Article, "The Use of Non-Contact Thin Gap Sensors in Controlling Coater Gap Uniformity" - CAPACITEC - #1

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1 The Use of Non-Contact Thin Gap Sensors in Controlling Coater Gap Uniformity Written by Bryan Manning Capacitec PO Box 819 Ayer, MA 01432 Tel: 978-772-6033 Fax: 978-772-6036 email: sales@capacitec.com Summary This article will cover the use of capacitive non-contact thin gap sensors in controlling coater gap uniformity The discussion will begin with a description of various coater die gap applications. It will lay out the measurement challenges facing these applications as well as the traditional methods used to measure gaps. Next will be a brief description of capacitive technology. This will be followed by a detailed description of the development of a new capacitive sensor system including specialize sensor wands and customized fixturing, sensor electronics and signal conditioning software. The conclusion will show how the use of this new system has made dramatic improvements over traditional gap measurement methods achieving coater gap uniformity better than 10 microinches (0.25 microns) across the full length of the coater die. Application Description Capacitec has been working closely over the past 10 years with the leading global manufacturers of tapes and films for various commercial and industrial uses. The development was pursued directly with end users as well as with various coater suppliers. The common thread between these users is the utilization of slot extruder dies to apply a variety of very thin chemical, adhesive and photographic coatings to a variety of media. Specific examples of applications include: • Adhesive coatings onto labels • Chemical coatings onto films and tapes • Photographic coatings onto films • Manufacture of plastic tapes In a typical applications the coater die slot gap sizes range from 0.006” (150 microns) to 0.024” (600 microns) with a typical set of slots being 0.006”, 0.008”, 0.010”, 0.012”, 0.014” etc. The length of the slot gap is typically 3 to 6 feet (1 to 2 meters) wide.