*Yu-Chen Lin, Ying-Hung Chenb , Ping Yen Hsieh, Tsung-Han Chen, Ju-Liang He, Feng Chia University, Taichung City, Taiwan
In responding to the high demand in industry using vacuum decorative coating techniques to obtain high quality coating as an alternative for wet processes such as electroplating, the fixture and jig for small workpiece batching work can be an issue toward scale-up production. In this study, a magnetic fixture was developed for loading the small-size chain plates that can undergo manual loading-unloading and possible automatic loading-unloading of the workpieces. Computer simulation for optimizing the SmCo magnet to provide the attraction force and the ease of loading-unloading for coating practice was compared. A batch-type chamber with two-fold rotation of the substrate table was employed for the decorative deposition work. A high power impulse magnetron sputtering (HIPIMS) was powered to the sputtering target and DC bias to the substrate table. Dense and strongly adhered coatings are expected. As a result of the experimental work, high-quality decorative coatings can be obtained with its interference color controllable ranging from gold, red, orange, blue and green. These coatings on chain plates are bearable for assembling into a whole chain, giving the evidence of the compactness of these decorative coatings. This study demonstrates the feasibility of utilizing magnetic fixture for PVD coating on small-size objects wherever ornamental purpose is needed.