Why use silver plating?
Silver plating provides a high quality coating for electrical contacts that has excellent conductivity, is hard-wearing and is also thermally conductive if required. As a decorative finish, silver plating has a long and distinguished history dating back hundreds of years, either over copper, alloys or nickel (often referred to as EPNS, or electroplated nickel silver). Antique items that have been plated with silver are usually referred to as 'silver plate'.

How does silver plating work?
Items to be plated are placed in a 'bath' of silver cyanide solution, and a current is applied to deposit a thin layer of pure, bright silver on the component. All silver-plated items are initially given a silver 'strike', a very thin layer of nickel chloride applied to the base substrate to improve adhesion of the silver layer.

Choose your silver plating thickness
For most electrical components, a standard thickness of 5-15µm is applied. However, the process can apply much greater thicknesses if required.