What Are the Metal Plating Protection Processes?

Electroplating is to make a conductive aqueous solution that needs to be used as the raw material of the plating layer. Then place the hardware in a plating tank containing the above solution (the parts that do not need to be plated can be sealed with insulating paint). A thin film of the material contained in the solution is deposited on the surface. This process is called electroplating. The thin film deposited on the surface of hardware is called plating.
     The material of the plating layer may be metal or non-metal. Practice shows that the electroplated layer formed on the hardware surface is not only beautiful and smooth, but also has high bonding strength with the base metal under the plating layer. The plating layer is not easy to fall off. In addition, this decorative layer has the characteristics of corrosion resistance, oxidation resistance and long service life. Its price is several times to dozens of times higher than unplated hardware.

1. Electroless plating

Electroless plating is to prepare a solution as a raw material of a coating and then immerse the hardware to be plated in the solution. Use a suitable reducing agent to deposit the raw material in the solution on the hardware surface to form a plating layer. This method of using chemical reaction to obtain a coating on hardware is called electroless plating. Compared with electroplating, electroless plating does not require power and electroplating equipment and can be plated with both metal and nonmetal. The cost is lower than electroplating. However, the plating layer formed on the hardware surface  by electroless plating, regardless of its corrosion resistance and oxidation resistance. The properties, durability and bonding strength with the base material are all worse than those of electroplating.
     In addition, the thickness of the electroless plating layer is generally thinner than that of the plating. The hardness of the plating layer is also lower than that of the plating. This kind of electroless plating is difficult to distinguish from the electroplating layer by the naked eye. It can only be inspected by professionals with the help of special equipment.

2. Brush plating

Brush plating is a special type of plating. Different from ordinary electroplating, brush plating does not require an electroplating tank. Instead, it supplies the plating solution to the surface to be plated. At the same time, uses a charged plating brush (also called a plating pen) to polish the surface of the part to obtain the plating layer. Since no plating tank is needed, it is also called slotless plating. Brush plating is a particularly economical and convenient simple plating method. The power supply and equipment required are also very simple. It can be constructed by one person in any simple environment, which provides convenience for individual operators. Brush plating can not only plate hardware of various shapes, but also the plating speed is much higher than that of electroplating and chemical plating.

3. Metal coating thickness gauge for Plating Layer

LS220H corrosion thickness gauge

The measurement of the plating layer thickness is one of the physical properties of the coating. It is also an important indicator for measuring the quality of the coating, because it will greatly affect the service life of the product. Metal coating thickness gauge is a professional equipment that can be used to detect the thickness of electroplated layer, paint film, anticorrosive layer, PCB dry film and various coating thicknesses.
     Linshang Technology's various coating thickness gaugesuse two measuring principles: magnetic thickness measurement and eddy current thickness measurement. The coating thickness measurement used in the electroplating industry is mainly LS220H and LS221 metal paint thickness gauges. There is no need for calibration just simple zero adjustment. while the dry film gauges used for paint film thickness measurement mainly include LS220 and LS220B. The LS220B film thickness meter has a Bluetooth data transmission function, which can transmit multiple sets of measured data to the mobile phone software and produce a test report.