Costs of Photochemical Etching
Photochemical etching (PCE) is characterized by its ability to produce highly complex components with tolerances of up to ±7 micrometers without affecting material properties. In addition, stress- and burr-free parts are produced without restrictions regarding complexity. The process is suitable for a wide range of metals and alloys, including difficult-to-machine materials such as aluminum, titanium, and other hardened metals.
While the process enables the production of components that cannot be realized with other manufacturing technologies, the unit price remains decisive for economic success.
In PCE, chemical substances are used to selectively remove areas of a metal sheet to create the desired shape. The costs of the process are therefore composed of the costs for the metal sheet, photoresist, etching chemicals, water, energy, waste treatment, machine runtimes, and labor.
A large part of the labor-related overheads in the PCE process (including tooling, material cleaning, lamination with photoresist, exposure, development, etching, and resist stripping) remains constant regardless of material type or size. Etching costs are essentially determined by the required processing time per material length as well as by the material thickness (thicker materials require longer process times). Therefore, cost advantages can be maximized by arranging as many components as possible on a given material area and choosing the material as thin as possible for the respective application.
However, it is not only the number of parts per sheet that is decisive. While costs increase with increasing geometric complexity in other metalworking processes, complexity in PCE has no impact on costs. Furthermore, the process enables the production of different components on a single sheet or strip, which brings significant cost advantages.
The process uses digital or glass-based tooling, which is significantly more cost-effective than stamping tools and also has much shorter lead times. Digital tools also allow for cost-effective adjustments in late development phases, which are often very expensive with traditional tooling.
Any reduction in manual intervention also lowers costs. micrometal offers a fully automated PCE process that significantly reduces labor costs and enables particularly competitive unit prices.
A PCE specialist like micrometal can contribute to cost optimization as early as the initial phases of product development. Cost-efficient design in PCE means minimizing material usage, avoiding unnecessarily tight tolerances, and not specifying structures that are too small in relation to the material thickness. micrometal provides comprehensive advice on this and ensures that customers benefit from one of the most cost-efficient manufacturing technologies for precision metal parts.
