[ ] No, I would not like to see Tom try to make a chrome Benchy. [ X ] Yes, I would like to see Tom try to make a chrome Benchy.

I was selling electroplating equipment for jewelers and I can tell you: Good chemical product and following the instruction on it is the key! Depositing 1 micron of gold took about 15-30 seconds. Nice thick layer of nickel was about 3-5 minutes. Each solution had very different voltages ranging from 0.5 to 10 volts. There was silver paint for plating nonmetal objects (could be airbrushed) but I cost something like 50$ per 10g I was plating prints with gold using this paint and good solution first try without any problems. I think one of your problems is oxidation and "copper paint binder" Essential step in electroplating is removing oxidation and having clean surface. Problem is not resistance between two probed points by sticking needles in them, but resistance of the surface without "scraping". If even few atom thick oxidation is on the surface, electoplating will fail. We use electro etching salts to remove oxidation, then rinse in running water, and next in distilled water and put to plating solution - this step HAS TO BE DONE quickly without exposing item to air. So you dip it to plating solution when it's still wet with distilled water) THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT STEP! Every jeweler that went for expensive chemicals never went back to cheap or DIY solutions, they just work flawlessly! (we sold "Heimerle + Meule", but there are many other high end brands) You said that the surface will be better after plating - that's a mistake, every inperfection before plating will be multiplied (unless you just drench it in metal). We polished things that were to be gold plated to better standard than normal products. WARNING: Most of good products has high concentration of potassium cyanide which is deadly even when you lick your fingers after dipping in this solutions! It's spy movie level poison!

Your copper electrolyte might be too concentrated for the geometry you are plating. Electroplating is a balancing act of depositing metal to your part with the current and the electrolyte eating the coating that you just applied away. Also, even though the alligator clips make good contact, the best practice is to never put steal or other metals into your plating bath as it will foul the electrolyte. Great video and good luck.

I have seen someone make a 3D Printed Daft Punk helmet with a mirror Chrome coating with only chemical coating, no electro coating. It worked well.

If you're going for copper or nickel anyway, electroless plating might be a better choice: works on non-conductive materials, doesn't have current density (="shadowing") issues, and can be (and industrially is) used as a conductive base to then electroplate other metals (e.g. ENIG finish for PCBs is electroless nickel, immersion gold). I don't know how nasty the chemicals are, though

If you’re painting the part, could you maybe use vaporsmoothed ABS or Polymaker Polysmooth? That way the chrome would be super shiny and smooth.

I had similar results to you for much cheaper. 1. I made my own copper sulfate using peroxide/white vinegar, water and simple 1/2 inch copper pipe. 2. I used copper pipe as the electrode. 3. I coated a normal PLA print with spray adhesive and copper leaf. A) This needs improving and doesn't work great on small details because it is hard to get the leaf to stick. B) I had limited success using graphite powder from a crushed up lead pencil. You can buy fine graphite powder, but I was doing it on the cheap. 4. I found an ordinary AA battery gave me the right amount of electricity flow. A 9V was too powerful.

Could you elaborate on why the company names were taped over?

German company LPKF who manufacture high end PCB mills also have a 3d electroplating system which allows you to selectively plate complex shapes to - for example - put antenna shapes onto objects. They have a spray paint which allows the electroplating to happen on plactic etc parts. Maybe that is worth exploring.

That industrial plastic piece with chrome was probably made using vapor deposition instead of electroplating

