{"id":793,"date":"2013-09-27T09:49:40","date_gmt":"2013-09-27T14:49:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/advancedplatingtech.com\/?p=793"},"modified":"2020-06-03T13:14:07","modified_gmt":"2020-06-03T18:14:07","slug":"stringent-process-tooling-and-inspection-requirements-essential-for-medical-grade-gold-plating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/advancedplatingtech.com\/blog\/stringent-process-tooling-and-inspection-requirements-essential-for-medical-grade-gold-plating\/","title":{"rendered":"Stringent Process, Tooling and Inspection Requirements Essential for Medical Grade Gold Plating"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>By M. \u00a0Lindstedt<\/em><\/p>\n<p><b>Gold Plating Services \u2013 Delicate and Micro Parts<\/b><br \/>\n<a title=\"Gold Plating\" href=\"https:\/\/advancedplatingtech.com\/electrolytic-plating\/gold-plating-services\/\">Gold plating services<\/a> within the medical, electronic or telecommunications markets often involves the application of gold deposits on very small or micro parts.\u00a0 In these industries, there is an on-going emphasis on Swiss and micro machining of smaller and <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-483\" src=\"https:\/\/advancedplatingtech.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/gold-bars1.jpg\" alt=\"gold-bars1\" width=\"195\" height=\"190\" srcset=\"https:\/\/advancedplatingtech.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/gold-bars1.jpg 300w, https:\/\/advancedplatingtech.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/gold-bars1-37x37.jpg 37w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 195px) 100vw, 195px\" \/> smaller components to meet design requirements.\u00a0 In turn, the metal finishing supplier needs to be able process increasing smaller parts when processing these components. The technique of gold plating delicate and micro parts involves more than just the gold plating process. \u00a0The metal finisher needs to be able to clean, rinse, dry and inspect the deposits on these difficult components as well.\u00a0 As such, the job shop needs to utilize not only the proper process method but have adequate line and inspection equipment to properly plate delicate and micro parts in gold.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><b>Gold Plating \u2013 Ultrasonic Cleaning of Parts<\/b><br \/>\n<a title=\"Ultrasonic Cleaning\" href=\"https:\/\/advancedplatingtech.com\/passivation-cleaning\/ultrasonic-cleaning-services\/\">Ultrasonic cleaning<\/a> is a process that utilizes sound energy to create cavitation of microscopic bubbles on the surface of a part.\u00a0 This mechanical energy combined with the thermal and chemical cleaning effect of ultrasonic cleaning solution makes for an extremely powerful cleaning tool.\u00a0 Ultrasonic cleaning prior to gold plating of delicate parts \u2013 especially those with small ID holes and features \u2013 is critical to remove cutting oils, shop dirt and debris from the surface of the parts.\u00a0 AP utilizes various ultrasonic cleaning techniques generated from both piezoelectric and magnetostrictive generators for a full range of cleaning applications.<\/p>\n<p><b>Gold Plating \u2013 Proper Process Tooling<\/b><br \/>\nThe process method and tooling needs to match the part to be gold plated.\u00a0 Several methods to plate micro parts can be used:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/advancedplatingtech.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Proper-Process-Tooling.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-796\" src=\"https:\/\/advancedplatingtech.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Proper-Process-Tooling-199x300.jpg\" alt=\"Proper-Process-Tooling\" width=\"199\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/advancedplatingtech.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Proper-Process-Tooling-199x300.jpg 199w, https:\/\/advancedplatingtech.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Proper-Process-Tooling.jpg 652w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 199px) 100vw, 199px\" \/><\/a>Traditional Barrel \u2013 A traditional plating barrel is essentially a horizontal chamber that rotates during plating.\u00a0 The hole size (perforation) of the plating barrel needs to be small enough that parts will not be caught in the barrel wall.\u00a0 Barrel perforations as small as 0.010\u201d can be utilized for gold plating of very small diameter components.<\/li>\n<li>MPM Barrel \u2013 Minimum Part Movement barrel technology is a proprietary barrel plating technology which minimizes the ability of the parts to tumble and interlock over one another.\u00a0\u00a0 Advanced Plating Technologies helped pioneer this plating technology with Hardwood Line Manufacturing Co.\u00a0 \u2013 the premier hardware manufacturer in the plating industry.\u00a0 MPM allows for barrel plating of long\/narrow pins and components often found in gold plating within the telecom or interconnect industries.<br \/>\n<hr \/>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/advancedplatingtech.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Vibratory-Barrel.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-797\" src=\"https:\/\/advancedplatingtech.