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does bright dipping affect part thickness?

ianwatts

Plastic
Joined
Oct 14, 2021
Location
Los Angeles, CA
I am bright dipping my part along with anodization, my type II anodization adds a thickness of 0.0003″ and was wondering if bright dipping affects thickness. From what I know it's a very chemically harsh process that flattens out the surface, and strips a tiny bit away, is it enough to factor into machining?
 
It depends how accurate your parts need to be. I don't normally factor any size change from anodizing into my parts. You might, though, if you have some very precise features.

I did get burned once when some parts came back from anodizing way undersize. It turns out that they messed up the anodizing somehow and ran them again. It completely ruined the parts. That was an anomaly, though.
 
Yeah think I was overthinking it in the beginning. I'm press-fitting magnets and had a few experiences of magnets breaking on the press that spooked me and made me overthink it. Anytime I've thought it was an issue it turned out to be some other variables.
 
From my experience Bright Dip only takes off maybe half a tenth, which with .0003" type II build up, they will have more tolerance than that. Also, don't forget that the .0003 is quadruple on threads.
 
Yeah think I was overthinking it in the beginning. I'm press-fitting magnets and had a few experiences of magnets breaking on the press that spooked me and made me overthink it. Anytime I've thought it was an issue it turned out to be some other variables.
You’ll see way more variance in magnet size than anodize.
 
It depends how accurate your parts need to be. I don't normally factor any size change from anodizing into my parts. You might, though, if you have some very precise features.

I did get burned once when some parts came back from anodizing way undersize. It turns out that they messed up the anodizing somehow and ran them again. It completely ruined the parts. That was an anomaly, though.
If they leave the parts in the stripper too long they will be small and the holes will be big.
 
In a former life i had to get a lot of stuff plated and anodized. We had a sister company i was forced to use. Long story short, they could eff up a wet dream. I hated sending them stuff.

Sometimes had to do stuff they weren't certified to do. So I sent it to reputable plating shops. It was a pleasure.

Know your plater. They can ruin lots of stuff for you.
 
If you can, open up the hole to a slip fit and put the magnets in with loctite 680. Like someone else said, the magnet diameter varries a little too much for a reliable press fit in my experience. We've been doing it for years, works great.
 








 
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