Fengfan Fast Light Speed Copper Plating Bright Acid Copper Plating Process MAX 960

Product Overview

This bright acid copper system is built for shops that need a clean, bright, ductile copper layer at production speed. The electrolyte is copper sulphate and sulphuric acid, carried by three liquid additives — A, B and C — that hold the brightness, the levelling and the coverage in low current areas. Deposits come out fine-grained and bright, with the low pinhole count that boards and electrical parts are judged on.

It sits at the copper step of the metal plating process: PCB fabrication, connector and terminal production, and industrial coating where copper is the base layer under nickel, chrome or a final finish. Electronic plating departments running fine patterns and through-holes are the core users, because the bath holds its levelling exactly where a board is thinnest.

Against a cyanide copper bath, there is no cyanide in the working solution, and the deposit still bends with the part through forming and thermal cycling. Against a conventional acid copper bath, brightness comes up faster across a wider current window, so one bath covers delicate panels and heavier sections without a chemistry change. The line runs it the way it runs any acid copper bath — made up once, filtered and agitated continuously, and topped up from the additive drums.

Product Advantages

• Fewer pinholes — a stable additive balance and continuous filtration keep particulate out of the deposit, so pitting and roughness rework falls away.
• Brightness comes up fast — parts reach a full bright finish quickly in the bath, which shortens the cycle on high-throughput lines.
• Levelling where the current is weak — fine patterns, recesses and hole walls fill evenly instead of dulling or starving at the low current end.
• Ductile copper — the layer bends with the part through forming, assembly and thermal cycling rather than cracking under stress.
• Heat tolerance — brightness holds when the bath runs warm, so plants without heavy chilling still ship a saleable finish in summer.
• Cyanide-free working bath — no cyanide salt to handle or monitor on the line, and a rinse stream with no free cyanide to destroy before treatment.
• Three-part additive control — A, B and C can be balanced for brightness against levelling when the work in the tank changes.
• Suits a fast electro plating line — filtration, agitation and dosing run continuously, so the bath follows the line instead of a manual routine.

Operating Parameters

Bath Make-Up & Daily Control

1. Settle the tank volume, the substrate and the line type with our team first, so the additive pack and the make-up amounts match the tank you actually have.
2. Charge the tank with water, add the sulphuric acid into the water — never the reverse — then add the copper sulphate and stir until it is completely dissolved.
3. Bring the chloride up to its working band and check it before the additives go in; it is the component most easily overshot.
4. Dose A and B, which are used in very small volumes, then C, which carries the bulk of the addition, mixing thoroughly between components.
5. Start continuous filtration and set cathode rocking or air stirring before the first load goes in — the electro plating process is only as stable as the flow across the parts.
6. Plate test panels at the current densities you plan to run, and correct falling brightness with the additive balance rather than with temperature.
7. Keep a log of additions and the brightness trend, and check the copper sulphate and sulphuric acid balance on a fixed schedule, because the two fall away at different rates.
8. Hold the bath inside its working temperature window; in a hot plant cooling is the control, not extra brightener.

Cyanide-Free Bath Handling

There is no cyanide in the formulation, so there is no free cyanide in the working bath. That changes the day-to-day risk: operators are not handling a cyanide salt, spill response is an acid response, and the rinse water leaving the line has no cyanide to destroy before treatment.

It is still an acid copper bath, and sulphuric acid is the handling risk that matters. Keep local exhaust ventilation at the tank lip, use acid-resistant gloves and eye protection for make-up and additions, and provide secondary containment where the drums are stored. In a metal plating shop, most incidents on a bath of this type come from transferring acid rather than from the plating itself.

Rinse water from the process of electroplating is treated as acid copper effluent — neutralisation and metal precipitation are the usual route. Confirm the discharge limits and the treatment route with your waste contractor and local authority before the first production run, because requirements differ by site and region.

Documentation follows the product rather than the range: ask us for the safety data sheet for the bath components, and tell us which market you supply so we can confirm which statements are actually available for this product.

Use Scenarios

• Printed circuit boards — fine circuit patterns and through-holes take an even, bright copper layer, and the bath holds its levelling in the thin sections where defects show first.
• Connectors, terminals and contacts — small racked parts brighten in recesses and on edges, so they pass inspection without hand polishing.
• In-house electronic plating departments — housings, shielding and current-carrying parts plated alongside the main production schedule.
• Industrial coating lines — copper as the base layer under nickel or chrome on hardware, fittings and machined parts.
• High-throughput automated lines — brightness comes up quickly on a fast electro plating line, and the bath keeps its balance through long runs.
• Job shops with mixed orders — one metal plating process covers delicate panels and heavier sections, so the bath is not rebuilt between jobs.
• Trial evaluation — plate your own parts on test panels before converting a line; it is the cheapest way to see how the deposit behaves.

Ordering & Delivery

1. Send us the tank volume, the parts you plate and the line type you run, so the additive pack and the packing size are checked against your job.
2. Minimum order quantity varies by chemical and is confirmed with our sales team for each order, so quantity is agreed before anything is charged.
3. Payment is 100% T/T in advance.
4. Production lead time is 2 weeks.
5. Packing follows our standard range: 10 kg/box, 25 kg or 50 kg/bag, 20 kg / 25 kg / 30 kg / 200 kg drum, and 1,000 kg/IBC drum.
6. Shipping runs per the terms agreed in the current contract.
7. After delivery an inspection certificate is issued, stating the batch number and the warranty period.

Line Fit & Conversion Checks

1. Confirm the line is a rack-plating line first. The published operating conditions are given as rack plating; if you run barrel work or a continuous strip line, confirm the settings with us before charging the tank.
2. Map your existing tank against the working window: 180–220 g/L copper sulphate, 55–65 g/L sulfuric acid, 60–120 ppm chloride, 20–40 °C and 2.5–8.0 A/dm² cathode current density. Any point you cannot hold is a risk to the metal plating process, not a dosing problem.
3. Check that the rectifier can reach and hold 2.5–8.0 A/dm² across the rack area at steady DC. A rectifier that cannot reach the band, or cannot hold it steadily, will not show the bright, level deposit the bath is capable of.
4. Confirm continuous filtration and cathode rocking or air stirring are available on the line. Both are part of the process, not optional extras; without them, pinholes and roughness appear even when the bath chemistry is correct.
5. For automated lines, verify that transfer times, agitation timing and dosing points can be set to keep parts wet and current steady through the copper step. On manual lines, write the same sequence into the work instruction, especially the dwell between make-up and the first load.
6. Record the existing bath data before conversion: current copper sulphate, sulfuric acid and chloride figures, temperature, current density, additive additions and filtration hours. This gives you a baseline to compare against the first MAX 960 run.
7. Plate test panels at the low, middle and high ends of your current density range, and include a panel with holes or recesses if you plate electronic plating parts. Judge brightness, leveling, pinhole count and bend ductility on your own parts before a full bath change.
8. Before approving the switch, assemble a conversion file: your baseline bath analysis, the trial panel results, the additive batch data and the safety data sheet for the components. Confirm with us which market statements are available for this product so the file matches the destination market.

Technical Support & Model Matching

Choosing the right match is where most sourcing decisions stall. As a trading supplier, we keep one point of contact from first enquiry to after-sales: tell us what you are making and the conditions you work under, and we shortlist the closest matches from our supplier network, compare specifications and arrange samples before you commit to a bulk order. If something does not behave as expected, we work with the supplying partner on the cause and a practical fix, and stay with the case until it is settled. Email, WeChat or WhatsApp enquiries get a reply within 24 hours.

FAQ