boylesg
Advanced Member level 4
![Advanced Member level 4](/styles/images/ranks/hlevel1.gif)
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2012
- Messages
- 1,023
- Helped
- 5
- Reputation
- 10
- Reaction score
- 6
- Trophy points
- 1,318
- Location
- Epping, Victoria, Australia
- Activity points
- 11,697
I have been trying to figure out how I can coat my tesla coil toroid with metal. I made it out of 4 x 90mm PVC elbows and short sections of the pipe to hold them together. The toroid will be a rounded square shape.
I was toying with the idea of painting it with conductive paints and copper electroplating it. But the conductive paints are rather expensive and not easy to get in a large enough quantities. I tried to make my own conductive paint with lubricating graphite and a latex based cork tile glue but it just doesn't seem to work that well. The latex glue is relatively conductive but the graphite I got seems to be barely conductive in its dry state as measured with my multimeter. At any rate I doubt the conductivity will be great enough to facilitate electroplating.
However I happened to try electroplating copper on to a strip of aluminium. When I pulled it out I found I was able to peel off the layer of copper which left me with copper foil.
I am currently trying this on a larger sheet of plumbing aluminium foil.
My idea is to araldite strips and sheets of copper foil over the PVC and THEN continue electroplating over them to seal the joints. If I sand down and compress the joints before hand it should work.
But I thought the technique might be useful in some electronic circumstances, e.g. small amounts of RF shielding that you can solder on to.
I was toying with the idea of painting it with conductive paints and copper electroplating it. But the conductive paints are rather expensive and not easy to get in a large enough quantities. I tried to make my own conductive paint with lubricating graphite and a latex based cork tile glue but it just doesn't seem to work that well. The latex glue is relatively conductive but the graphite I got seems to be barely conductive in its dry state as measured with my multimeter. At any rate I doubt the conductivity will be great enough to facilitate electroplating.
However I happened to try electroplating copper on to a strip of aluminium. When I pulled it out I found I was able to peel off the layer of copper which left me with copper foil.
I am currently trying this on a larger sheet of plumbing aluminium foil.
My idea is to araldite strips and sheets of copper foil over the PVC and THEN continue electroplating over them to seal the joints. If I sand down and compress the joints before hand it should work.
But I thought the technique might be useful in some electronic circumstances, e.g. small amounts of RF shielding that you can solder on to.