Yes Eric, I have worked with conductive coatings on plastic with no problems as long as some things are kept in mind -
There's a whole UL thing to it that I can list if enough people want me to. The coatings cannot withstand repeated removal from the product. The coatings are very fragile. Follow the basic rule of - "install the cover only when you know it's not going to be removed". I looked into nickel, copper, and silver. It seemed that nickel was half as conductive as copper and silver was more than twice conductive as copper. Price seemed to follow suit also. Shielding effectiveness totally dependent upon how well your vendor can control the thickness. Stay below 1 ohms/sq. I forget how many mils that works out to be for nickel. 7 mils maybe? Observe the type of emulsion used for the specific metal used. Nickel conductive coating is not nickel conductive coating. There are at least two out there I found - one's basically a water based paint, the other is a sort of oil based paint. The oil base is obviously less conductive and that translates to a thicker coating needed to be applied and that translates to more paint - more cost. Don't use it for primary ground obviously. I also looked into conductive plastic coatings. At the bottom of it all, conductive plastic was twice as expensive as plastic with conductive coating. Regards, Doug ---------- > From: Eric Henning <[email protected]> > To: [email protected] > Subject: conductive coatings > Date: Tuesday, February 24, 1998 3:53 PM > > anybody have any opinions on conductive coatings on plastic for rfi/emi > protection? we've been very successful at designing our products to > be quiet and immune even in plastic boxes but i've been asked to > look into conductive coatings for further protection. i've ordered some > spray/brush on coatings but is it a waste of time? I was hoping to find > spray can samples but haven't, anybody know of > spray bomb coatings? also looking into vacuum application. I guess > i'd like to try spray/brush stuff first just to see if it makes any > difference. > > thanks > > eric > [email protected]
