LPKF Through Hole Plater

Safety

This machine has many safety precautions built in, however, please follow the rules below. 

Rules

How do I get access to this machine?

Because this is such a lengthy process and the chemicals expire regularly, please check with a staff member if the machine is available and ready for use. We may recommend outsourcing boards that need through hole plating.

How Does it WOrk?

The LPKF Contac S4 is a machine that allows for the addition of copper plating on a circuit board. A primary example of the use of this machine is for copper through hole plating for double sided PCBs. The LPKF Contac S4 uses a lengthy chemical process to add on the copper. The boards that go through the machine will come out with an additional 18um copper added onto the initial board. The use of vias in double sided boards will need copper through hole plating to conduct current through the middle of the board, which will have added copper as need below. 

An example of a via in the image above. The copper plating on top is connected to the copper plating on the bottom through the hole (via).

More resources

Follow this guide to run through the steps of through hole plating.

To do copper plating is a process that happen part way through the double sided PCB fabriation process so please check out this guide as well.