Electronics components look like the easy jobs. They are small, the material is usually free-cutting, and the features are simple. In practice the difficulty is elsewhere: holding a tolerance on something too small to grip comfortably, and doing it the same way a million times.
That is a Swiss-type and automatic-lathe problem more often than a CNC problem, and it is where our mix of machines helps — the same part can be quoted on three different processes, and we will tell you which one we would run.
Typical Electronics Components
Capabilities for Electronics Work
| Machining tolerance | ±0.01 mm standard |
|---|---|
| Surface roughness | Ra 1.6 |
| Typical processes | Swiss-type turning for slender parts, automatic lathes for volume, CNC turning for complex geometry |
| Materials | Brass C3604 / H62 / H59, copper, stainless 303/304/316, aluminum, engineering plastics |
| Surface finishing | Sandblasting, anodizing, blackening, zinc & nickel plating, polishing, passivation, electro-coating, PVD |
| Volume | From 5-piece prototypes to 1,000,000+ simple parts per month |
| Records | Dimensional report, first article inspection (FAI), material certificate |
Two things worth saying early
Tell us the plating specification. A parts’ final dimensions are not always the dimensions after plating. If a diameter is functional — it has to fit a bore or a socket — say so, and we will work to a pre-plate dimension that lands correctly afterwards.
Tell us how the part is handled. Turned parts arrive with a small burr unless something removes it. If the part goes into an automated assembly machine, or a pick-and-place, the burr specification matters more than the tolerance on a drawing that has neither. We deburr as standard; if you need a specific edge condition, describe it.