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Benefits at a glance
- Low-cost digital tooling
- Burr- and stress free – metal temper and magnetic properties unaffected
- Over 2,000 metal types – including hard to machine metals
- Accuracy to ±0.025mm
- In-house forming, finishing and plating
- Lead-times in days, not months
Precision Micro etches a wide range of custom 2-D and 3-D connectors and contacts including contact springs for military jets, contact membranes for home appliances, busbars for Formula 1 kinetic energy recovery, antennae and micro antennae for pocket-sized UAVs, spring finger contacts used in PCB applications and ultra-thin resistive heating elements used in electro-thermal ice protection systems.
Economical, precise and accurate
Unlike presswork, photo etching uses low-cost digital tooling, ensuring prototypes can be produced quickly and refined economically without expense. The process is accurate to ±0.025mm – the quarter of a diameter of a human hair!
Materials
Connectors and contacts often need to operate in extreme environment conditions, such as the human body, military jets or space satellites. Photo etched connectors are stress- and burr-free, ensuring reliability, and can be specified from high-performance metals which offer excellent strength-to-weight ratio, biocompatibility and low-coefficient of thermal expansion.
Forming and finishing
Our in-house press shop offers manual and semi-automatic precision forming using standard, modular and custom form tools. Where possible, bend lines can be incorporated into photo etched connectors, removing the need for hard form tooling.
Precision Micro also offers a range of post-process coatings to improve wear resistance and enhance conductivity, including gold, tin, silver, tin/lead and sulphur/nickel coatings, which can be full or selectively plated.
Typical Applications
- Contact springs
- Contact membranes
- Busbars
- Antennae and micro antennae
- Spring finger contacts
- Resistive heating elements
- Battery terminals
Processes
- Photo etching
- Forming and finishing
Materials
- Steel and chrome nickel steel
- Aluminium
- Copper and copper alloys
- Titanium and titanium alloys
- High temperature alloys
- Full material stock list
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Want to know more?
See how photo etching works
The basic principles of photo etching can be demonstrated in nine process steps.
Technical guidelines
Created to guide you through designing for the photo etching process, outlining achievable tolerances and component features.
Talk to us
With backgrounds which include CAD, machining, technical and operations planning, our sales engineers have the photo etching know-how to answer your questions.
Request samples
Component samples designed specifically to demonstrate the features and benefits of photo etching.
Request a quote
Submit your component data for technical evaluation and pricing.
