Like most of us, [Clem] wants to 3D print in metal. Metal 3D printers do exist, but they are generally way out of reach for most of us garage hackers. As an alternative, [Clem] uses a homebrew electroplating system to get prints with a metallic coating.

The setup is quite simple. Small glass jars to act as the plating tanks and the machine uses an Arduino controller along with a PCB to hold things like a relay to control the 24V used for electroplating. To keep everything tidy, [Clem] designed a 3D printed box that stores all the cables and chemicals when you aren’t using them. Since the parts might get hot, the plastic is PETG.

The trick is that parts need to be conductive in order to use electroplating — typically plastic isn’t conductive. [Clem] paints the plastic parts to grant them conductivity. Graphite paint didn’t give great results. However, an iron-based paint worked better but obscures detail on the print. In addition to galvanization (plating with zinc or steel) you can see copper plating of a nail at around the 12 minute mark, with a plastic plating demo a minute later. The machine can even plate gold using an expensive gold-bearing electrolyte. In the video comments, someone also mentioned that it would be interesting to try plating conductive filament without using the paint. [Clem] tried to remove rust from a big part, but the power supply wasn’t up to the task.

Copper plating is often used as a step to make a part conductive so you can then plate with another metal. In addition to copper sulfate, you can use copper acetate. Sometimes, getting metal into fine details can be tough and it is easier to use a pen to plate those areas directly.

3 thoughts on “Metal Plating Plastic Or Metal Parts”

1. Andrew Hooper says:
   January 1, 2021 at 10:26 pm

   Nice little unit, another upgrade to this could also be a way to reverse the polarity during the plating cycle for a really short time. Often if you are building up a thick layer of plating (electroforming) you can switch the polarity for a few milliseconds to get a metter surface once the base layer has been laid down.

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2. CRJEEA says:
   January 1, 2021 at 11:58 pm

   Take a fish tank, put in a metal sheet as a base material, fill the tank with a copper sulphate solution, put a condom or other cheap flexible waterproofing, over a robot arm and add a sharpened copper rod as an end effector, attach it to an adjustable arc welder or say a 40A desktop psu to be the power supply for the electrolysis and then just print away until your hearts content.
   Possible improvements may include, swapping the robot arm for an actual 3D printer and replacing the filament with fine copper wire, if suitable insulation methods can be found for the copper wire before it reaches the extrusion head. Perhaps an oil filled bowden cable design, the oil could be pumped into the cable and then recirculated via a pump as the oil floats to the surface. If the stepper motors of the 3D printer were potted or replaced with a geared brushless design and fitted with encoders, they could be submerged. Alternatively a larger oil layer could be introduced and the copper sulphate solution could simply be a thin layer at the bottom, just enough to cover the print head and work piece.
   That way the electronics would always be under oil. New copper sulphate solution could be pumped in below the oil as the print night increased.
   Perhaps something like aa cheap car windscreen washer pump could be used as the flow rate wouldn’t need to be overly high.
   Note, printing will no doubt take a while for larger items.

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3. Bob says:
   January 2, 2021 at 12:46 am

   Why waste people’s time with this?? He never says what his magical power supply does which differs from a simple bench supply. He doesn’t discuss the actual chemistry. Is he a chemist? What about cleaning and levelers and brighteners and temperature and pH control and all the other necessary details of plating. What about responsible disposal of the chemicals? There is a whole industry devoted to plating. It is not simple despite a few trivial amateur videos which show concepts suitable for a high-school science class, not an industrial process. Having played with this stuff for decades I can relate that amateur coatings in general are not smooth and bright, do not properly adhere, easily flake off and have a host of other problems. There are a few companies which sell proprietary chemistry that mostly works even though it is toxic and expensive. Why are there no kits for doing through-hole plating with a D cell and some vinegar? Because it doesn’t work. Expensive kits that need a lot of effort, sure. Etching a circuit board? Easy. Anodizing is mostly easy. Tin electroless plating mostly works and is fairly cheap. Silver displacement plating mostly works but is expensive and very little use. Actual practical copper and nickel plating, forget about it.

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