Caswell Anodising aluminum kit

Hi Russ, hunt around for a LARGE electrolytic capacitor, like say 10,000 uF on up, and also rated at 20v on up, hook this in parrallel to the charger, that will help quite a little bit, the size of the cap needed is dependent on the amount of current being drawn. I'm sure Ted or somebody could easily figure out the size needed more pprecisely. This will give you "cleaner" DC power. I use an HP variable suppy as well for the smaller parts, and have had to use the car starter/charger for BIG parts, to be quite honest, I dont think it mattered much. You will gain more benefit from proper surface prep, the acutual anodizing part does its own thing pretty well provided you use distilled water, and build a proper tank. In fact Ive used a cut up milk jug and aluminum foil, with 50/50 battery acid to great effect with caswell dye so far! BTW, mix the dye to the directions! Wash the parts after anodizing in COLD water, put the parts directly in the cool dye bath, bring it up to temp, carefull not to get it too hot,(sometimes a part will be stubborn and not take dye, but will if you ramp the bath temp till it does... but carefull too hot, and the pores will close stopping the dye proces.) Just give it a go and let us know what happens! I find it to be more of an art than a science at this point, and I'm pretty bad at art, but have had success!

h> Well I took the plunge and just recieved the Caswell kit. I was a little

Battery charger is OK if you can control it. See if you can find a Variac (variable voltage transformer) to vary the line voltage to the battery charger.

There are plans (schematic) on Caswell's site for a simple electronic current regulator that is cheap to build. Kurt Bjorn built one and had good results with it. With that you wouldn't need the variac.