. Your comment about everything being relative, as far as size of anodes, temperature of liquid, size of plated piece, etc, makes a lot of sense to me and I would be interested in trying out a formula if you come up with one.

[clydes]

that glass jar incloser sounds like a idea worth looking into. i was wondering would a hot water heater element work for that? what we have ordered now is a (l) shaped heater to heat from the bottem up with a 90 degree angle on the top end out side the tank. this will i hope stop the condensation in the top of the heaters and keep the sand dry. but the idea of the glass jar sounds a whole lot cheaper. what would you recommend for sealing the inlet to the jar? thanks clydes

[dadkar2]

I'm not sure exactly what you mean, but I never thought of using a hot water heating element. The trick with this kind of thing is getting good thermal conductivity to the solution. But you don't want any foreign metal like regular steel or copper in contact with the solution, since it could corrode and contaminate it. That's why people make titanium and quartz heaters. They don't react with the solutions.

I was thinking about a simple temperature sensor (thermocouple) being inserted into a glass pipette which could then be filled with water and sealed with RTV. I'm not sure if that idea would work with a heating element, since the element would try to boil the water around it and that would be a problem.

Ken

[clydes]

i see what you are saying . well i have the titanium heaters coming from process tech. hope they solve my problem. we have burnt out 6 1000 wat titaniums so far by way of condensation over the tank with the lids . getting kinda expensive. the ones we ordered are 305 a peice so with any luck we will solve this problem. thanks for the feed back. clydes

[thesmoothers]

hey guys, i've burn't 5 or 6 over the side and ceramic heaters before caswell sent me some new type units. The heaters plug into a temp housing that mounts on my back wall with a temp dial. i only have a 5gal setup but they work well when the tanks are insulated. didn't know if you have seen them yet. caswell told me they were from a new vendor.

[clydes]

what caused yours to burn out? just wondering if we had the same problem
clydes

[mcaswell]

You folks are talking about totally different systems. Clydes has 1000W Titanium heaters for big tanks, not the little 300W heaters we put in kits.

[clydes]

I see there is a big difference in the style. just wondering what was the cause of the problem for futher peventive actions . at the cost of the heaters any info is helpful. the clepco controls are great. i really enjoy the set up for that but the heaters them selfs not the greatest atleast thats my experince with the poduct. any way caswell has given me great customer support for this problem so far. im really impressed with how craig brooks is handling this for use. clydes

[thesmoothers]

i know the heater in question was from a large system but i'm assuming the same problems plagues them as well. Clydes, i agree! customer support has been 110%, Craig always helps without question!
In my experience the problem with the small 300w old style heaters is the silicon plug in the tops get eaten by the solution. It helps taking them out when not in use "caswell recommends this" but eventually the seal breaks and your tank starts to smoke. I tried to seal the tops with extra silicon but i gave way too. I've found even in the ceramic units the seal loosens after a few weeks but it must have another seal under that, there hasn't been a problem. The wall mounted control units they sent me are working very well with no problems! I don't think the heater problem is caswell fault but the vendor couldn't produce a reliable product.

I'm upgrading to a 16gal system how are the 1000w units placed and controlled?