N ickel electroforming or plating is the electrolytic deposition of a layer of nickel onto a substrate. T he plating vat or cell holds plating solution, usually nickel sulfamate. The substrate is known as the cathode. This is how nickel is deposited onto the substrate. This yields a current I flowing in the opposite direction.
Current units are in amps.
One amp is defined as the current that plates out 1.11800 mg of Ag from a specified AgNO3 solution in one second. This translates to the flow of 0.6242 x 1019 electrons per second equaling one amp. Notice that if the voltage on the power supply were increased, the current would also increase thereby raising the rate of nickel deposition. As we will see in later sections, there will be practical limits of the voltage and current. T he rate of nickel deposition as we have seen in the previous section is directly related to the current.