Electroless plating is as the name suggests the process of plating a metal like nickel, gold or silver onto another material without the use of electricity. You can use electroless services when your needs for plating are higher than you can meet at home with an electroless home kit, or when you want an expert to handle it for you. Electroless plating involves using a chemical bath that is then brought up to the right temperature. You can get plating kits that use power from an adapter or battery, these are electroplating kits.
Nickel electroless plating kits
Electroless nickel plating is being able to plate nickel onto other materials often other metals like stainless steel, brass, copper, iron and such. There is a property in the plating material that platers want to take advantage of, it might be conductivity, resistance to something and so on. With electroless plating, as the submersion process happens, a lot of solutions for electroless nickel need the temperature to hit 190 degrees F. The plating then takes place to as thick as you want and is usually good enough to leave as the final finish too.
When a bath of chemical solution is used at a temperature cooler than that, the plating that happens tends to be a starter layer, not the final one. Lower temperatures are used when the materials being plated are not able to withstand the higher ones. Since this is a quicker plating process it also does not tend to be a very thick layer.
Whether you are wanting to plate a car or bike part or something else, you need to make sure it is completely clean and free of grease and everything else. Then it just goes into the heated chemical solution. There is no attaching clips and wires, that is electroplating. You get a great hard layer of anti-corrosion nickel. With electroless nickel plating submerge the piece for longer at the higher temperature and you get a thicker coating. The principal is the same should you use electroless services, they just have fancier ways of doing it, can handle much finer tasks and are probably going to get a better finish.
The main benefit to electroless plating rather than electroplating
Choosing to electroless plate something rather than electroplate it has some advantages. The big one though is that you get a more even coverage over something, so if there are awkward angels and such that is not going to make the plating harder. The material being plated needs to be conductive and the result will be a nice and consistent plating. Getting equal coverage is something that is very important in a lot of situations. That way what your plating in nickel gets all of its abilities like resistance to corrosion, to wear and tear, ability to handle harsh climates, less friction and more. Look into your local services if you want to learn more and have some plating done professionally.