Adapt, Adopt, Improve - Thinky at Deutsch

That was certainly the view of the team at Deutsch UK when reviewing their adhesive program. Deutsch provide unrivalled expertise in the design and manufacture of interconnection solutions for the most demanding of environments. Deutsch products are well proven in the Civil Aerospace, Defence, Industrial Transportation and Motorsport markets, being used in numerous applications on Formula 1 racing cars to military aircraft. As part of their manufacturing process, a significant amount of test lab time was being taken up ensuring accurate, reliable dispensing of two part silicone adhesives, to manufacturers specifications. Applications range from sealing and void filling to thin film adhesion of plastic and rubber components, and in all cases it is important to have no air bubbles, which in extreme circumstances, could form tracking paths for electrical current. The existing process involved time consuming manual measuring through a valuable resource centre, followed by hand mixing. Further processing costs were added by vacuum degassing the mixed adhesive prior to use. In fact Chief Production Engineer Matt Davidson estimates that this adhesive preparation function alone may well have accounted for a 25% utilisation of test lab resource.

Matt was therefore delighted to come across the Thinky ARE-250 from Intertronics in his searches on the web. The Thinky ARE-250 mixes, disperses and degasses materials in seconds to minutes, in a sealed or lid-less container such as a jar, beaker, syringe barrel, or cartridge. The non-contact mixing principle makes it possible for formulation of compounds from very small amounts such as 0.5ml to production quantities of 310g.

The Thinky ARE-250 Mixer works by revolving and rotating the container in a planetary manner at various speeds with both overall and planetary rotational speeds independently pre-programmable. Centrifugal force presses the material outwards to the inner wall of the container. Other forces cause the material to move downwards in a spiraling direction along the slope of container wall. The material then moves back to the centre of the container and up to the top. No air is introduced during the mixing mode, and an optional degassing mode takes care of any original bubbles or entrapped air.

The result has been an improvement in the process by not introducing air in the first place, ensuring greater consistency and enabling a homogeneous mix without air bubbles, so ensuring the adhesives more closely fulfil their design specifications. In addition it is now possible to bulk load adhesive into an accurate shop floor dispensing system for an overall more reliable process.

Says Matt The Thinky is great - combined with the automatic dispenser it has solved a big problem for us and we are absolutely delighted. Further information regarding Intertronics’ products can be found at www.intertronics.co.uk