KOVAR parts are also known as KOVAR alloy parts. Kovar parts processing products are mainly used for glass sintering, so Kovar alloy parts are mainly cavity structures, that is, the parts products generally have internal Spaces to place electronic structural components and then seal the glass after sintering.
At present, the two main processing methods for Kovar alloy parts are CNC machining and CNC core machining. CNC machining of Kovar alloy is mainly used for the production of square cavity structural parts, while CNC core machining of Kovar alloy is mainly used for the production of cylindrical cavity structural parts. CNC machining and numerical control core-cutting machining are collectively referred to as machining. Kovar alloy materials have relatively high plasticity, so they are prone to tool sticking during processing. Especially when drilling and tapping Kovar alloy, it is particularly easy for the tool to break due to tool sticking, thus resulting in low processing efficiency. Moreover, when processing cavities, a large amount of material is excavated to form space, so the material utilization rate of Kovar alloy processed parts is also not high. Generally, it does not reach 50%. These are all the drawbacks of Kovar alloy machining. However, if the order volume of Kovar alloy products from customers is small, machining is the only relatively convenient processing method.

I once encountered a few customers who had a huge demand for KOVAR parts. Due to the fact that the machining speed simply couldn't keep up with their demands, Stan Hardware was forced to choose other processing methods, which led to this story. I would like to share it with everyone in the hope of making progress together. In 2017, Stan Hardware received a customer from South Korea who needed 50,000 pieces of Kovar alloy products per month. The products were hollow items with dimensions of 30*15*10mm in length, width and height, and a wall thickness of 1mm. If CNC processing was used, not only would the output fail to meet the customer's requirements, but the cost would also not satisfy the customer's demands. Although the powder metallurgy process was attempted, it was abandoned because the nickel content in the Kovar alloy was too high and this process could not be used. Later, we concentrated all the R&D personnel to tackle the problem and came up with the idea of using the stretching process for Kovar alloy strip material to produce this cavity. Through actual testing, it fully met the customer's requirements. The mass production speed and unit cost could also meet the customer's requirements. Only then was the problem successfully solved. There is another type of cavity for processing Kovar alloy, which is rather plain in shape, like a matchbox, and requires hollowing out on three sides. This cannot be accomplished by stretching and must be done through extrusion with a press of over 300 tons. Stander Hardware is quite experienced in the extrusion of Kovar alloy, but it is still relatively expensive to open a continuous cold extrusion die for this type of cavity. It is usually over 70,000 to 80,000 RMB. So if you don't have an order of over 200,000 RMB for Kovar alloy processing parts, you might as well not consider it.
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