Virtual instrument for monitoring process of brush plating

A virtual instrument(Ⅵ) was developed to monitor the technological parameters in the process of brush plating, including coating thickness, brush-plating current, current density, deposition rate, and brush plating voltage. Meanwhile two approaches were presented to improve the measurement accuracy of coating thickness. One of them aims at eliminating the random interferences by moving average filtering; while the other manages to calculate the quantity of electricity consumed accurately with rectangular integration. With these two approaches, the coating thickness can be measured in real time with higher accuracy than the voltage-frequency conversion method. During the process of plating all the technological parameters are displayed visually on the front panel of the Ⅵ. Once brush current or current density overruns the limited values, or when the coating thickness reaches the objective value, the virtual will alarm. With this Ⅵ, the solution consumption can be decreased and the operating efficiency is improved.