Water electroplating and vacuum plating are both electroplating methods used in rapid manufacturing. It involves attaching a layer of metal to a surface through a chemical reaction in order to increase corrosion resistance, alter the size, or create an aesthetic effect.

Water Electroplating

It usually applies to ABS material and ABS+PC material products. The major process is to put the product into the chemical plating solution for plating. According to the different needs of customers, various colors can be plated, such as high-gloss silver, sub-silver, gray silver, gunmetal, gold, black chrome, and semi-gloss chrome.

The conductivity of the product increases significantly after plating. There are two ways of insulation treatment. One is to apply insulating oil to the part to be insulated so that it will not be plated when plating, thus achieving the insulating effect. Of course, the component coated with insulating oil will become black, so it is not suitable for the outside surfaces. Secondly, protecting the part with special adhesive paper can also achieve the effect of insulation.

Vacuum Plating

Also called vacuum coating. It can apply to a variety of materials, including ABS, ABS + PC, and PC. According to different processes, it mainly can be divided into several types including vacuum vapor plating, sputtering plating, and ion plating. It can also be categorized into general vacuum plating, UV vacuum plating, and special vacuum plating. They all deposit various metal and non-metal films on the surface of plastic parts by distillation or sputtering under vacuum conditions. In this way, very thin plating can be achieved. At the same time, It has an outstanding advantage of fast speed and good adhesion. Its cost is higher than water electroplating due to its complex process and high environmental and equipment requirements, and it is limited in the types of metal coating it can use. It is often employed for functional plating of higher-grade products.

The process can be briefly concluded as follows: product surface cleaning and de-staticizing--> spraying primer--> baking primer--> vacuum coating--> spraying top coat--> baking top coat--> packaging. 

The Differences

Different process complexity

Water plating is widely used because its process is simpler and the requirements of equipment and environment are not as strict as vacuum plating.

Different material application

Water electroplating can only plate ABS material and ABS+PC material (the plating effect for the latter is not very good) and cannot be used for parts that need to be used at high temperatures. After vacuum plating, the parts can be resistant to a high temperature of about 200℃. For parts that require high-temperature resistance, spraying a layer of UV oil at the end of vacuum casting makes the surface of the product shiny, and high-temperature resistant, and ensures adhesion at the same time.

Different colors

It is typically only possible to obtain sub-silver, gray-silver, gunmetal, gold, black chrome, semi-glossy chrome, and other single colors with water plating. However, vacuum plating can realize the effect of seven colors.

Different costs

Simply speaking, if not covered by UV oil, the adhesion of vacuum plating is weak and cannot pass the 100-gram TEST. In comparison, water plating is obviously better than vacuum plating. Therefore, in order to ensure the adhesion of vacuum plating, it is necessary to carry out a special coating treatment afterward, and the cost is certainly higher.