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Vibratory-Barrel.jpg\" alt=\"Vibratory-Barrel\" width=\"165\" height=\"141\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<li>Vibratory Barrel \u2013 Vibratory plating originated in Switzerland with roots in the Swiss watch industry.\u00a0\u00a0 A vibratory barrel utilizes mechanical vibratory energy to move parts over an electrode bed during plating.\u00a0 The vibratory energy also helps transfer plating solutions into the ID of small inner diameters during plating making this gold plating method an excellent choice for interconnect components such as female sockets where the functional area is in the ID of the part.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<p><b>Gold Plating \u2013 Rinsing<\/b><b>, Drying and Packaging<\/b> Proper rinsing is a key tenat of <a title=\"Gold Plating\" href=\"https:\/\/advancedplatingtech.com\/electrolytic-plating\/gold-plating-services\/\">gold plating services<\/a> for applications in joinability including wire bonding, soldering and laser welding.\u00a0 A sound gold deposit can fail to solder or bond if the surface is contaminated due to poor rinsing.\u00a0 As such, proper rinsing of gold plated parts \u2013 especially small and micro parts \u2013 is a critical step in the process. Use of multiple high-quality water counter flow rinses, ultrasonic deionized water rinses and a final spray rinse of virgin deionized water are all techniques used by Advanced Plating Technologies to ensure the highest cleanliness of the gold plated deposit.\u00a0 Drying in a clean, stainless steel oven in a controlled environment ensures that the residual water fully evaporates from the surface without contamination from the oven itself. Packaging of gold plated parts should be selected to protect the purity of the deposit during storage. Nitrogen bag packaging is a specialized packaging method in which the air within a heat sealed bag is extracted and back-filled with pure nitrogen prior to being sealed.\u00a0 This packaging method protects the parts in an inert nitrogen atmosphere until which time they are used.\u00a0 Sealed nitrogen packaging is the preferred packaging method by Advanced Plating Technologies as it prevents oxidation of underplates such as nickel from propagating to the surface of the gold deposit greatly extending the solderability or wire bonding shelf-life.\u00a0 This is especially critical when dealing with thin gold deposits below 0.00003\u201d per side where oxidation through the gold can occur more readily.<\/p>\n<p><b>Gold Plating \u2013 Inspection<\/b> <a href=\"https:\/\/advancedplatingtech.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Inspection.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-798\" src=\"https:\/\/advancedplatingtech.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Inspection-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"Inspection\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" srcset=\"https:\/\/advancedplatingtech.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Inspection-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/advancedplatingtech.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Inspection.jpg 333w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a> Inspecting the thickness of a micro gold plated component with x-ray fluorescence per ASTM B568 requires an x-ray with a collimator of a small enough beam size to focus on the features of the part.\u00a0 Advanced Plating Technologies utilizes x-rays manufactured by Oxford, Fischer and CMI with collimators as small as 0.004\u201d to enable the inspection of extremely fine components.\u00a0 Deposit thickness readings to the micro-inch level (0.000001 inch) are common and accurate with these tools.\u00a0 Multilayer standards are also available in modern x-rays to inspect the thickness of multiple deposits such as gold plating over nickel without having to use coupons or pull parts after each step in the process. \u00a0 Adhesion testing and inspection under magnification is often required when gold plating micro parts.\u00a0 Commonly crimp and\/or bake and quench tests per ASTM B571 are performed and inspected under 10-100x magnification to properly evaluate the deposit.\u00a0 Without high-level magnification, minute failures or issues with the gold plated deposit can be missed and overlooked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By M. \u00a0Lindstedt Gold Plating Services \u2013 Delicate and Micro Parts Gold plating services within the medical, electronic or telecommunications&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gold"],"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7G6ce-cN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/advancedplatingtech.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/advancedplatingtech.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/advancedplatingtech.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advancedplatingtech.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advancedplatingtech.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/advancedplatingtech.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/advancedplatingtech.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advancedplatingtech.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advancedplatingtech.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}