Plating Barrel Cylinder Construction
Experience and testing has proved that there is no more cost effective, hard wearing and robust material than Ultra High Molecular Weight Polyethylene for manufacturing electroplating barrels. That’s why we use Premium grade PE 1000 for our barrel cylinders.
Download this chart which demonstrates the relative resistance of PE1000 to abrasion when measured against other materials.
Plating Barrel Cylinder Quality Test
The images shown here are “real” images, taken after a live production test in which an Eagle PE 1000 barrel was trialled against another manufacturer’s PE 500 barrel.
The barrels were used for the same period of time (1900 hours, over 12 weeks) in parallel production lines, with the same mix and volume of products being plated.
Eagle PE1000 grade barrel
Other manufacturer’s PE500 grade barrel
What’s the difference? A combination of Eagle Engineering’s unique design, coupled with the use of higher grade UHMW PE 1000, means that our plating barrels, whilst not the cheapest, represent the best long-term value.
Why We Use PE1000 for Eagle Plating Barrel Cylinders
- Resistance to component entrapment – zero rejects
- Enables more perforations and larger open area for solution transfer
- 5 times the wear resistance of polypropylene
- Faster processing times, with savings in power costs
- Ultra-high impact strength to cope with heavy components
- Excellent resistance to internal wear
- Superb tensile strength
- Resistance to stress cracking
- Perforations resistant to peening or diameter reduction
- Minimal surface tension – lower coefficient of friction than glass
- High load capacity up to 750 Kg
Electroplating Barrel Construction with “Double Lock” Joints
Plating Barrel Cylinders – Advanced Perforation Techniques
Maximum perforation is essential to the working efficiency of the electro-plating barrel. The greater the open area the more efficiently the electrolytic solution will transfer. This achieves greater amps at less volts resulting in faster deposit times.
We only use UHMW PE 1000 grade which, with its remarkable anti-wear and ultra high tensile strength characteristics, enables a greater number of perforations to be made than is possible with lower specification materials, couple with extended barrel life. The perforation open area can be over 45%, giving outstanding electroplating efficiency.
- Holes are internally countersunk to increase solution transfer and reduce solution drag-out.
- Slots are externally counter bored to increase solution exchange.
- Corrugated wall finishes are available to eliminate surface tension and parts sticking, avoiding transfer marks to product
- Reduction of solution drag-out
- Hole perforations vary from 1.5mm to 12mm, with slots from 1mm to 3mm
Please call us or complete our Contact Form