Barb

Topic: Electronic monitoring?

Does anyone know of any kind of device that can be used to automatically check for nickel, nickel chloride, and boric acid levels in a nickel plating tank?  Something sort of like a pH probe.  Thank you.

DustinGebhardt

Re: Electronic monitoring?

I've looked into this sort of thing in the past.  About the only I could come up with was an Autotitrator with an autosampler that took samples from the bath.  The titrator would then communicate with a PLC or some other sort of relay logic to trigger a dosing pump.  The process would repeat at a certain time interval.  Unfortunately, the cost was very prohibitive in my case.  I estimated the complete setup to cost somewhere close to US$100,000.00. 

And that was just for 1 parameter.  Plus, you still have to calibrate the unit every so often.

-Dustin Gebhardt,
CEF
Plating Engineer
Danaher Tool Group
Gastonia, NC

Barb

Re: Electronic monitoring?

Wow!  What was the parameter you were looking at?  That is quite the investment for checking just one thing.  Thanks for the help.

DustinGebhardt

Re: Electronic monitoring?

I was looking for chloride (nickel chloride) and nickel metal for my nickel and tin/nickel baths.  I was also looking for tin for my tin/nickel topcoat.


The auto titrator was around 30k, I believe.  Then you add the autosampler, plus dosing pump and logic.  And then you have installation and perhaps some engineering with that.  I figured that it would be close to 100k by the time it was all said and done.

-Dustin Gebhardt,
CEF
Plating Engineer
Danaher Tool Group
Gastonia, NC