What Are the Differences Between Vacuum Plating and Water Plating?

There are two common electroplating processes for plastic products: vacuum electroplating and water electroplating.

Vacuum plating, also known as vacuum coating

Generally, it has a wide range of applications, such as ABS materials, ABS+PC materials, PC materials, PP materials, PS materials, PMMA materials, PA nylon materials, TPE, TPU soft rubber products, etc. At the same time, because of its complex process, high requirements for the environment and equipment, the unit price is slightly more expensive than water electroplating. Here is a brief introduction to its technological process: cleaning the product surface, removing static electricity-->spraying primer-->baking primer-->vacuum coating-->spraying topcoat-->baking topcoat-->packaging . Vacuum electroplating can be divided into ordinary vacuum electroplating, UV vacuum electroplating, and special vacuum electroplating (the processes include magnetron sputtering plating and multi-arc ion plating).

Water electroplating

Generally it is applicable to ABS material, ABS+PC material products. The main water electroplating process is to put the products to be electroplated into the electroless plating solution for electroplating. According to the different needs of customers, it can be plated into different colors, including high-gloss silver, sub-silver, gray silver, gun color, gold, black chrome, and semi-gloss chrome. Because the conductivity of the electroplated product is significantly enhanced, what about some parts that need to be insulated? There are two ways: first, apply insulating oil on the parts that need to be insulated, and the parts will not be electroplated during electroplating, so as to achieve the insulation effect! Of course, the part coated with insulating oil will turn black, so it is not suitable as an exterior surface. Second, use special adhesive tape to protect the parts that need to be electroplated, and also achieve the effect of insulation.

Vacuum plating process VS Water electroplating process

Water electroplating is widely used because the process is relatively simple, and the requirements from equipment to environment are not as strict as vacuum ion plating.

Water electroplating has a weakness, it can only be plated with ABS material and ABS+PC material (the effect of water plating of ABS+PC material is not very ideal). The temperature resistance of ABS material is only 80°C, which limits its application range. Vacuum electroplating can reach about 200 ° C, which can be electroplated 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, for parts that generally require high temperature resistance, a layer of UV oil must be sprayed on the vacuum plating, so that the surface of the product is shiny, high temperature resistant, and at the same time ensures adhesion.

Advantages and disadvantages of the two processes

• To put it simply, if vacuum plating is inferior to UV oil, its adhesion is very poor and cannot pass the 100-grid 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 in the follow-up, and the cost is of course higher.
• The color of water electroplating is relatively monotonous. Generally, there are only sub-silver, gray silver, gun color, gold, black chrome, semi-gloss chrome, etc. Other colors are not enough. Vacuum electroplating can electroplate a variety of color effects required by users.
• The general coating material of water electroplating adopts "hexavalent chromium", which is a non-environmental protection material. There are the following requirements for "hexavalent chromium": European Union: 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" Chromium" to replace "hexavalent chromium"; and vacuum plating uses a wide range of coating materials, all of which meet environmental protection requirements.
• Water electroplating uses chemical methods to electroplate the metal layer on the surface of the product, so the surface of the product electroplated by water is conductive; for occasions where customers require non-conductive electroplating, vacuum electroplating is generally used to solve the problem, which not only ensures the surface of the product Excellent electroplating effect, and can achieve the effect of insulation and high voltage resistance above 8000 volts without being broken down, thus better solving the problem of interference of electroplating layer to electronic product signals.

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Bozna is a supplier with the capability of mold design, product production and assembly. Our company has three advanced automatic electroplating production lines, the main types of plating are hexavalent chromium, trivalent white chromium, trivalent black chromium, pearl nickel and so on. If you need vacuum plating or water plating, please kindly contact us today.