Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1150604
24 SMT007 MAGAZINE I AUGUST 2019 zle head-on, the spray broadens out as it goes, creating either a fan- or a leaf-like curtain of material that dispenses a straight wall of mate- rial. Film coat tends to have a fairly high flow rate, but if you take that fan and rotate it 90 degrees, you use a very narrow knife edge. Some applicators may atomize more effi- ciently and give you overall better edge defini- tion and uniformity, even at different speeds. Some applicators may be designed so that they have better applicator shut-offs, giving you cleaner starts and stops, etc. At Nord- son ASYMTEK, we make sure that we clearly establish what those start and stop distances are such that we can get the correct placement of our fluid at the beginning and end of the line. That is pretty unique to us. As we mentioned earlier, it's a closed-loop system. When you just put an applicator onto a piece of equipment, it can dispense, but you would not get the feedback, accuracy, or reli- ability. When you're building millions of prod- ucts, like mobile devices, or require high lev- els of reliability, like for automotive or medical electronics, then the line has to keep running, and throughput is very important. You don't want a lot of rework and stopping or operator interference. And to take it up one level, at Nordson ASYM- TEK, we provide an overall conformal coating solution, which is more than the applicator, process control, and machine; it's the entire process. This includes equipment for coat- ing, curing, and inspection. From a large line perspective, a customer can interact with one partner to develop their entire process. We're able to provide an overall solution where we have expertise across the entire suite of pro- duction equipment. We can address the coat- ing, take into account the curing, and verify everything with the inspection. Within those individual pieces of equipment are individual solutions. For example, do you want one, two, or numerous applicators? If you're concerned about throughput, are you doing dual simulta- neous, dispensing two applicators at the same time? Do you have multiple fluids that you're putting down and need different applicator technologies to do that? Are you combining a jet with a spray to make sure that you get the coverage requirements that need? How are you maintaining that overall production process? What closed-loop controls do you have in place for that? From an ease-of use-perspec- tive, what does the software look like? That's mainly where operators are interacting with the equipment. Is the programming easy for them to visualize and work with? Does the sys- tem help the operator set up the process? Can the operator decide limits around when these process controls get activated? Is it after every 10 boards, every half hour, or when the pro- cess starts to trend outside of what their speci- fied limits are? Having features to deliver that level of control and capability allows manufac- turers to holistically address the entire confor- mal coating process. Johnson: There are low-mix, high-volume con- tract manufacturers, and then there are high- mix, low-volume contract manufacturers; they