Electroplating - Plant Tour pt.3

Pre-production

In our pre-production area we conduct our, contract review, order entry, and incoming dimension check. We also prepare parts here for delivery to the electroplating lines. When you are barrel electroplating, the number parts in the barrel is very critical. The amount electroplating thickness is directly related to the power settings, bath metal concentration and the total surface area of parts in the bath. If the part count changes up or down from load to load, the thickness of metal electroplated will vary down and up accordingly. In order to maintain your specified thickness, we check every load for the correct quantity. Often times, our customers find it more convenient to ship to us in bulk packaging with a total count to be electroplated. In that case, we take responsibility for accurately subdividing the total count into correct electroplating load sizes.

Weigh counting for accurate load sizes and quality plating	Production lot number control is becoming more important all of the time. Most ISO-9000 compliant/registered companies mandate that subcontractor production control systems dovetail with their own lot control systems. At ProPlate®, we assign control numbers to individual lots. We can either attach our own internally generated number, or we can use you incoming number. Our system will accommodate either.
We control production down to individual loads	Another function of our pre-production department is to fixture the larger parts and to "mask" parts. Frequently the specification will require electroplating on only a potion of the part surface. We'll use a variety of techniques and materials to mask those portions where the electrodeposition should not occur.

Electroplating plant tour continued >>