Electroplating Services
Precision precious and semi-precious metal plating for complex components, from early prototype development through full production.
ProPlate has specialized in engineered electroplating services since 1984. We work with medical device manufacturers, aerospace suppliers, electronics companies, and other mission-critical industries to develop custom plating solutions for parts and components that demand tight tolerances, selective coverage, and consistent, repeatable results.
Our team supports projects at every stage, from initial process development and prototyping through production scaling. We work with gold, platinum, palladium, rhodium, silver, palladium-nickel, nickel, copper, and tin-lead plating on a wide range of metallic and polymer substrates.
Areas of Expertise in Electroplating Services
ProPlate specializes in electroplating services for a wide variety of small and large components across industries. We regularly plate connectors, switches, catheters, guidewires, slip rings, contacts and pins, hearing aid components, springs, tubes, stamped parts, CNC precision machined parts, plungers, brackets, coils, marker bands, electrodes, and pull ring assemblies.
Not all projects fit standard MIL or ASTM specifications. Our engineering team is equipped to develop custom metal finish combinations that meet your specific performance, geometry, and tolerance requirements.
Metal Finishes Available:
Gold plating • Nickel Plating • Silver plating • Copper plating • Rhodium plating • Palladium plating • Platinum plating, • Palladium-Nickel plating • Tin-Lead plating
Prototyping & Process Development
Ongoing development of new parts and components is one of the most challenging phases of any project. ProPlate is structured to work collaboratively with engineering teams during this phase, combining decades of chemistry knowledge, electroplating process experience, and industry expertise to identify effective solutions early.
Early-Stage Collaboration
ProPlate engages with customers at the front end of the design process to evaluate plating requirements, substrate compatibility, and process feasibility before production commitments are made. Early collaboration reduces risk and speeds time to production.
Custom Process Development
We develop and validate custom plating processes tailored to your part geometry, material, and performance requirements. ProPlate employs proprietary electroplating processes for part preparation, masking, and plating, including patented methods developed in-house over decades of work.
Prototype to Production
ProPlate supports programs from initial prototype runs through full production scaling. Our process development team documents and validates each process so that results remain consistent and repeatable as volumes increase.
Engineered Electroplating Solutions
ProPlate engineers the chemistry and production processes to be flexible to customer needs. We recognize that standard MIL specifications do not fit every application. Our team is equipped to provide the specific metal finish combinations that meet your requirements, whether that means a particular hardness level, coverage consistency, or multi-layer build-up.
Metal finishes such as gold electroplating can require different levels of hardness or coverage depending on the application. ProPlate’s in-house tool fabrication capabilities allow us to develop and produce custom fixtures, anodes, and process equipment specifically designed for your part.
Have a Complex Plating Challenge?
Whether you are developing a new device or scaling an existing process, ProPlate’s engineering team is ready to work through the details with you.
Selective Plating
Selective plating allows metal to be deposited only in specific areas of a component, enabling precise functional coverage without plating surfaces where it is not needed. This is critical for medical devices, connectors, and components where over-plating adds cost, weight, or interferes with other features.
ProPlate’s Selective Plating Approach
Historically, selective plating was limited to continuous reel-to-reel operations with mechanical masking. ProPlate has developed proprietary tools and methods for accomplishing selective plating on a wide variety of part shapes and sizes that go well beyond those limitations.
Our methods allow parts to be transported to any plating bath in any sequence, dwelling as long as needed to achieve the desired thickness. We are not constrained by the fixed geometry of reel-to-reel equipment, which means we can apply selective plating to complex, non-standard part geometries that other platers cannot accommodate.
As medical devices have become smaller and more complex, demand for fine and precise selective plating has grown significantly. ProPlate recognized early that electroplating could deposit radiopaque materials such as gold and platinum directly onto a surgical device, not just adjacent to it on the catheter shaft, and that the deposited marker shape could be virtually any geometry. The shape of a selectively electrodeposited marker is limited only by the design intent.
Selective Plating Process
- A RoHS-compliant maskant is applied to the entire surface of the component, ensuring consistent coverage and thickness. The maskant is strongly adherent to the base substrate and chemically resistant to the electroplating process.
- The maskant is selectively removed from the areas designated for plating using a removal tool.
- The component is electroplated to the specified thickness. The maskant remaining on undesignated surfaces prevents metal deposition in those areas. Metal deposits only where the maskant was removed and bare substrate is exposed.
- The remaining maskant is removed, leaving a clean, precise selectively plated component.
Our selective plating process is unique in the industry. Using CNC tools and in-house engineered parts handling equipment, we achieve high production rates while maintaining the precision that complex components require.
Metal Finishes at ProPlate®
Frequently Asked Questions About Electroplating Services
What are engineered electroplating services?
Engineered electroplating services go beyond standard rack and barrel plating by developing custom processes, fixtures, masking systems, and chemistry specifically for each component and application. ProPlate’s engineered approach means every plating process is designed around the part’s geometry, substrate, and performance requirements rather than fitting the part to a standard process.
What types of components does ProPlate electroplate?
ProPlate electroplates a wide range of components including connectors, catheters, guidewires, slip rings, contacts and pins, hearing aid components, springs, tubes, stamped parts, CNC precision machined parts, marker bands, electrodes, and pull ring assemblies. We work with both standard and non-standard geometries across metallic and polymer substrates.
What makes ProPlate's electroplating services different from other plating companies?
ProPlate has developed proprietary selective plating methods that go beyond traditional limitations, allowing precise metal deposition on complex, non-standard part geometries. Our in-house CNC and maskant application system ensures consistent coverage and thickness. Both facilities are ISO 13485:2016 certified with IQ, OQ, and PQ protocol execution.
Can ProPlate electroplate onto polymer substrates?
ProPlate deposits metal onto medical-grade polymer substrates including Pebax, nylon, urethane, and PET using our Meta-Poly® metallization process. This enables selective metal deposition on balloon catheters and other polymer components without damaging the substrate.
Does ProPlate support new product development?
Yes. ProPlate’s New Product Process Development team engages with customers at the front end of the design process to evaluate plating requirements, substrate compatibility, and process feasibility before production commitments are made. We develop custom fixtures, anodes, and process chemistry in-house for each new application.
What plating thicknesses and tolerances can ProPlate hold?
ProPlate maintains plating thickness tolerance control as low as ±5 microinches (±0.000005″). Process temperatures are held to within ±5°F of setpoint across all 216 plating tanks, maintained by 50 heat exchangers running across two 400,000 BTU/hr condensing boiler units.