Electroplating 3D Prints | Color Metal

mine this episode will delving into Pokeballs and how to make this sometimes ordinary 3D print a bit more exciting originally intended as a test I decided to share my results and insights since I record everything anyway this time we'll be discussing adding colored among other things let's get started [Music] first we'll be creating this beautiful Pokeball in Gold gloss white personally I find fdm 3D prints very enjoyable which is why I actually prefer them over resin prints they are nicely precise and reasonably sturdy Additionally you can practically use them straight off the print bed however they have the disadvantage for my purposes of having visible layer lines you can see it well here [Music] in order to achieve such beautiful reflective surfaces we need to eliminate them completely and here of course sandpaper comes into play again I'm not interested in getting into microplastic Productions so this time I'll just send it roughly and smooth the rest out with kafaler that's the plan [Music] once the couple is dry you can sand it again and repeat the whole process multiple times until the print is completely smooth you can actually just paint the white underside of the Pokeball with white acrylic spray paint and then polish it with a series of fine sanding steps if like me you don't have the necessary Flawless painting skills [Music] foreign the top shell will be gold plated therefore we need to electroform it first regardless of what you use it all works well as long as you know what you're doing there are copper conductive pain silver conductive paints and the possibility of graphite paints I actually experimented with micrographite and we'll see when I present the results for this project I am using copper conductive paint again I dilute it with acetone in a one to two ratio for those wondering why it's an electrically conductive paint on which we can deposit metal with electricity the goal is to achieve a thick layer of copper to apply the paint evenly I designed a drilled adapter that is perfect for this shape clean the 3D print well then spray it with 300 kilopascular be careful not to spray too thickly as the acetone can also dissolve the car filler then let it dry thoroughly [Music] watch out for arrows and now for the trickiest part electroplating or Electro forming call it what you want for this I have been using the same acidic bright copper electrolyte for a long time I have 5 liters of it and a small regulated 5 amps laboratory power supply I hang two copper sheets wrapped in coffee filters in the bath which serve as anodes I connect both of them to the positive pole the conductive 3D print is then connected to the negative pole in the middle the power supply is now set to the current density of 1 amps per square decimeters in my case that's around 1.5 M the whole thing remains in the bath for 4 hours during which a copper layer of about 0.2 millimeter thickness forms [Music] foreign [Music] looks good already but it has a few errors I will get to what costs them later now a few words of warning and caution the electrolyte contains sulfuric acid among other things this is what happens to organic material as seen here electrolytes splashed on me this happens more often than you might think please always wear eye protection and a respirator it's best to wear a lab coat too if you don't want to keep buying new clothes and this is what the asset does to the cover eventually the anodes are depleted and the copper ends up on your 3D prints they will start to oxidize but don't worry you can remove the layer with polishing paste of course there's always something to complain about with the surface let's be honest I don't achieve total Flawless surfaces either so sandpaper is needed usually 1000 grit and up is sufficient you can also use a polishing wheel to buff the copper foreign but now we need a layer of which we can electroplate gold later nickel and Palladium are suitable for this purpose nickel is pretty toxic you know so where respirator and all that I know electrically the grease the copper print with a galvanic Degreaser and a voltage of about 6 volts I use stainless steel as anode which literally blasts off the grease then I activate the copper with a 10 citric acid solution it all sounds complicated but it's easy and unfortunately necessary Now activate a nickel anode with 10 percent hydrochloric acid put it in the nickel bath and connect it my nickel electrolyte works well at room temperature and I simply use around 2 volts the whole process takes only a few minutes unfortunately I'm already running out of space with these containers when it's done take it out of the bass quickly rinse and dry it [Music] okay let's close it hopefully there won't be any bad side effects now the same happens with gold but this time not in bath take a suitable gold electrolyte we apply it with the galvanic pen use a dedicated graphite anode and a dedicated non-vothing material connect the 3D print cathodically so positive to the anode and then deposit it on the nickel layer in circular movements with the specified current density easy peasy for understanding you're not brushing anything on but rather constantly depositing from the electrolyte the duration is basically what counts the longer the thicker the layer done now let's assemble the first Pokeball it's so straightforward and I think it really looks really cool considering it was originally a pla fdm print it's nice and smooth with a shiny finish now let's break away from our usual habits I want this Pokeball to be reflective red and silver red how do we do that you ask well it's super simple let's make a new Pokeball but this time we will elect reform both halves [Music] during the process I noticed that the quality was getting worse and I was getting small defects on the surface when I looked into the electrolyte I could see why that's why it's important to filter it regularly don't forget to copper plate the button then polish again and coat with nickel the underside is finished and the top has a fantastically glossy surface this serves as the base for transparent red acrylic paint I put the shell back onto the drill adapter and now try to apply it evenly with the airbrush while turning it with my fingers [Applause] it works amazingly well the metal layer plus the paint creates an incredible metallic effect foreign now we can assemble this Pokeball as well I'll use regular glue and filament scraps for that [Music] and just like that it's already put together [Music] personally I didn't realize how strong the effect of painting Ultra smooth electroplated 3D prints can be unfortunately this camera can only partially capture it [Music] for me this definitely opens up great possibilities like props and cosplay stuff that is difficult to distinguish from real objects I mean purely optically the metallized plastic cannot be distinguished from solid metal of course electroplating at home requires a lot of patience you have to start small but eventually it will work out there are still a few more things to see on my channel the Highlight probably being the Mandalorian helmet and the lightsaber these are relatively large projects and soon there will be something very big again if you have become interested feel free to write in the comments or write whatever you want in the comments thank you for watching cheers [Music]

Channel: HEN3DRIK - Electroplating 3D Prints

Views: 355,906

Keywords: how to, 3d printer, 3d print, copper plating, metal plating, 3dprinting, 3dprint, diy, electroforming, electroplating, nickel plating, electro plating, galvanizing process, galvanize 3d, galvanized 3d print, 3d printed, 3d printing, 3d printing ideas, graphite, graphite powder, graphite spray, electroplating tutorial, conductive paint for electroplating, 3d printing ideas to make money, pokemonfanart, pokemon, pokeball

Id: HoJkduIoBF0

Length: 10min 2sec (602 seconds)

Published: Sat May 06 2023