gold PCB edge contact plating

[fargap]

I\'m having a few prototype printed circuit boards made, and I\'d like to gold plate the edge contacts myself - the PCB people charge a way-high setup fee for the service.

So, I figure I can nikel plate and then gold plate with your Plug N Plate method. But...I don\'t know if I can get the edge contacts masked, ie, left just plain copper - it may be that they will have to be tin plated along with the rest of the board. If that is so, can I nickel plate and then gold plate over the tin plate, or can I just gold plate the tin without nickel (too soft?), or should I really insist that the contacts I want to plate be left plain copper.

The other question is whether I need to buy two plug n plate kits - one for nickel and one for gold - or can I just buy one gold kit, and a bottle of nickel solution?

Thanks

[mcaswell]

You can mask them yourself using our Mask-It solution - http://www.caswellplating.com/maskit.htm

or you could nickel, then gold plate over the tin plate.

You can buy one kit, then a bottle of the other solution. The rest of the hardware is the same.

[clab]

I got not so good results going over the tin/solder plate on my pcbs. I tried a number of strip methods (mechanical) and none really worked well enough. I found that nitric acid diluted with a bit of 12% hydrogen peroxide applied with a Q tip worked well for this. Then nickel, then gold, and it's as good as the pros can do it.