Part of the construction of the Gizzard-1 Engine is to electroplate the combustion chamber to prevent it from corroding. This is cause in part by the heat the engine wall experiences, the flow of fluids in the regenerative cooling passages, and primarily the heavy oxidization environment in the combustion chamber. 

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The plating process we constructed calls for first plating the part in copper, then plating the part in nickel. The copper by itself would act fine, however the nickel is a stronger candidate for corrosion resistance. We can't only use nickel as it doesn't stick particularly well to steel, but the copper in the middle acts as a perfect mediator to complete the bond.

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Typically, nickel electroplating takes a long time, operating by providing a low current/voltage push to nickel particles in solution. We do this by attaching a line to the part to make it the anode, and surrounding it with two conductive rods as cathodes. This bombards the part providing a good thick coating. The operator has to account for the gradient of charge inside the solution and the local density of nickel particles in solution. The prototype I made's purpose was to rotate the part in solution, allowing us to essentially ignore the part while it's being plated. The engine component to be plated is placed into the "claws" and then rotated between cathodes in order to provide even plating. 

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I tested a few different materials in the 30% Acetic Acid solution, and it turns out that PLA is extremely suitable for use. So, I modeled the device, and printed it. I coded a simple control code on Arduino, which was selected with the intention of having expandable options for the prototype in the future, and have successfully have used the prototype to rotate engines. Unfortunately, we haven't successfully normalized an engine yet to plate it thoroughly. Small tests of the process have proven successful.