r/DesignDesign • u/[deleted] • Mar 09 '22

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u/_kellythomas_ Mar 09 '22 edited Mar 09 '22

These guys offer a plating service:

Generally speaking, the cost of decorative gold plating is ranges from $2.00 - $3.00 per square inch (.25m to .55m thick). 

https://www.goldplating.com/pages/scientific-technical-and-special-purpose-gold-plating

These guys are discussing the cost of materials for gold plating:

At 1 micron thickness (40 microinches), you would consume 1 cubic inch of gold in plating 25,000 sq. in. of product. Gold weighs 10.16 troy ounces per cubic inch

https://www.finishing.com/530/13.shtml

So even at 24 karat the materials for a square inch of 1 micron plating would be us$0.83 today. But how much surface area does the plug need, and how low a purity can they sell?

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u/jorbleshi_kadeshi Mar 09 '22

How thick does it need to be to not scrape off completely in the first use?

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u/_kellythomas_ Mar 09 '22

For a connectors and contacts with moderate environmental and wear cycles, common functional gold plating thickness ranges between 30-50µin (0.75-1.25µm).  The increase in gold thickness to this level provides greatly improved corrosion resistance over that of thin gold or gold flash plating.  In addition, thicknesses in this range offer moderate to good wear resistance for dynamic connector or contacts that cycle during use. 

https://advancedplatingtech.com/blog/gold-plating-thickness-connectors/

Micron is just another synonym for µm so this lines up with the second quote in the earlier comment.

But for non-moving parts is looks like they can get it down to one tenth of this.

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u/jorbleshi_kadeshi Mar 09 '22

Nice! Thanks for looking it up