What is the context? Electroplating or electrodeposition is a process used to apply a new metal surface coating over a conductive substrate. Decorative plating is used for a wide variety of applications, including jewelry, taps or door handles, light fittings or motor vehicle components. Typical decorative surface finishing layers include gold, silver, platinum and chrome.

What are the issues?

Relative part/electrode position influences the nature by which electrical current travels – i.e. more current will reach corners and edges, while less current will be thrown into recessed areas. This will always result in strong variations in the deposited metal thickness over the entire surface of a plated part, even for industrial baths known to have a good ‘throwing power’.
Furthermore, standard practice is to plate decorative parts on a rack containing up to several hundreds of items, adding complexity to the current distribution.
Failure to control current distribution leads both to quality issues (scrap rate) and excessive metal consumption.

What value do we bring?

Elsyca’s Advanced Engineering Services aim at minimizing plating time, scrap rate, material and energy consumption. E.g., our projects for the Plating On Plastics (POP) industry have led to reductions in metal deposit over 10%.
Taking advantage of our in house 3D software simulation platform, our team is capable of modeling the complete electrochemical plating process, for any type of electrolyte or configuration, simulating the deposited layer thickness and current density distribution on single and racked parts.
By means of this electroplating simulation platform, and a longstanding experience in decorative plating processes, Elsyca provides added value at different phases in the production of a part program, from the product design phase up to the engineering of complete plating lines.