10 Facts About Plating at Radiall

1. Plating is a complex operation where chemical and physical reactions add value to connector components. Oftentimes, plating prepares components to withstand harsh environments.

2. The plating process consists of covering raw conductive or non-conductive components with a metallic layer. The metallic layer hardens, resulting in a plated product.

3. Plating makes it possible for key connectors to function properly. It provides connector components with electrical, corrosion and wear resistance properties.

4. At Radiall, we use more than 50 kinds of material for plating, including gold, silver, tin, copper and chromium. Connector shells are plated with chemical conversion treatment, nickel or bronze, depending on the raw material and market requirements. Signal contact components are plated with stronger materials, such as gold or silver.

5. When plating harsh environment products, we use a specific solution made of cadmium or HEP²R coating to ensure a duration of more than 500 hours during a neutral salt spray test.

6. The plating process can take anywhere from 30 minutes to 5 hours per piece, depending on the raw base material and plating type.

7. Plating is necessary to meet product requirements. Some of the key elements to define are plating materials, thickness and layer configuration. Proper surface preparation creates high levels of adhesion, which helps avoid quality issues.

8. Most components need to be plated, even if their environment is not severe, in order to have important qualities like conductivity.

9. Some of the main challenges of plating are providing sustainable technology that won’t negatively impact our environment, increasing global properties (corrosion, wearing, conductivity) and having a better control of process variables.

10. Radiall has plating facilities around the world in North America, Europe and Asia, and we plate over 75 million parts every year.