Metal Photo Etching
10 October 2019
What is Metal Etching?
Metal etching, which is also known as photo etching, chemical etching or photo chemical milling (PCM) is a manufacturing process which uses ferric chloride as an etching chemistry to produce intricate and highly precise precision metal components.Metal etching offers a very fast turnaround alternate solution to other processes such as stamping, punching, water jet or laser cutting particularly for very fine feature complex metal components from 0.0127mm – 1.60mm thick in most metal types.
How does the process work?
- The metal is cut, cleaned and then laminated with a blue UV photo-sensitive resist, which is then printed with your desired CAD artwork design profile.
- After printing your design, the metal is then developed, which effectively washes away any unexposed photoresist from the print process, leaving a raw metal profile track line for the etchant to etch through the metal.
- After etching out the profile design, we simply remove the blue UV photo sensitive resist to leave the raw metal parts either loose or tabbed into the larger fretwork sheet.
Metal Etching Benefits include:
- Photo etching is a completely burr free and stress-free process with no mechanical force or heat being applied to the metal parts during production.
- Artwork is in CAD format and transferred to an acetate photo-tool, therefore any design changes are very simple amend and very fast implement and cost effective. We offer FREE photo-tool artwork at Qualitetch, once you supply a DXF of your required profile, but many of our competitors charge up to £100+ for this service.
- Our photo etching process does not recognise the complexity of your design therefore components with many holes such as meshes can be manufactured at no additional cost than a simple shape profile.
- Tolerances offered from +-0.025mm dependant on material type and thickness.
- FAST lead-times with parts available within a few days.
Stainless steels and spring & mild steels
Nickel and nickel alloys
Aluminium
Copper and copper alloys
Molybdenum
Other Press Releases By This Company
- 05/09/2023 - The Benefits of Photo Etching in Enhancing Business Efficiency and Precision
- 15/08/2023 - how can photo etching help me?
- 15/08/2023 - what is photo chemical etching?
- 05/05/2023 - AS9100D Recertification
- 09/03/2020 - What is Metal Photo Etching?
- 10/10/2019 - Sheet metal enclosures and EMC EMI & RFI screening cans
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- 10/10/2019 - Copper is helping to kill superbugs!
- 10/10/2019 - Photo Etching v Chemical Etching, What’s the difference?
- 19/06/2019 - Photo Chemical Etching FAQ’s
- 24/04/2019 - Qualitetch Components April 2019 Newsletter
- 18/09/2018 - Qualitetch completes ISO AS9100 Rev D aerospace accreditation
