About Finishes
With Protocase finishes, you can apply chem film coating to aluminum, color the entire enclosure using powder coating, and add silkscreening or digital printing to print color text and images to the faces. You can also add dot peening, which does not use ink.
Powder coating is used to color the whole enclosure. For available powder coating colors, see Protocase Powder Coating. For details on silkscreening or digital printing on top of power coats and examples of good and bad contrasting colors, see Contrast between silkscreen and powder-coat colors.
Chemical conversion coating (also referred to as chem film, chromate coating, or yellow chromate coating) applies chromate to the metal substrate, is used to protect enclosures and metal parts from corrosion and to ensure that reliable electrical connections can be made to aluminum chassis and components. It is also an effective pretreatment for powdercoat. For details, see Protocase Chem Film.
Silkscreening is used to print simple images with up to just a few specific colors, shown on Protocase Silkscreening. For details on the silkscreen process, whether you use Protocase Designer to prepare the silkscreening or whether you send the images for us to prepare, see About silkscreening.
Direct digital printing, which will print any color, is used instead of silkscreening when images have multiple or gradient colors. Before specifying digital printing, please read instructions and important limitations in Adding silkscreening or direct digital printing using Protocase Designer. In particular, please note that direct digital printing will not stick to bare metal; you must use powder coating first.
Dot peening is a form of permanent marking on sheet metal parts, for traceability and identification to meet safety, warranty, or regulatory requirements. An alphanumeric pattern is first programmed into the dot peening equipment. The machine head is laid over the part while it is still flat (before bending and finishing) and a series of dots are then created by the impact of the pin. The end result is a readable, alphanumerical identification. You can specify alphanumerical identification as well as incremental markings, such as serialization. For detailed specifications, please see Protocase Dot Peening. We can dot peen any of our materials, but there are considerations when using thin gauges. Specifically, when dot peening aluminum thinner than 0.051” or steel less than .048”, ghosting or witness marks may show through on the reverse side. This is only an aesthetic issue and in some cases may be perfectly acceptable. Therefore, in cases where dot peening is to be specified on these thin materials, the designer should carefully consider where witness marks may show up. Dot Peening can be used on bare metal finishes or under powder coat, as the depth of the peening is sufficient to show through the paint. The presentation of the dot peened characters will vary from the different powder coat colors. See [| examples of dot peening under powder coat]. Important! Dot peening is not yet supported by Designer. In Designer you can add the text to the design, then add a Note to that text requesting that it be done in dot peening.
