Hi John,

Although I have never done anything like that..., and aside from figuring
out what 'rust inhibitor' to use..., I suppose you could use a similar
process to the creation of imbedded resistors... silk screen on the powdered
ferrous material suspended in an ink of some sort and bake off the binders
to cure it... ferrous materials would need to be encapsulated somehow to
prevent oxidation though wouldn't it or would ferrous oxide still do the
job?

I have never heard of 'stainless steel plating' before...
303 stainless typically is a non-magnetic non-ferrous alloy... so you must
be using the 400 series stainless in your design now which is magnetic and
more susceptible to rusting.

Sputtering comes to mind as another alternative... maybe you can get it
deposited onto the surface that way but I doubt it will be very cost
effective...

If you could get metalized sheets of epoxy laminate made with the steel
instead of copper you could etch them as individual layers to get the shapes
desired and then quickly passivate them, plate them or seal them and add
them as a part of your multi-layer construction in the board... possibly...
it's an interesting problem and deserves some more attention...
I wonder if the CTE of the dissimilar materials may play into unwanted
stresses in the board too... need to think about it more... fascinating idea
though...

Best regards,

Bill Brooks
PCB Design Engineer, C.I.D.+
Tel: (760)597-1500 Fax: (760)597-1510
Datron World Communications, Inc.
Vista, California

-----Original Message-----
From: John Parsons [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, July 14, 2006 9:03 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [DC] Ferrous Plating of PCB

Happy Friday!



I have a customer designing a product which incorporates an interrupt switch
composed of a Hall IC, magnet and ferrous vane.  Currently the vane is made
of laser or water jet cut ferrous stainless.  They would like to reduce the
cost and lead time of producing the vane and are asking if a ferrous
material can be plated to a PCB.



Does anyone in the group have any thoughts or experience that they can
share?



Regards

John Parsons




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