Nickle Plating Brass Contacts

With all the hundreds of thousands of commercial switches, relays, and other contact devices, wouldn't it be easier, cheaper, and more reliable to use a manufactured part?

- Michael

Well, I know little about this and would appreciate some ideas about where to get these contacts.

Thanks.

Darren Harris Staten Island, New York.

Go to your friendly auto parts store and ask for "a set of points" for a 19XX for a (your choice of make) where X is a random number before the advent of electronic ignition.

These contacts are silver loaded with cadmium oxide and are designed for 6 or 12 volts repeated use. I doubt if nickel plate will last very long.

You could disassemble a commercial relay from radio shack.

I've been known to renew contacts in voltage regulators using 'old' dimes as a source of material.

Jim

We answered this for you a few years back when you were trying to make a homemade t-bar relay.

You too? (And they soldered to beautifully, didn't they.)

I once used a dime to replace a small welsch plug which fell out of the end of the choke pull off piston's cylinder in my '57 Chevy straight six. I was in grad school in Philly in '58 and the car flooded out right after I started it, 'cause the choke stayed fully closed.

I located the problem right there on the street and realized that a dime was eggsackly the right size to press into the c'bore the welsch plug somehow fell out of. Their was enough draft in the hole so that the dime jammed in when I pushed hard on it. When I got home I swabbed some gasket shellac behind it. that dime stayed there just fine for the rest of the time I owned that car.

I'll never forget that one, it was probably my luckyest emergency repair job ever.

Jeff (Who'd sometimes rather be lucky than smart....)

PS

Apologies if this became a duplicated post, the first one I posted a couple of hours ago failed to appear.

You can get kits for plating nickle -- and silver, and gold -- from

Nickel isn't good if there is significant current, but OK for signal-level stuff. Gold is better, and not all that expensive in the quantity used on contacts. Both can be brush-plated.

At current market price, gold costs about 9 cents per square inch in

Sorry, ignition points are made from tungsten. Silver-cadmium oxide contacts are usually found in motor starters and are arc resistant.

Randy

Why not silver plate the contacts. Easy to do and I think safer. Silver will handle making the contact - rubbing is ok. Like you say - make a good hard coating.

Are you sure you want to put Nickel - It isn't used in Electronics - except for beauty.

Martin Martin Eastburn @ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net NRA LOH, NRA Life NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder

snipped-for-privacy@mail.c> I would like to nickle plate brass that I want to use as electical > contacts.

Take apart the timer from a washer, dryer, dishwasher or any appliance with a mechanical timed cycle, most appliance repair shops would donate a replaced unit in exchange for a cup of coffee. Gerry :-)} London, Canada

Buying commercial relays or ignition points would probably be very expensive considering the number of contacts I'll need.

I guess silver or gold plating is the way to go, so I'll have to look into that instead of nickle plating.

The material I ahve is .032 brass.(The hobby stuff you get from K & S). I figure I'd score and then bend/break the brass into the correct sizes/shapes I'll need before plating.

Thanks.

Darren

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How much for materials, Jeff?

harold

So, I went to learn more about the resistivity of nickel and ran into this guy's "Wooden Periodic Table" page. Apparantly he's an "element collector".

It made fascinating reading and clicking on element 28 got me to the nickel section which informed me that a Canadian 1972 quarter coin is

So I guess this puts me back to square one.(Plating the Phosphor Bronze I have with nickle.

Thanks.

Darren Harris Staten Island, New York.

For perspective: if the total contact area metal actually touching metal) were only .001 inch in diameter, the resistance thru .0005" of nickle would be .0017 ohm. The preponderance of the resistance in your contacts will still be in the bulk phos-bronze.

Thanks.

Most of this will be for data leads, and goal of all of this is

But even though it is unlikely, I may in the future need to run power through a couple and wanted to make sure all bases were covered just in case.

Anyway, I just hope that I would be able to get a thick enough plate that doesn't rub off easily, since these contacts will have to come apart and come together.(No more than several time a day).

Thanks.

Darren Harris Staten Island, New York.

Did you find a solution? I have some silver plated replacement relay contacts. Email to you got returned-no such user....Paul

I found no better solutions than Nickle plating brass, so I guess I'll have to go with that.

Thanks.

Darren Harris Staten Island, New York.