Photo Etching for Flat Springs and Blanks

Popular alloys for etched flat springs include:

• tempered stainless
• carbon steels
• tempered copper, brass and phos bronze including beryllium copper
• 17-7 stainless,
• C1075 and 1095 carbon steel and beryllium copper can be heat treated after etching and forming

Flat springs are resilient devices formed from flat strip material, rather than wound wire, and have multitudes of applications, both mechanical and electrical. One of the most common is as battery contacts. Flat springs are also used as retainers, shields, clips, detents, contacts, wipers, brushes, and more.

Photochemically etching metal blanks is an effective solution for producing flat springs because the process is very economical for complex shapes and very thin materials. Flat spring components often require forming. In many cases, heat treating and plating are also required. In addition to photo etching, Conard provides turn-key service for multiple processing requirements.

We frequently work with spring manufacturers and stamping houses to photo etch flat blanks for designs that are in development. All we need is a CAD file for the developed (pre-bending) blank design.  We may photo etch hundreds to tens of thousands of parts until the volume justifies the expense of hard tooling.

Many flat spring forms are chemically etched in tempered alloys of copper, including beryllium copper and brass and phosphor bronze. Spring steels such as C1075 and C1095, in the annealed state, are readily etched as well. Heat treating annealed spring steels after forming produces desired spring characteristics.