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Question:

Conductivity question for electricity through stainless steel?

I work the Copper plating line at a custom plating facility in MI.I like to use jumper cables with the jumper cable clamps to help confirm electric current is getting to my parts that I am plating. The acids in the Acid copper is constantly eating the steel and copper clamps. WIll I get a good enough current through stainless steel clamps? I use stainless steel hooks, but our maintenance man thinks that is one of the reasons why I have prblems with my parts turning out. I still think it has to do with the clamps getting eatin up. My question is Is stainless steel as good or reliable enough to run an electrical current to my parts if I am using stainless steel or is it best to use another method to try and get a better connection.Please state your sources or experience with working with electricity. I need to get honest answers and not this is my opinion. We are talking about my making a living so this is important to me so I can bring food home to my table. Thanks for all the help.

Answer:

Stainless Steel Conductivity
Stainless steel is not such a good conductor as copper and the only metal with better conductivity is silver. Additionally, stainless steel will corrode in certain very corrosive environments without the presence of oxygen - i.e. when immersed in salt water. If you're getting problems caused by corrosion of the copper contacts you use there may well be a trade off so my advice is to do a trial and see what works best. You can check the conductivity of metals by simple online search for the period table:
I can only guess. I can't even tell if you are plating some other metal with copper OR if you are plating copper with some other metal. you state that you use the copper clamps only to confirm the current, but I don't see how that works. I suspect that the plating current actually goes through these clamps, so conductivity is very important. But, the conductivity of SS is about 1/5th that of copper, so that will definitely have an effect, and not a good one. .

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