An experimental study on low hazard electric plating pro cess is conducted， in view of the disadvantages of the existing system for cyani de plating， which include containing toxic cyanide of the plating solution， the environment pollution， difficulties in disposing and so on. The gold potassium c itrate is used as the main salt in the solution for gold electrical plating， to reduce the free state cyanide ions ionized from the solution in the experimenta l process. Based on the established solution， experiments are carried out on th e copper substrate. Influences of the electric field， flow field， the style of t he flush and the distance between anode and cathode on the plating performance a re studied experimentally. With the optimized parameters， rather bright surfaces with smaller crystalline grain size and higher bonding strength are obtained. T he microstructure of the surface and the substrate are tested by atomic force mi croscope(AFM)， demonstrat ing that the gold plated layer is effectively copied and even the roughness of the substrate surface is reduced. Furthermore， the composition of the plating is tested using scanning election mircrosoope (SEM) and the plating adhesion is t ested by the WS 97 coating adhesion testing instrument， which indicates that th e plating performances meet the industry standard.