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Product category: Control Valves (Rotary, Mixing, Temperature Control etc)
News Release from: Techcon Systems | Subject: TS5000
Edited by the Engineeringtalk Editorial Team on 07 August 2002

Disposable valve cuts dispenser
maintenance

A novel disposable micro valve completely removes the burden of maintenance, cleaning and repair in high-performance electronics and general manufacturing dispense applications.

A novel disposable micro valve completely removes the burden of maintenance, cleaning and repair in high-performance electronics and general manufacturing dispense applications Techcon has developed a unique and patented disposable micro valve technology for fluid materials dispensing that dramatically reduces the maintenance requirements of conventional permanent rotary valves, offers higher performance, and is more cost effective

The TS5000 Disposable Material Path (DMP) high performance micro valve from industry leading fluid materials dispense giant, Techcon Fluid Systems (a subsidiary of OK International), is completely revolutionising a vast range of materials dispensing processes.

Manufacturers will no longer need to invest hours of valuable engineering resource cleaning, repairing and maintaining their traditional fluid material dispense valves, and can instead use a disposable and practically maintenance-free alternative on their production lines.

"The primary drawback of conventional rotary dispense valves is that they rapidly become dirty and clogged during use", explains Gareth Davies, European Business Development Manager for Techcon.

"This makes them very difficult to maintain and use, because typical materials used in high performance electronics and general manufacturing applications are normally abrasive and highly viscous".

During the dispense process, therefore, the fillers compact under pressure and fill up the gaps in the rotary feed screw.

As a result, a rigid, almost solid, build-up can quickly amass inside the valve, through which no material can pass.

This can result in blockage or in the worst case critical failure.

"This makes cleaning an almost impossibly burdensome task that takes hours of engineering effort and can easily lead to damage being inflicted upon the valve itself", continues Davies.

"As a result, manufacturers have to spend large amounts of money cleaning and repairing the valves often exposing workers to cleaning agents and the material itself.

Users invariably have to stock more valves than they need to cover the downtime involved while damaged ones are being repaired".

"Abrasive materials also cause the feed screw in conventional rotary valves to become scored, which leads to a degradation in dispense accuracy and performance over time, and can cause premature failure of the valve.

As a result, the feed screw has to be replaced or refurbished on a regular basis, which is another source of expensive and time consuming downtime".

The Techcon TS5000DMP micro valve, however, totally eliminates these problems by introducing for the first time a consumable aspect to micro valve technology.

By exploiting an ingenious and patented disposable feed screw (auger) arrangement, Techcon has cost engineered the component that is exposed to the dispense material - the feed screw itself.

As a material build-up starts to occur or dispense performance begins to degrade, manufacturers can now simply replace the old feed screw with a new one, making cleaning and maintenance dramatically quicker and easier.

Because optimum dispense performance is always maintained, more accurate and reliable dispensing is achieved.

Downtime associated with having damaged valves repaired is also eliminated, along with the need for valve refurbishment, and the useable lifetime of the valve itself is also extended due to less material build-up, wear on its component parts and stressing of the DC motor.

These huge process and economic advantages mean that the Techcon TS5000DMP is suited to an enormous range of industries that have to dispense fluid materials to a high degree of accuracy.

In electronics, for example, typical fluid dispense materials that are highly abrasive and viscous but need to be deposited with high accuracy include solder paste, chip and die attach bonding material, encapsulant, BGA underfill, and adhesive.

The application of all of these will benefit hugely from the TS5000DMP.

In construction, the TS5000DMP's housing and disposable feed-screw are all made of ultra high grade Delrin plastic.

The self-contained TS5000DMP is also driven by a 6W DC motor and is capable of depositing fluid dispense material in small dots down to 0.254mm in diameter at rates of five or more per second, and, or, as a continuous bead in widths that range from 0.254 to 2.54mm in diameter at rates of up to 101.6mm/s.

The precision accuracy Delrin plastic mouldings used in the TS5000DMP also mean that the head of the feed screw and valve housing are allowed to free float, and the auger mechanism will always mesh and interlock perfectly together.

As a result the disposable feed screw is highly interchangeable with no performance differences between one disposable feed screw and the next.

In addition, the use of Delrin plastics means that the TS5000DMP offers greater fluid material type compatibility as well, way beyond that achievable with conventional metallic valves (especially magnetic ferro-fluids).

To make valve replacement exceptionally easy, the TS5000DMP features a hinged doorway in the front for easy access, and fitting a new auger screw feed demands no bolting: it simply slots into place.

This process can be performed within seconds while a production line is still in operation.

"The Techcon TS5000DMP micro valve is therefore the dispense valve solution that manufacturers worldwide have been waiting for", concludes Davies.

"It offers all the benefits of a traditional rotary valve while offering exceptional ease-of-maintenance with zero cleaning, repair and refurbishment requirements.

At the same time, the consumable nature of the new TS5000DMP valve means that it delivers a far higher level of consistent dispense performance and is a dramatically more cost effective dispense solution".

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