[Jewelry making - Article 01089] - Re: [Orchid] Anodzing Power Supply

[Marlin Cohrs]

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    I have been an electronics tinkerer for almost as long as I have
    been playing with chemistry, so I bring a bit of =93home-brew=94
    thinking to this area.  Unlike Bill from Reactive Metals Studio, I
    have not spent my college and professional life perfecting the art
    and science of anodizing reactive metals. He is THE expert in this
    area, so if I say something that conflicts with his views, he will
    be right.  I took a workshop from Bill and was impressed. He has it
    down pat. Good equipment, supplies and instruction and great ideas.
    Be that as it may, I do not do enough anodizing to justify the
    purchase of one of his power supplies, so I built my own. 

    I bought a variable isolation transformer (0-140V) and a bunch of
    full wave rectifiers on eBay. I was concerned about shorting the
    unit out as I was doing mostly paint brush anodizing and did not
    want to keep replacing the little fuse, so I put a common light bulb
    in series with the supply.  If I short the unit out, this light
    takes the load, lights up and tells me I have a short =96 no harm
    done. The advantage of this unit is that it is powerful =96 8 amps,
    high voltage for Ti, Nb, & Ta and lower voltage for electroforming,
    plating and Al. It has full voltage control, which is as full a
    control as one gets without filtering the ripples out.  When the AC
    voltmeter reads 40 volts, what I am getting is most likely 40 V RMS,
    which varies from 0- to maybe 60 volts 60 times a second. With my
    rectifier I get 0-30 V or so 120 times a second.  I tried it with
    smoothing filters, but I kind of like the way I can control the
    colors over time with the cycling power. The disadvantage is that it
    is bigger, heavier and a lot less convenient than the ones available
    from Reactive Metals.  (I still buy all my supplies from them) 

    Battery chargers will not work very well for anything but AL, too
    much power for electroforming & plating, too little for anodizing =96
    and no voltage control. 

Marlin

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