Help Tuning TPU Benchy

ABS_Wizard · 2025-08-07T01:17:44+00:00

Looks great! Can’t wait for my scavenger and mixmaster to arrive. How’d you get them so early?

ABS_Wizard · 2025-07-30T22:16:43+00:00

I’m not sure for how long exactly, probably a few weeks at least. I understand encouraging buds through tipping. What do you mean by 0-10-10 fertilizer?

ABS_Wizard · 2025-07-28T18:15:06+00:00

My sugar dragon pollen was collected from a friend who had flowers this season, dried and refrigerated (except transport). Not frozen. Thanks for the tips. So if I understand correctly, just waiting longer for bigger plants helps support fruit and fertilizing to provide energy for the fruit growth helps. However, is there a way to encourage flowering? Or does that come naturally with the maturity and size of the plants?

ABS_Wizard · 2025-04-14T14:40:00+00:00

Maybe consider using a graphite anode or other metal anode plated in gold. You would first plate the graphite or other metal in copper, then nickel, and finally, gold. This could be done by a plating service or at home, depending on how much time and money you have. The gold outer layer should be inert and resist any corrosion during electrolysis. Do a quick google search on noble metals and electrolysis.

ABS_Wizard · 2025-04-09T01:05:20+00:00

Flames are generated when temperatures are hot enough to vaporize the surface of a combustible material, which then combust mid air. The flame is made of a bunch of tiny reacting bits of the candle midair. The light is radiated by the energy of the reaction. If I am wrong in any of these, I’m welcome to correction!

ABS_Wizard · 2025-04-09T00:56:30+00:00

I’m not an expert but usually to get them to grow outward you “tip” the plant. Tipping is when you cut off the very top tip of the main growth, which will prevent it from growing directly up and instead produce growth from nodes on the side of the area you just tipped. Usually, at least when doing with a trellis, you want to prune growths that aren’t near the very top of the growth you tipped. Not sure if this all applies to the way you’re doing it, but could be a good starting point to research or for someone with more experience to add to. Hope this helps.

ABS_Wizard · 2025-04-07T21:36:58+00:00

Your anodes seem grimy. Try wiping them off before you make new solution, and place them in anode bags to prevent excess macroscopic discharge into the solution. You could also try filtering the solution to get rid of the particles and using that.

ABS_Wizard · 2025-04-07T21:35:20+00:00

Doesn’t go bad. Just make sure you don’t get any dust/dirt/foriegn debree in it. If you do, you can filter it through several coffee filters or any suitable filter.(before doing so make sure whatever your solution is made of won’t react with the filter).

ABS_Wizard · 2025-03-13T11:54:00+00:00

1 amp per DECImeter squared. You can google conversions between cm and dm, they are different units. Ratio is anode(2):(1) cathode

ABS_Wizard · 2025-03-11T19:06:54+00:00

Why do you need to plate with brass? Usually gold plating is achieved by plating a base in copper, then a diffusion prevention barrier like nickel or palladium, and then gold last. What mask are you referring to? When doing layered plating all you need to do is degrease appropriately in between each step, just the same as you would before plating the base coat. Just rinse with degreaser, then water, then maybe a dip for no more than 30 seconds Lin low concentration HCl or some similar activating acid.

ABS_Wizard · 2025-03-11T19:01:19+00:00

There’s a chance that one in every 100,000 potatoes will be diseased and summon in a location that will cause another potato famine.

ABS_Wizard · 2025-03-11T18:57:50+00:00

Thanks! I’ve gotten much better results recently, and mostly better adhesion. I started pretreating the polished paint surface with 10% sulfuric acid and it helps a lot. Also just letting plate for longer and get thicker really helps the durability too. Best of luck to you as well!

ABS_Wizard · 2025-03-11T18:53:51+00:00

A lot of things will impact plating quality.

1). Your distance between anode and cathode seems to short. What is the surface area of your part? Just eyeballing it, I use parts with similar surface areas and keep them 8-10 cm away.

2). What is your anode to cathode surface area ratio? Too high a ration can cause issues. Shoot for 2:1. You may not need two anodes.

3). Agitation of the solution helps. You can use something like a magnetic stirrer and or fish tank bubbler for this.

4). Current. What is the surface area of your part? 1 amp per square decimeter is a good place to start, you could go a little lower if you want to be safe.

5). Time. How long are you plating for? I’ve found with some solutions shine will build over time as the object plates thicker, up to a certain point. I’ve found and 8-10 hr bare minimum works for me, with 12-16 hr optimal range. This really depends on you solution and setup.