Hi Tom, very interesting video. While I'm no electrodeposition professional, it's definitely not a simple process that some of the DIY electroplating videos might make it seem, since they're usually plating something metal and it's usually both smooth and doesn't have complex, occluded areas that the current just doesn't reach. I'd have to say that trying to plate a Benchy is probably the worst-case sort of target for plating, it has so many recessed and occluded areas that are either difficult or virtually impossible to plate effectively, short of adding additional plating metal electrodes inside the areas to act as additional sources of metal/current. It looks like you found some high-quality copper electroplating solution, so at least you didn't have to wrestle with that detail like some of the DIY videos that try to use junk like vinegar to brew your own electrolyte. If you're seeing significant bubbling you're probably going too fast, generally slower is better, especially if you're dealing with areas that don't plate nearly as fast as the others. As you've noted, having more plating electrodes to surround the part will give you better results, especially for such difficult parts. In a perfect world you'd just suspend the part inside a electrolyte-filled metal sphere, but most of us don't have one handy :-) Metal paint is definitely the best way to go, I've used nickel paint as well with good results, and the really low resistance that's generally pretty uniform is invaluable. I wouldn't bother trying to pursue chrome. I'm not aware of any "true" chrome electroplating solution that is available to the public, the hexavalent chromium used in such solutions is incredibly toxic and carcinogenic, and is the reason that environmental regulations were originally created in the USA due to its incredible toxicity and other hazards. As you've noted, you need to properly handle any waste water and remaining materials, and that sort of issue is of far greater importance for chromium compounds. Great video, it's definitely a difficult project but the results can be worth the trouble. You can get pretty good results with highly-polished nickel without needing chrome, so that might be the best idea if you're looking for that brilliant silver shine. While it's likely far outside the scope of a video, high-vacuum thermal evaporation or magnetron sputtering can give you great results with zero chemicals to worry about since you're moving the metal directly from one point to another without relying on an electrolyte. Really fun, but a whole world of cost and difficulty :-) Applied Science has some great videos on these processes BTW.

This was a terrific video, Tom. I like that you honestly presented the results of a reasonable amateur attempt using the recommended products and tools, and documented what actually happens. I would love to see you go further with this. I am still going to give it a go, so you've already saved me bothering with the conductive filament and graphite spray, but confirmed I do have most of the necessary gear, just need some copper paint.

Chromium is a bit of a scary substance to work with because of its toxicity, even compared to other electroplating solutions, but I'm very interested in further metal coating experiments in general!

I think you should try one of the various vapor deposition techniques to coat pure plastic 3D prints. I think the results would be far superior to what you're able to achieve using the method in this video.

Thanks for sharing this great video Tom! It was really interesting to see your experimental processes. I don't think I will try this at home, but it might be a fun thing to explore sometime in the future.

Great to see the progress made in this video. Thanks for the tips.

This is very interesting. I vote YAY for the chrome benchy. As you said: there's much more exploration to be done.

Def would like to see you attempt chrome plating. But this does make me wonder about other filaments - very interesting stuff.

I believe a thin electroless plating of Palladium works well to get good adhesion to plastic. At least that's what a partner company did in a pan-European project I was part of once. You might want to find a plating expert at a company in Germany and pay them a visit with some prints. It would make for an interesting video.

Thanks for another great video! It's been a while but I'm always looking forward to what you have coming up.

Great, great share, Thomas. Very realistic reporting out your results... It seems you got the process to a level of creating compound finishes, the two material copper and chrome has potential as stylistic add to a print.

I once saw a industrial application for plating ABS plastic and it was astonishing how thick and solid the coat was almost felt like a real metal part. It also wasn't a expensive part, it was just a cover that gets replaced quite regularly but needs the metal surface to withstand sparks (it was from a welding robot). AFAIK they first deposit a thin layer of silver or palladium on there but also through electrolysis. Also I am absolutely for the chrome Benchy!

*I bought some graphite rods for this specific electronic mechanism since they won't decay the way conductive metals gradually do.* I'm soon to do some plating by experimenting with conductive powder coating paint. *It would be far more efficient if I can use an electroplating bath rather than spraying objects in a box then tossing them in an oven, and it will also enable me to do conductive materials that have no relative thermal resistance for baking.* BTW, I did actually go to college for the science of electrical/electronics engineering lol. I didn't graduate, but did cover a tremendous amount of material so I class myself as an amateur engineer. I generally have highly in depth, scientific knowledge and can perform the advanced mathematics as well as produce unique analog designs, *but I just don't have the fancy piece of paper hanging on my wall.* I also never made it to digital circuit topologies or software languages, that one somewhat eats at me lol!

