Precision Plating System™ (PPS™)
Greystone is excited to bring our new state of the art and eco-friendly plating and anodizing technology to the world. Over the past 4 years, we have developed a highly capable system for precision selective plating of high-volume discreet parts, all without human contact. We call this new breakthrough technology the Precision Plating System™ (PPS™).
The Precision Plating System™ can be thought of as an ‘electro-plating machine’ that gives engineers the ability to customize plating deposits to meet their specific application. It provides the freedom and flexibility to plate multiple areas, specifically where you want, to the exact thickness you want, all within a single tight tolerance process.
Each PPS™ can be built with in-line automation which eliminates inconsistencies in the deposit from hand-masking and anode alignment by robotically placing each part into engineered tooling with individual part monitoring and manipulation. With PPS™, Greystone can precisely monitor and track how every single part is performing in the plating operation and if there are any inconsistencies in our control parameters, the PPS™ will automatically quarantine suspect product.
PPS™ Advantages
PPS™ was originally designed for Chrome plating, but many other electro-chemical processes and coatings can be
used, including: Chrome, Anodize, Nickel, Silver, Gold, Electropolish and more.
For each of these processes, PPS™ provides you with:
- Tighter tolerances than previously possible
- Cpk >2 for tolerances 10% of the nominal thickness
- Std. Dev. in current production as low as ≤ 0.2µm
- Increased flexibility for masking
- Ability to plate multiple surfaces in one operation
- Increased control with multiple anodes per part
- Real time process monitoring and single-part traceability
- Suspect parts are automatically separated
- Up to 70% chemical waste reduction compared to traditional plating
- Part manipulation provides packaging flexibility and reduced handling damage
- Reduce or eliminate secondary sizing processes with tight tolerances (“plate to size”)
- Simplifies supply chain by removing unnecessary secondary operations
- Allows for scalable capital investment and fast, flexible part changeover
- 100% automated visual & physical inspection equipment can be built into each PPS™ machine
PPS™ Process
For over 100 years, traditional electroplating has been performed by using a set of plating “racks” and fixtures to hold an array of parts throughout a plating tank or parts are processed in bulk with large plating barrels. In both cases, an inherent lack of control and uniformity has to be considered, from product design to quality control, to allow for variations in the plating deposit using these traditional methods. This is because plating has special characteristics like electrical current density, chemical concentration and temperature that all have some degree of variability part to part, which impacts the coating process and ultimately the coating itself.
With these issues in mind, Greystone has re-engineered the traditional plating process and developed the Precision Plating System™, allowing us to plate multiple areas on parts within a single process, to the exact thickness and desired plating profile.
