Vergason Technologies, Inc., a leading global innovator in sputtering, thermal evaporation, and cathodic arc thin film coating technologies, is utilizing Atlas manufactured aluminum water traps to improve cycle time, product quality, and overall system efficiency in their Press-Side® Rapid Cycle Metalizers.
The water traps help reduce the amount of water vapor that is pumped out of the chamber by freezing (trapping) the water on the surface of the water trap coil. By capturing this water, the other vacuum pumps in the system evacuate the chamber in a more efficient way, because they are now pumping just air instead of a mixture of air and water, The water traps leads to shorter cycle times and higher production throughput.
Another benefit is less risk of contamination of the metal while it’s being sputtered because of less water in the system.
The high thermal conductivity of aluminum improves the efficiency of the trapping process. And overall, aluminum offers better vacuum properties than stainless at a lower cost.
The Press-Side® Rapid Cycle Metalizer continues to be one of the largest selling products at Vergason and is designed to apply thin metal films on plastic components and can be incorporated into cell manufacturing concepts which, by design, have the metalizing process occurring directly after plastic components are ejected from injection molds.