It CAN be done. I used a conductive paint on a standard PLA. I made my own copper acetate and my own Nickle acetate. The copper worked very well. The Nickle not as well. But that, I think, was due to my Nickle acetate mix kit being great. The tips I'd recommend is move the part around. Move the contact points around on the part. Also consider 'painting' it on as mentioned in the video. Power needs to be low. A 1.5v AA battery will work. As for the stirrer bath? I didn't need it. Never used anything like that. As for costs? Easily less than £/$ 100. That's assuming you have NOTHING to start with. Making your own acetate saves a load of money.

smoothness makes a big difference as well try sanding them first. also you need to buff the layers using some steel wool to help.

from what I've seen, plating your copper base on spray paint takes 6 hours or so. after that ~15-60 min of nickel plating. the main thing for nickel plating is moving quick, you should rinse your part within 60s of taking it out, and nickel coat it right after. you also do want to protect your parts that have fine detail or are thin with a copper wire like 5-10mm away. you might also want to print an electrode holder/spacer and use copper wire to get inside the part so it's coated evenly.

Maybe vapor-smoothed ABS/ASA would be a good idea? In wild-eyed optimism mode, it should be more liquid-tight, and maybe more compatible with conductive paints than PLA. Very interesting process.

I had the best of luck with mixing acrylic paint with lots of graphite power. The more graphite, the more conductive it is.

Seen people do it with resin prints (and even those had been sanded before). Looked amazing.

Phew. I'm glad I watched this before actually trying anything. I've been considering trying electroplating for years (ever since seeing someone tout a solution they have had in development for years now with no release date in sight) but always had a niggling feeling that it would be far more difficult and expensive than I had thought. While still "attainable," spending as much on equipment and consumables as a cheap printer just doesn't seem like a value proposition I'd want to consider at this point. Not to mention the chemicals I've long had reservations about having near kids and pets. Excellent detail and information and much appreciated.

We definitely want a crhome benchy! Keep trying! And thank you for sharing your successes and failures.

A few months ago, someone asked me to 3D print some decorative parts to restore an old Ford (Mustang, I think?). He sanded/filled/sanded the parts, and send them to another guy to put chrome on them. The result is amazing! I have to idea what was the process, but it worked really well. You can even bend the part without damaging the chrome.

I was going to suggest a larger tub. Glad you came to the same conclusion.

I saw some videos making it look easy to electroplate… Thank you for the correction!!! 😊😊

Might be worth trying to model some breakaway tabs to connect the alligator clips to.

Thank you for your breakdown of the different methods and what to expect. I've been experimenting with making DIY PCBs using electroplating, and I'm working on dialing in my settings now. It seems like 12v is working best so far going on top of graphite paint, but like you I have dendrites forming. I'm adding 10 ohms each test to see what works best, wish me luck!

I had pretty similar results. First started trying Jan 2015. Parts still look pretty good today and have started to develop a little patina. Had trouble with even plating in deep recesses. Had best results if I sprayed clear over the prints to seal before painting with the conductive paint.

to fix the "few contact points to grow like crazy while the middle between them is still blank" issue i've seen people wrap the part into a mesh or tightly wrapped coil of bare copper wires to get lots of contact surface, though those might shadow the part's surface if you overdo it, just like your tiny tank. for the "acid leaking in" issue (and similar surface ugliness), i think the only solution would be to sand+fill+sand+fill+sand+fill+goto_sand it for ages to get it perfectly smooth+sealed before the first coat. also put your sacrificial electrodes in a cheesecloth or filter bag or something, prevents random copper pieces from breaking off and sticking to your part. what i wonder is whether you (or someone with that equipment :P) could _sputter_ a super thin and even conductive layer to plate over, to get the best resolution without any "surface smoothing" out of e.g. resin prints.

i love the early spoiler so intuitive

I've worked in electroplating for 20+ years. Welcome to my world.

Give Owen the credits he deserves for this process

Thank you for your science!

