Abstract
Electroplating is used for corrosion protection, surface hardening, metal thin film manufacturing, etc. In conventional electroplating, the workpiece is immersed in the plating solution, and the whole contact surface is plated. Therefore, the mask operation and the removal of unnecessary plating film are needed for local plating in the case of ornament plating and so on. However, these additional processes would lead to a substantial increase in processing time and cost. In this research, a novel approach to realize local electroplating by using a suction tool, with which the electrolyte is confined in the area between the tool electrode and workpiece, was proposed. The results of the verification experiment showed that the maskless local electroplating can be performed, and pattern plating such as characters is possible with the proposed method.
