Abstract
Electroplating is used, for example, for corrosion protection, surface hardening, and metal thin-film manufacturing. 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 cases such as ornament plating. However, these additional processes would lead to a substantial increase in processing time and cost. In this research, an approach to realizing local electroplating by using a suction tool, with which the electrolyte is confined in the area between the tool electrode and workpiece, was carried out and the influence of machining conditions on the plating characteristics was investigated. The experimental results show that the maskless local electroplating can be performed, and the influences of the tool material, current density and the scanning speed were clarified. The plating of patterns such as characters is possible with the proposed method.
