Sound technical content, curated with aloha by
Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Pine Beach, NJ
The authoritative public forum
for Metal Finishing 1989-2024
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XRF and Plating Thickness Measurement
Q. Hi,
I measure the thickness, copper and tin concentration on Cu-Sn plated parts by X-Ray instrument. But I already encounter a problem. I divide the parts into two areas; one of them is polished and the other one is not polished. the polished area shows accurate results, but the other area shows any values for thickness, copper and Tin. All show zero. Can you help me to resolve this issue ?
Thank you
- Houston, Texas
March 5, 2024
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Q. Hi
Can some one tell me , how I can measure the plating thickness if aluminium is plated with tin with the copper as the preparatory base
employee - Kuwait
2007
A. X ray fluorescence [XRF machines on
eBay] will measure copper and tin thicknesses simultaneously on aluminium. The signals from these three elements are all well separated so you should get excellent results. There are geometric limits to the area to be measured but these would be unlikely to trouble you on a new machine. The test is very fast and non destructive.
One problem may be if you do not know which aluminium alloy you have; you have to tell the XRF the composition of the substrate. The ones I have used had the ability to carry out a limited amount of analysis so you may be able to find out.
The main problem may well be the price though. In the UK a good new one is £36,000 and standards could add another £1000.
- Whitstable, Kent, UK
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