News Release

£100,000 investment help Poeton meet growing demand for Electroless Nickel coating

June 2001

 
Poeton Industries Limited, a world leader in surface coating technology, has installed a second electroless nickel production line at its Gloucester factory. The new line, which represents a total investment of £100,000, increases the company's capacity in electroless nickel coating by 150%.

Typical applications for electroless nickel coating include valves, pumps, food approved components, electrial contacts, RS connector shells for MOD use and a wide range of general engineering components.

As well as conventional electroless nickel coating the new line will be used to apply Apticote 460, Poeton's specialised nickel composite coating that combines the protection of low friction polymers with natural hardenss and corrosion resistance of nickel.

A spokesman for the company says the new line represents a significant advance in electroless nickel processing, incorporating many new developments and lessons learned from the first line, which remains fully operational.

"This is a bespoke process that has been designed by Poeton and built to our specification." He says: "It enables us to coat to such fine tolerances that our customers can allow for a coating thickness when machining components and we will apply it so accurately that no further machining is required." He adds that the latest PLC controls allow Poeton to structure the coating process and work flow more efficiently to cut lead times, whilst the historic data available for every completed job ensures coating consistency for repeat orders irrespective of the time elapsed between batches.

The line also operates in fully automatic and semi-automatic modes. In automatic mode, which would normally be used for large batches, operators can load components at one end and unload them at the other, with all monitoring controlled by the PLC.

for one-off components, smaller batches or particularly complex components, semi-automatic mode allows operators to monitor and process components manually. In both modes the chemical dosing required to maintain the correct coating solution and consistency, is fully automated.

To discuss sample part processing or technical advice on electroless nickel, Apticote 460 or any of the 80 coatings available from Poeton Industries call 01452 300500 now.