I’ve seen videos on pen plating and it has spectacular results and it’s a lot cheaper to get started

You can solder thick wires to the jaws of your alligator clips to make solid, heavier, long clips that don't jam. The joints stay out of the water. Tiny spring loaded tongs basically. You can curve the tips as you like to hold your parts well. You can do gold plating with chloroauric acid, sodium hydroxide and acetyl cysteine. Yes, the cough medicine. Electroless silver for a conductive seed layer works well. And it's not as toxic as the other electroless solutions like copper and nickel. You need silver nitrate, citric acid and ascorbic acid (yes, vitamin C), and disodium EDTA. Also tin(II) chloride to enable the silver to plate onto non-conductive parts. Good plates will test in the single to double digit ohms and will then fully coat in copper in 10-20 minutes. You can also do plastic, glass, acorns, trees and many more i assume. Though the silver does like to stain everything it touches, including fingers and eyeballs, so be careful lol. The regular silver mirror, school demo way of plating stuff in silver doesn't quite work. Sodium hydroxide tends to slowly destroy PLA and the silver doesn't adhere.

Nice to see you try it and share your fails. HEN3DRIK (- Electroplating 3D Prints) made some really nice electroplated prints as well, maybe he can give you some advice.

Very interesting, i didn´t try somethimg like this for my self ...yet. By the way i am an electroplater and i own a 3d printer. I think the plating solutions are simple ones with citric or sulfuric acid. They should work for simple things. Here some tips: 1.) Preparing the surface: proper cleaning of parts, you didnt mention it in the video. You should clean the Copper sprayed parts atleast with isoprop. and put them for a few seconds in in the plating solution BEFORE you switch on the powersupply. You cant electroplate on oxides, this should get rid of them. Also counts for Anodes 2.) Always use constant Current function, Plating Current works in tandem to Surface size.Double the size Double the Current. It should not change while palting. If bubbles start to form at the Kathode your Current is to High or the Solution is to weak. 3.) Get More metal ions in your Plating solution. If you use Nickelelectrolyte with sulfuric acid try adding Nickelsulfate. Higher temp should also help, around 40-50°C is Normal with Nickelplating . 4.) To get rid of Electrolyte inside of the parts, flush it out. Kepp the plated part in clean water for 1 hour or longer. I hope that helps a little bit Have fun

I did some research on plating non conductive items (leaf) and one methods was to use waterglass and graphite and to submerge the part entirely then let dry. I haven't tried it myself but that might seal the entire surface area

I'd love to see a Chrome plated Benchy as well as other plastics..... Like for example in my case the outer ring around the grille of my car after I modified it for a mesh style grille

I'd like to see chrome attempted! I'm also curious how some of the metal filament might work, like copper or bronze or steel.

Great content, as usual.

Did you try copper spray paint (weld thru primer) instead of graphite paint as your base layer? Edit, I watched more. Not sure what you used for paint, but U-Pol Weld #2 is the copper spray paint you want as a base. The stuff is amazing.

Thank you for this! Sometimes something sounds cool but the hassle isn't worth it... All your effort helped me understand that it's not the right time (for me) to try this ;)

Did you consider attaching the electrodes above the wateline? It seems like it might help to coat areas that are further away from the contact points of the clip.

I watched a guy called Alex Labs do this and he seemed to have better results.... he used only one + and one - point in his solution. He also used spray on conductive material but he stressed to polish this coat before moving forward showing that a poished surface had much better resistance. Good luck on future experiments

Yeahhh I definitely want to see you delve deeper into this topic! Maybe see if you can get better results and give a further optimized setup guide for people to follow. Also, a chrome benchy please!

I've been able to do Chrome plating on an abs part to the point that it was so smooth that it was impossible to know it was 3d printed. You could see your reflection like a mirror.

Like Shawn mentions, the electroplating systems I've seen had vigorous agitation - and used elevated temperatures, too. You're trying to minimize the diffusion distances of ions to the surface. Very interesting video. Good luck.

You should try having the part being coated, like having it rotate. Also while I was looking into this myself, I found most people cover the anode with a cloth, having it open and bear effects the quality of the coat

How about resin prints; aren't those much more watertight? Do conductive resins exist? Or is there a way to dope the resin with graphite or metal powders to make it conductive? That may make it too opaque for it to print successfully so perhaps create a doped resin that would be painted on and cured with UV after printing?

