Nickel plated prints

Projects & Prints
10

Here’s the recipe for those interested. It’s not exactly a full writeup as promised, but it should be enough to get you started.

Notes:

  • So far I’ve only tried this with White V4 prints that haven’t been post-cured. I don’t know how different resins or post-curing will affect the process.

  • You should should feel comfortable with best practices for wet bench chemistry (emphasis on safety) before attempting this.

  • I live in the US and was able to obtain everything from either eBay or the local hardware store. Everything was sourced from the US except for the sodium hypophosphite which came from China. I think in total I spent about $150 USD on the chemicals, mostly buying the smallest quantities I could find.

  • For an excellent video introduction to electroless plating SLA prints, see @BenKrasnow’s youtube video (copper plating) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z228xymQYho
    The process is similar, but the makeup of my solutions is different. I also separated the palladium chloride and tin chloride solutions so they have a long shelf life.

  • Used distilled or DI water for the solutions

  • I added a dash of NaOH to the plating bath to kickstart it, but that may not be necessary.

Step 1 - Clean for 5 minutes at room temperature in cleaning solution:
Sodium Carbonate (Na2CO3) 50g/L
Sodium Metasilicate (Na2SiO3) 35g/L
Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (CH3(CH2)11SO4Na) 3g/L

Rinse thoroughly in distilled or DI water

Step 2 - Etch for 30 minutes at 45degC in etching solution:
Potassium hydroxide (KOH) 400g/L. <-- that is not a typo

Rinse thoroughly in distilled or DI water

Step 3 - Sensitize for 5 minutes at room temperature:
Tin Chloride (SnCl2) 20g/L
Hydrochloric Acid (HCl) 20mL/L

Rinse thoroughly in distilled or DI water

Step 4 - Activate for 5 minutes at room temperature:
Palladium Chloride (PdCl2) 0.1g/L
Hydrochloric Acid (HCl) 20mL/L

Rinse thoroughly in distilled or DI water

Step 5 - Plate at 85degC in electroless nickel bath:
Nickel Sulfate Hexahydrate (NiSO4(H2O)6) 32 g/L
Trisodium Citrate (Na3C6H5O7) 20g/L
Ammonium Chloride (NH4Cl) 25g/L
Sodium Hypophosphite (NaPO2H2) 28g/L

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