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The desirability or not of ripple in electro plating

I need good information on DC current requirements for general plating, especially with reference to the desirability or not of ripple, and how much should there be/ can be tolerated. I do copper, brass nickel, tin silver and gold. I want to start doing small chrome items as well, say up to 50 square inches. What should the current considerations be?

Herman Botha
Plating shop - Pretoria , Gauteng, South Africa
2004

Ripple is bad for chrome, 5% max at whatever load you use. Three phase takes care of this nicely. single phase works ok as long as you keep the load at 80 to 90% of max load. There are other methods of controlling ripple in single phase systems, but some have a very limited range that would comply with the 5% max. Electrocleaning does not care about ripple, and periodic reverse may be desirable for some cleaner formulations.

James Watts
- Navarre, Florida
2004