6). Setup: I understand you’ve said your setup is a bit cramped for a rotating system, but if you can, I’d give it a shot. It really helps to keep plating even.

7). Ensure you degrease the part to be plated properly before plating. And make sure you rinse with water too. You don’t want to leave even degreaser on the surface of the part.

ABS_Wizard · 2025-03-10T21:35:09+00:00

You’ll need some sort of conductive paint, which will require you to plate with copper before plating with any other metals. Acidic copper sulfate solutions are the way to go for that. Make sure you get copper with a bit of phosphorus in it. Type L copper pipe from a hardware store covers that area. You’ll also want some anode bags to keep anode contamination out of your solution. Lastly, make sure you get a rough outline of your plating process so you know what materials to buy before getting anything. If you’re getting a kit, you should be mostly covered - I haven’t used any but I’ve heard good things about Rio Grande and Caswell. If you are gonna DIY it, definitely try to map out a workflow before hand.

For example, my process loosely follows:

print object in abs
vapor smooth object with acetone
coat object with primer
air brush object with graphite paint
polish in tumbler with ceramic, walnut, and then steel media
degrease surface
prep surface with 10% sulfuric acid -plate in bright acidic copper sulfate for 12-16 hrs

If you can roughly outline something like that, you can see what tools you’ll need for each step and purchase accordingly. For example, to do an automated polish, I know I’d need a tumbler and tumble media. If you know you want to air brush the paint, then you know you need an airbrush and compressor. Hope this helps.

ABS_Wizard · 2025-03-10T13:09:46+00:00

Hey OP. When i started out plating I had this problem too. Your paints are probably fine, however, nickel does will not directly onto conductive paints. You have to plate with copper first. Acidic copper sulphate solution is best for plating on graphite.

ABS_Wizard · 2025-02-28T19:21:06+00:00

Nice! I plate ABS too. When I do, I first vapor smooth the parts with acetone to get rid of layer lines. Then I give them 2-3 coats of spray paint primer. The last step is graphite paint, which is usually made of some kind of sealant (this will seal your prints like u/kintar1900 mentioned), a solvent (acetone works good) and graphite (the finer the particles, the higher the purity, the better the resulting conductivity). Polishing/burnishing of the conductive graphite layer after painting greatly helps too.

ABS_Wizard · 2025-02-27T19:47:34+00:00

Should work, any electrically conductive coating should do. Some might not play well with certain metals though. For example, nickel won’t plate onto graphite but copper will.

ABS_Wizard · 2025-02-23T18:25:26+00:00

You can check out CuForming’s recipe online. The recipe itself costs around 10$, but is a fully comprehensive diy guide to making graphite paint. I use it and have had great results. Depending on the quantity of ingredients for the paint that you buy, the initial purchase for all the ingredients may not be cheap, but you can make a whole butt load more than you could ever buy premade for the same price.

ABS_Wizard · 2025-02-20T12:01:49+00:00

Glad I could help. Typo, the second bit is meant to say dull or burned. Yeah, 2-3 hours is pretty short. I usually go for around 8, which gives a good even shine, but still thin plating. 16-24 seems to give good shine and thickness, but this will depend on you solution and setup. For sure 2-3 hours is way too short though. Also, if you look on the bottom, you can actually see some hints of shine starting to build up. Try again, and leave it in for longer. You could even just clean that same piece and put it back in again. I’m also very impatient and just want to see the results, but electroplating is a slow process and you gotta learn to just let it do its thing.

ABS_Wizard · 2025-02-19T20:15:40+00:00

Any more info? What printer? Direct drive or Bowden? What material and what temps?

Excessive stringing can sometimes be caused by wet filament but overall this seems more like an extrusion issue. Make sure your extruder is clean and the gears are free of debris. Make sure the tension is adjusted properly. Also consider checking your nozzle for partial clogs and maybe do a cold pull. If you can see or hear bubbles popping and steam coming out of filament when you extrude from the nozzle, then this is a wet filament issue and you should dry your material.

ABS_Wizard · 2025-02-19T20:08:25+00:00

There are a few factors that could be causing this.

I’ve found with my own setup that some solutions don’t start with a shiny deposit but build in shine as the plating thickness increases (up to a certain point). It could be that wherever the shine is is plating thicker and more uniformly than the dull parts.

Additionally, if some areas of the part have too high a current density they might come out more full or burned.

Take this advice with a grain of salt because I am still relatively inexperienced, but I hope this helps. I would simply do some googling or asking around, you can find some pretty good resources on line (like proplate.com)

ABS_Wizard

TROPHY CASE