Electrical current takes the path of least resistance, right? And the copper wires holding the print is in the solution. So the majority of the current goes directly through them. What if you only submerged part of the print and made contact with the wires above the solution? Brainstorming here. Physics lesson was a very long time ago.

Could it be that instead of coating your part you coated the cable/crocodile connector? Maybe try and connect the benchy on the chimney and and leave it sticking out of the electrolyte

Less resistance more current flow and faster process, have you tried with seasalt adding to the liquid.

Question, did you talk to any company that offers electroplating as a service about how it would work and what recommendations they may have regarding printed parts?

You should always use constant current not constant voltage

Look into Liquid Chrome paint. It is a two part paint that will silver and can be tinted. MUCH easier and similar appearance.

I don’t care about the benchy, but a chrome xenomorph skull would be badass. Especially those teeth!

While doing research for this, did you stumble at any easy to use method to achieve one-way mirror effect on PETG? I guess with this one the metalized layer is much too thick to be see-through (too many layers). I've been considering vacuum metalization or hydrochroming but they are both very hard to achieve at home...

I really like that copper pla mix tho, it feels so organic. Could you just put a motor on it and have it spin in the electrolyte for a while?

I would be interested to try: 1. Agitation of the liquid (magnetic stirrer?) 2. Lower voltages left for several days 3. Model being connected to the electricity above the electrolyte, with the model itself carrying current down onto the rest of the model (perhaps using support material)

Great video Thomas, maybe using 3d prints to press thin sheets of metal and then chrome them

My coworker prints a Pikachu out of PVB, electroplated it, and then dissolved the pvb. It's pretty cool, just a copper lowpoly Pikachu shell.

i saw really cool thing on hackaday. they had 3d printed a mold with, stuffed it with steel wool, put needle electrodes in it and electroplated the whole steel wool. effectively creating solid metal part from steel and copper "marble" composite. mold needs to have lots of holes like strainer, so the current and electrolyte can flow inside to coat the wool.

Could it work better in a metal thread bag or wrapped in a metal mesh, rather than just point contacts with the crocodile clips?

I know this video is old but I'm going to share anyway. A dab of dielectric grease would probably help protect the hinges. I'm not 100% sure it will stand up to the electrolyte but that's how I protect my battery terminals on lead acid batteries and the electrolyte in those is pretty harsh. Although, battery terminals are much less exposed to the electrolyte but for a much longer time so it's not a perfect comparison.

wonder if a pump in the solution bath would help

For a look that is 75% of the way there with 5% of the work, Rub-n-Buff type wax products are handy! I have used it on miniatures and busts in the past with good results.

I saw another video where someone used zink spray as the base for copper plating

Damn man, HEN3DRIK makes it seem so easy.

I wonder, for the graphite spray painted part, maybe submerge only the part and not the alligator clips. You might need the part to be plated have a little extension that later will be removed to clip the alligator there. My think is that the alligator has way lower resistance than the graphite covered part, and can attract copper ions way more.

Great video. A chrome benchy would be cool to see but not worth too much money or time being poured into it. I like the fail early and cheaply mantra. Keep up the great content.

I don't know if Carbon fiber filament is conducive enough, but maybe give that a try. The part's will also be strong and it's not that much of a price difference I guess

I did exactly this, a couple of years ago. How long ago? "Celtic Skull (Hollow)" printed on a K8200 years ago. I have used a solution of isopropyl alcohol, carbon dust and acrylic paint to make the print conductive. It worked almost flawless - and It's one of my most worshiped prints up today.

The conductive plastic might be insulating itself in certain print orientations? You could try sanding a test piece, and maybe sand blasting/tumbling a benchy before the plating process. You could try nickel paints or silver mirror solution to get the best surface texture. Great vid

From my experience: plating requires good temperature control, good current control, and the part has to be in motion relative to the electrodes , stirring doesn't even out the field strength

