OOH! Nice! But I’m still wondering, other than aesthetic, what is the advantage of copper plating Aluminum?
Well, not much honestly.
You may get slightly better heat handling, but that’s about it.
It’s mainly for the looks, for the looks of copper without the weight.
It’s also easy to solder onto a copper surface vs aluminium, which is another stupid idea that I have…
Ok then.
Let’s finish this project once and for all.
To plate aluminium, you need to:
1. Prep the surface by cleaning it and making sure there is no grease.
2. Put it in a lye/sodium hydroxide bath to deanodize it/clean it further.
3. Make a zinc electroless plating bath by placing zinc oxide in a dilute solution of sodium hydroxide.
4. Make a flash copper solution with concentrated ammonium hydroxide, copper sulfate, a bit of sulfuric acid, and water.
Details will be coming soon…