Injection molded and then electroplated plastic parts are mainly made of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) or polycarbonate/acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (PC/ABS) blends. Nevertheless, compared to these materials, polyamide (PA) has superior physical properties. However, the coating quality is inferior to that of conventional polymers and the scrap rates of 25% to 30% are higher. The coating quality depends not only on the electroplating parameters but also on the surface of the injection

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... molded part. The aim of this paper is to determine the influence of injection molding parameters on the surface structure of injection molded, mineral-filled polyamide parts. Therefore, mineral-filled polyamide parts are produced in a full-factorial design of experiments (DoE) and electroplated subsequently. Afterwards, surface parameters from DIN EN ISO25178 are determined by confocal microscopy for different pre-treatments of the electroplating process chain and at different positions