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Expert has production experience with cyanide copper, pyrophosphate, and acid copper plating baths. He has worked in a laboratory environment with both the fluoroborate and alkaline non-cyanide baths. He has used these baths for PWB plating, wafer plating, electroforming, plating on zinc diecast and aluminum, as well as standard steel substrates. He is familiar with typical troubleshooting techniques for these baths. He has worked with suppliers to install them in various facilities as well as providing training to the operators.

Expert has written a two-day training course on nickel electroforming. He has worked with the nickel sulfamate low stress bath as well as the low chloride Watts bath. He has experience in electroforming CD stampers, stencils, bellows, injection molding dies, and various other parts. He has set up electroforming baths for customers in the US, Canada, Japan and China. He has experience monitoring the electroforming baths both analytically and measuring the mechanical properties of the deposit. He has worked with electroforming parts from gold baths and copper baths as well as some nickel/cobalt alloys. He has worked with precision machining firms to produce mandrels of aluminum,copper, brass and nickel for production processes.

Expert has worked with the cyanide gold and sulfite gold plating baths. He is familiar with the equipment, processes, and procedures that must be controlled to provide a successful product such as barrel type and speed. Expert notes that anode size and location, filtration, and agitation rectification, such as pulse or direct all affect the plating distribution. The solution factors that affect the plating are metal concentration, pH, temperature, impurities, conductivity and additives. Gold is by far the most important plating used in the electronics industry and the amount of gold used on a project should be the minimum necessary to meet all the specification. Monitoring of the process for accountability, utilization and process control must also include preventing gold loss for any reason. Expert can assist with all of these matters.

Expert was the senior engineer in charge of the surface finish laboratory and the analytical laboratory for Honeywell, Inc. He provided analytical support and chemical testing for the production plating facility baths and cleaners as well as consulted with production engineering, research, and design on surface finishing processes. He worked with cyanide copper and acid copper plating, nickel and gold plating (both electrodeposited and electroless), tin and tin-lead alloy plating on many substrates, zinc plating (cyanide, alkaline, acid). Conversion coatings such as anodizing, chromating, metal coloring and oxide coatings. He has a good knowledge of the principles, strengths, and shortcomings of quality assurance and process control necessary for the production of acceptable parts.

Since 1965 Expert has been involved in most phases of metal finishing. Besides electroplating, he has worked with various conversion coatings such as anodizing, black oxides formation, and chromates. He has set up plating laboratories and small production shops and been involved in equipment design for large production facilities. In 1984 he became the plating troubleshooter working with many divisions of Honeywell. In 1985 he began teaching the introductory and advanced training courses in electroplating for the American Electroplating and Surface Finishing Society.

Expert has worked with the Watts and sulfamate nickel baths in production. He also works with the Wood’s nickel and Barrett sulfamate nickel strike baths. He has set up an electroforming production facility and consulted for various companies in many phases of electroforming. He has written training manuals and taught courses in electroforming for many companies. He has worked with nickel baths in reel-to-reel and rack and barrel applications. Expert has established analytical control of the baths, mechanical and physical testing of the nickel deposits.

Although there are eight metals in the precious metal group, Expert’s practical plating experience is with palladium, silver, platinum, and gold. He has also worked with both the electroless and electrodeposition formulations of various precious metal alloy baths. He is familiar with the analytical control of the bath makeup as well as physical testing of the deposits. His work is with precious metal plating for electronic applications and the disciplines of wirebonding and solderability. He is familiar with the many desired features of deposits used in electronics for the selection of one coating over another. The purpose and use of the finish are important factors in specifying a deposit besides just providing corrosion protection and conductivity. Expert can assist with all of these facets.

As a consultant Expert works with many companies in surface cleaning and preparation for plating, painting, conversion coating, and adhesive bonding. Expert notes that the primary requirement for bonding to a substrate is a clean surface. He has worked with various methods of cleaning, both chemical and mechanical. He has worked with plasma cleaning for contaminate removal in preparation for wirebonding and die chip attachment. He as also provided assistance in cleaning contaminated plated surfaces for soldering.

Expert developed a nickel/gold electroforming process for bellows for an implantable hearing aid.He designed and implemented an electroform mold operation for fiber optic cable connection. He designed the plating equipment and supervised its installation for an electroforming operation in China. Expert worked on process improvement for a solder plating operation for COB.He developed a silver metalization procedure for thick film circuits and non- conductive electrofoming mandrels. Expert improved the zinc and cadmium plating and conversion coating procedure to meet the corrosion resistance specification of the product.