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Electroless Nickel & Copper Blistering on Lexan

Hi, I'm working for the Navy on a project and one of our contractors is having trouble with an annealing/plating/annealing process. They're trying to put electroless copper and electroless nickel on Lexan. It worked for a small number of trial runs, but now it blisters during the cool down of the second annealing process. If anyone can suggest what is going wrong it would be immensely helpful.

Thanks, Jim

Jim Thompson
- Crane, Indiana, USA
2000

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Where is the delamination occurring? from the plastic or between the metal layers. Big blister or lots of very tiny ones?

James Watts
- Navarre, Florida
2000

James,

My understanding is that it is between the metal and the Lexan. As far as the size of the blisters, I'm not sure. I'm a new hire here so I'm still getting in the swing of things. My co-worker that would know is out of the office today. Would it be possible for you to discuss both aspects so when he returns I'll have an answer for him. This has been a huge problem for this project. If you could solve it, you don't know how happy you would make us.

Thanks a lot, Jim Thompson

Jim Thompson
- Crane, Indiana
2000

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James, I called the contractor and spoke to him about the problem. The copper is separating from the Lexan, and currently "tiny bubbles" are the problem. He said that at first the bubbles were "catastrophic". They started baking the parts before plating them and the bubbles became tiny. Thanks

Jim Thompson
- Crane, Indiana
2000

Plating on plastic is not my thing, but it is necessary information for someone else to try to help. Lexan is not easy to plate on. Step one is to contact tech services of the manufacturer of the electroless copper and the manufacturer of the sensitizer for the Lexan. they are the people that are supposed to be the experts. There are several very qualified people that visit here also, an hopefully they will give valuable pointers.

James Watts
- Navarre, Florida
2000

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How do you make the Lexan conductive, with a conductive paint? Regarding plating of electroless nickel on top of electroless copper, you need a palladium step in between. Plating EN on ECu on Lexan, that is a very complicated process. I hope you have a good supplier that plans for you the whole process and not only a few steps.

Sara Michaeli
Tel-Aviv-Yafo, Israel
2000