Switzer Blog

It’s hard to remember a time where streets were void of electric and hybrid vehicles. In fact, it’s quite common these days to see plug-in stations in parking lots and hear of well-known automotive brands embracing the electric culture.

Any time you need to make a custom metal part, there’s a wide range of manufacturing methods available. The challenge can be selecting the right one that best fits your needs—including quality, cost, turnaround time and manufacturability. In many cases, chemical etching (also known as photo chemical machining) offers clear advantages over other processes.

Sheet metal fabrication is a process that involves various techniques. While each comes with its own advantages, it’s important to consider how these benefits apply to your specific design.

When designing or sourcing a manufacturer for a flat precision metal component, trying to determine whether laser cutting or photochemical etching* is the best alternative method to produce it can be difficult. And as with nearly every component, the answer may not be black and white.

In the aerospace industry, instrumentation is an important point of concern. Researchers are constantly searching for ways to design precise, reliable instruments that deliver accurate measurements.

The way products are manufactured has a crucial impact on their success in the market. This is true not only of the processes behind their development but also the design and engineering of tools used for fabrication—or what’s known as tooling.

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have come a long way in recent years. Lightweight parts and sophisticated sensors are now the norm, and cutting-edge technologies once reserved for industrial and military applications are available to consumers at relatively low costs.

While drones may not be a new technology, it’s only recently that their mass adoption and use has grown. Amidst this growth, the majority of opportunities have come from the commercial and civil side. In fact, according to 2016 research from Goldman Sachs, commercial and civil organizations are expected to spend $13 billion on drones…

Short Version: Photo tools are an essential step in the etching process. They are the means by which we transfer your design from your CAD file onto the metal.

From simple parts to complex components used in modern manufacturing, a wide variety of metal parts are created through photochemical etching. A subtractive process by which small pieces are removed from sheet metal, metal etching has proven to be one of the most effective ways to produce accurate, consistent parts.