Manual electroplating

Fig. 8.15 A facility for manual electroplating. The modular equipment is suitable for both rack- and barrel-plating. Construction materials include corrosion-resistant PVC-clad steel and stainless steel. Applications include precious-metal plating in the electronics industry. Power supply and control circuitry are located above the tanks. (Courtesy PMD Chemicals Ltd.)...

Chemlec cell (BEWT Water Engineers Ltd.) Vertical mesh (or plate) in an electrolyte with fluidised glass beads Discontinuous by manual scraping or reuse as anodes in electroplating... 

The use of a concentric cathode cell [10] has been described for the recovery of precious metal on a small scale (Wilson Process Systems), from spent photographic solutions and from electroplating and refining wastes. The recovery of the metal is by manually scraping from the cathode or by furnace refining in the case of gold. 

Stripping the cathode takes place in a second plating tank.The cathodes from the first tank must be manually removed and placed into the anodic position within the stripping tank. The copper is then recovered as a metal by electroplating the copper onto either a stainless steel or a copper laminate in a copper pyrophosphate electrolyte. The reusable cathodes are then available to be repositioned back to the first cell. 

A wide spectrum of process operations is seen in electroplating. Both jig and barrel plating may be carried out in a line plating operation (where the workpiece is moved automatically in a predetermined fashion from one tank to another, including precleaning and postplating operations) or a more flexible (and labour-intensive) vat plating may involve manual movement of the workpiece between the tanks. 

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