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Matte Etching

2004

Our products are watt-hour meters that are installed outside of residences for measuring the energy consumption. 90% of them have, for about 30 years, aluminum parts that have been matte etched. They are not anodized. Just matte etched. The other 10% has the same aluminum parts but not etched, just degreased. These parts are inside the meters, not exposed directly to humidity, etc. We never had a single problem with the parts not etched.

My question is: does the matte etch itself offer any kind of corrosion protection or it is purely cosmetic? Again the behavior in the field of both, matte etched and not matte etched parts are very good with no problems at all.

Thanks a lot.

Lucio Oliveira
General Electric Co. - Somersworth, NH, USA

Exposed aluminum will sometimes oxidize in random patterns and be splotchy ugly. Etched aluminum starts out sort of uniformly ugly and becomes uniformly ugly.

James Watts
- Navarre, Florida
2004