Hey there, I've been through this whole process myself. Lots of reading and experimenting. You can make the electrolyte with vinegar and a bit of salt. Alternatively, you can mix vinegar and hydrogen peroxide. This makes peroxylacetic acid which will basically dissolve copper. If you go the route of making your own with peroxide you need to 100% make sure that you've fully dissolved enough copper in the solution. Otherwise the solution strips the copper as fast as you plate it. If you go the pure vinegar and a pinch of salt method, you attach copper plates to both sides of the terminals and let it run in the vinegar. Slowly the copper will dissolve in to the vinegar making some sort of copper salt that can deposit. As for current, there is a formula based on the surface area of the model itself. I forget the formula but I remember that for a 2.4 cm diameter sphere, it was between 0.1 and 0.2 amps. You can work that backwards to figure out the formula. Sphere surface area = 0.1 amps etc. For electrode placement, you place electrodes at ALL sides of the square plating box. This creates an even coat. Lastly, for coating. I first sand my parts a bit to remove layer lines. Then I use a mix of acrylic clear paint and conductive graphite. You use 1 part acrylic to 2 parts VERY FINE conductive graphite. Paint it on with a brush nice and evenly. Give it 2 coats to make sure you've done a good job. Last step is to buff it a little bit. By buffing it gently with a paper towel you work out any imperfections in the graphite paint layer and the sanding effect of the paper towel will increase your surface conductivity. My typical surface conductivity is somewhere in the 200 - 300 ohms range for a 1cm distance. Sometimes less. Oh, and if you get a part that doesn't coat, you'll have to manually brush coat that part sadly. The conductivity of the copper plate will prevent that part of the graphite from EVER coating properly. You'll leave it in the bath and nothing will happen. At that point you can clean up the uncoated parts manually. Gently buff the graphite surface that is uncoated and use the "pen" method to get a light coat on. After you have your light coat at 0.1 - 0.2 amps as mentioned above, you can increase that by a factor of 50-100% to increase coating speed. Coating speed isn't a function of voltage, but a function of current. Voltage simply allows the movement through the electrolyte so you want to use constant current. Best of luck.

I would love to see a video comparing this solution to chrome powder nail polish.

Thanks for your video, I'm looking to plate some fish skulls. The last bit was probably the most important, I think I'll send mine off to get plated.

Wie geil ist das denn :D ich hab mich vor kurzem ebenfalls gefragt, ob es so easy sein wird das umzusetzen :) Aber eher, um Nozzles mit einer Nickelbeschichtung zu revitalisieren... Was hältst du davon ?

There are pens that can create the plated effect in different colors, I use it on PETG, but I guess it works on PLA too

Thanks man

Is that aluminum piece anodized by chance? I would also wrap my electrodes in something that will catch the black dirty stuff that builds up. Cheers!

Few more tips, b72 is a great sealer, ask for more details. Anode bags are handy.You copper bath should last years if you can take care of it.

When you electroplate, does the layer (assuming it's ferrous, i.e., nickel) retain magnetic qualities? I want to print some models and be able to rig them up on magnetic supports with neimydium magnets, for messing around with film

not sure if you'll see this but I saw someone putting their painted print into a rock tumbler to polish the paint making it more conductive

Can you use this copper electroplated model as an electrode for edm injection mold machining? 😅

Have you thought about trying a copper filled pla?

A couple notes on cost of entry: You do not need an expensive power supply, a cheap constant current supply will do. If you make your own electrolyte and conductive paint, then you could get into the hobby for well under $50. Oh, and I have collected some great resources for creating your own conductive paints if you want to dive down that rabbit hole.

Thanks!

Thomas I have been plating prints for several years now and I agree 100% on conductive filaments. Sealing is a good idea, hollow prints can still be done if you fill with distilled water or simply use weights to hold under. Using a small gear motor to turn your job in the bath constantly helps with coverage. Anodes need to be the correct grade, many grades of copper don’t work well, if you aren’t using product sold as anodes, try using refrigeration grade copper tube. Final tip is electroplating is best done as constant current and typically I use 0.1 amps per square inch and start even lower so you don’t burn the conductive paint off which is poss. You also get best results when your anode area is 2:1 versus the area of your job

Could using copper wire to support the prints be an issue, since they are in the electrolyte too don’t you have copper as both the cathode and anode? It might not be an issue since the print gets a copper coating anyway.