Increasing the length of a copper wire via electrolysis

Question

I'm currently experimenting with copper coating using electrolysis. I'm using copper wire from my home, like the one you use for grounding. I want to electrolysis with longer copper wire (say 5 times the height of the container) to find out if the process will be shortened. My question here is about how I should arrange the wires in the container and if one arrangement has different effect than the other.

Here is what I have in mind:

1. all horizontal wires connecting to one vertical wire(this will be 5 separate pieces same length connected to the vertical wire)
2. bent like snake up and down (in one piece)

Do you think these two arrangements would work the same or differently?

Answer 1

The two arrangements would produce identical results, because the copper wire conducts electricity so much better than the electrolyte solution. However, the second arrangement is more practical because no joins are needed so it would be more reliable. Generally, the surface area of the copper anode should be similar to the cathode which is to be coated to avoid concentrating the current unevenly, so increasing the anode area would probably help shorten the coating time somewhat, as it would avoid oxygen being evolved from the anode which can happen if the anode area is too small.