Protecting Delicate Copper Parts using a Floating Center Rod - TE Connectivity

The Challenge

Cathode Danglers Cut Throughput in Half

TE Connectivity's Landisville, PA facility manufactures electrical connectors, terminals, splices, and related components for the computer, appliance, automotive, aerospace, and military markets. The site specializes exclusively in loose-piece barrel plating, running thousands of part numbers across six manual lines and one semi-automatic line (nicknamed "the Hobline"), with finishes including tin, tin-lead, nickel, gold, silver, copper, and zinc.

TE Connectivity's Hobline used traditional ball danglers for most of its production without issues. But for small, thin-walled copper funnels and sleeves, the ball danglers became a serious liability. These parts are annealed before tin plating to soften the copper, leaving them so soft they can be crushed between two fingers. As the plating barrel rotated, the ball danglers’ momentum crushed and deformed the parts.

Each batch contained tens of thousands of pieces, making it impossible to sort out damaged parts. Leaving any deformed pieces in the batch causes downstream jams and stoppages. With no alternative, TE Connectivity was forced to restrict these parts to small plating barrels only, since larger loads made damage unavoidable. This cut the plating throughput for that product family in half on a line that was already capacity-constrained.

The Solution

A Custom Floating Center Rod

When standard cathode danglers continued to fail, TE Connectivity consulted Novo Metal Finishing Equipment. Novo’s engineers conducted a detailed failure mode review and developed a purpose‑built cathode for TE Connectivity’s line. Their solution: a Custom Floating Center Rod engineered to prevent recurring damage.

The Custom Floating Center Rod provides:

• Single contained assembly: instead of two individual balls rotating freely and hammering down into the parts, the floating center rod is housed within a brass sheath that sweeps gently through the load.
• Distributed contact, not concentrated impact: as the barrel rotates, the center rod tends to stay near the bottom of the barrel. This allows parts to move around it rather than absorbing a direct, concentrated blow.
• Drop-in compatibility: the rod was dimensioned to fit TE Connectivity's existing large plating barrels, so no barrel modifications were needed.

Novo Metal Finishing Equipment and TE Connectivity went through a prototyping process, testing multiple design modifications before finalizing the design. Novo's technical team fabricated custom prototypes quickly, allowing TE Connectivity to evaluate the design against real production loads. Each revised prototype was fabricated and shipped within a few weeks.

Because the floating center rod dangler was sized to match TE Connectivity's existing barrels, installation mirrors that of a standard ball dangler. When production shifts to a different part number, platers can swap between a ball dangler and a floating center rod dangler in under five minutes - allowing the line to keep running seamlessly regardless of what's scheduled next.

The Result

Reduce Scrap by 90% with $48,500 in Savings

• Defect reduction: Across more than 100,000 pieces of funnels and sleeves processed with the new danglers, only 77 pieces showed any deformation. This is a damaged part reduction of >90% compared to the ball dangler baseline. Some of those 77 showed damage inconsistent with the plating process itself, meaning the true plating-related defect rate is likely even lower.
• Throughput gains: The large barrels hold double the capacity compared to small barrels. Therefore, every part number qualified to run with a floating center rod (in a large barrel) cuts the plating processing time in half.
• Cost savings: From the funnels and sleeves (a high-volume product family) TE Connectivity has saved $48,500 annually through reduced labor and machine-hour costs. There are opportunities for other parts to use this same solution. TE Connectivity will continue to see YOY savings increase as this solution is applied to additional part numbers.

We solve problems by pairing our intimate knowledge of the plating process with a hands‑on, collaborative partnership with our customers.

"Andre listened closely to our challenges with the traditional ball danglers and recommended the floating center rod danglers as a solution. Novo Metal Finishing Equipment clearly understands the impact of this project on our business and approached the work with a strong sense of urgency. It is clear that the team at Novo takes pride in what they do and genuinely values us as a customer."
— Plating Engineer, TE Connectivity, Landisville, PA