Plastic Plating-Introduction to the Plating Process of Plastic Products (Water and Vacuum Plating)
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Introduction to the electroplating process of plastic products:
There are two common plating processes for plastic products: water plating and vacuum ion plating.
1. Water plating:
Generally suitable for products made of ABS material and ABS+PC material. The main process is to put the products to be plated into a chemical plating solution for electroplating.
According to different needs of customers, it can be plated in different colors, including high-gloss silver, sub-silver, and gray silver. Because the electrical conductivity of the electroplated product is significantly enhanced, what should we do for some parts that need insulation? There are two methods: First, apply insulating oil to the parts that need to be insulated, so that the parts will not be plated during electroplating, so as to achieve the insulating effect! Of course, the parts coated with insulating oil will turn black, making it unsuitable for use as an exterior surface. Second, use special adhesive tape to stick the parts that need to be plated and protect them to achieve the same insulating effect.
2. Vacuum ion plating, also known as vacuum coating:
Generally, the scope of application is wide, such as ABS material, ABS+PC material, and PC material products. At the same time, due to its complex process flow, high environment and equipment requirements, the unit price is more expensive than water plating. Now we will briefly introduce its process flow: product surface cleaning and antistatic removal--> primer spraying--> baking primer--> vacuum coating--> topcoat spraying--> baking topcoat--> packaging.
Vacuum plating can be divided into general vacuum plating, UV vacuum plating, and special vacuum plating;
Processes include evaporation, sputtering, gun color, etc.
3. Differences between the two processes:
Water plating is widely used because the process is relatively simple and the requirements from equipment to environment are less stringent than vacuum ion plating. It is easy to find such suppliers in Dongguan. There are not many excellent vacuum plating suppliers in Dongguan and Shenzhen. At least I don't have much information on such suppliers at present. However, water plating has a weakness. It can only coat ABS material and ABS+PC material (the plating effect of this material is not very ideal). The temperature resistance of ABS material is only 80℃, which limits its application range. However, vacuum plating can reach about 200℃, which allows plating treatment for parts used at high temperatures. PC material is used for air nozzles and air nozzle rings, and these parts are required to withstand high temperatures of 130 ° C. In addition, parts that are generally required to withstand high temperatures must be sprayed with a layer of UV oil at the end of vacuum plating, so that the surface of the product is shiny, resistant to high temperatures, and at the same time ensuring adhesion.
4. Advantages and disadvantages of the two processes:
A. Simply put, if vacuum plating does not work with UV oil, its adhesion is very poor and cannot exceed a hundred grams of TEST, while water plating is obviously better than vacuum plating! Therefore, in order to ensure the adhesion of vacuum plating, special spraying treatment is required subsequently, and the cost is of course higher.
B. The color of water plating is relatively monotonous. Generally, there are only a few kinds of bright silver and silver. There is nothing to do with various colorful colors such as flash silver, magic blue, crack, and water drop silver. However, vacuum plating can solve the problem of colorful colors.
C. The general coating material for water plating uses "hexavalent chromium", which is a non-environmentally friendly material. There are the following requirements for "hexavalent chromium":
EU: 76/769/EEC: prohibited use; 94/62/EC: <100ppm;
ROHS：<1000ppm
With such strict requirements, some domestic manufacturers have begun to try to use "trivalent chromium" instead of "hexavalent chromium"; vacuum plating uses a wide range of coating materials and easily meets environmental protection requirements.
