Vacuum coating - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Page 1 of 1

Vacuum coating
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Vacuum coating is a mechanized process for applying coatings to lengths of materials. The product to
be coated is motivated or conveyed in a lengthwise fashion at a constant speed, and these speeds can be
as high as 500 feet per minute.

Contents
¦ 1 Process
¦ 2 Advantages
¦ 3 Disadvantages
¦ 4 References
¦ 5 External links

Process
The product passes through the portion of the coater known as the application chamber. As it enters the
chamber it passes through a template which has the same shape hole, or profile, in itself to the shape of
the product passing through. As it exits the chamber, it passes through another template called the exit
template that also has a matching profile.

Paint is drawn from a reservoir by a diaphragm pump, filtered for large particles, and delivered through
a hole into the bottom of the coater head. The fluid delivery diaphragm pump is by definition low shear
and under low pressure. The level of the coating then rises within the head until the part passing through
is completely surrounded or immersed.

A vacuum is applied to the reservoir and the application chamber. The reservoir is a sealed environment
attached to the coating head. The coating head contains the only area for air to inrush and that is the
space between the product and the template profile. It is this inrush of air that is used to strip excess
coating from the product and this removal of excess coating is what determines the wet film thickness
applied. The amount removed is subject to the vacuum relief valve, the size of the templates, the linear
speed of the product, and the viscosity of the coating. This application and removal method stratifies the
coating on removal and then it is drawn up and over a baffle and drains to the reservoir.

The amount of vacuum applied to the system regulates the resulting

coating thickness applied to the board. In a perfect system too much
vacuum would remove all the coating from the board leaving none
behind at all. Conversely a non-existent vacuum would allow the
coating head to fill sufficiently with coating where it would run out
of the space created between template and product.
Exit template view of a remote
Vacuum coating differs from vacuum deposition in that the vacuum vacuum coating head
employed here is intended to vary the amount of coating by sucking
off the excess and creating varying coating thicknesses between
0.001 and 0.008 in (25 and 200 µm) in thickness. Vacuum deposition is applying a coating while the
substrate is under a vacuum and applies the coating in very precise layers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_coating 2/3/2011