Mechanical Plating - Advantages and Disadvantages

Advantages and Disadvantages

The greatest advantage of the process is its ability to overcome hydrogen embrittlement problems, which is important for workpieces that have a hardness greater than HRC 40. Note that there still is some embrittlement of the workpiece. While this process does not cause problems with hydrogen embrittlement, and electroplating does, it still offers equivalent corrosion protection. There is a great cost savings in using mechanical plating over electroplating on hardened workpieces, because the electroplating processes requires a pre- and post-plating operation to overcome hydrogen embrittlement problems. Moreover, because mechanical plating occurs at room temperature there is no tempering of hardened workpieces.

Another advantage is that mechanical plating evenly coats all surfaces and features, unlike electroplating which has issues plating recesses. Mechanical plating can evenly coat up to 75 μm thick. For thicker plating mechanical plating is especially cost advantageous versus electroplating, because the cycle time does not increase much for the thicker plating, unlike electroplating.

One of the disadvantages is the processes size limitations. Workpieces heavier than 1 lb (0.45 kg) can be damaged by the process, while flat lightweight workpieces tend to stick together so they are not properly plated.