Orlando, Fla. — One of the molding demonstrations in the booth Arburg GmbH + Co KG at NPE2018 involved production of hybrid stainless steel and plastic radius gauges.
The gauge was overmolded over the entire surface, except from the edges, with Akromid B3 GF30 PST, a special Plasma-SealTight 30 percent glass-fiber-reinforced nylon 6.
An Arburg Multilift linear handling robot placed the gauge's core steel part for PlasmaPlus treatment into an Openair plasma treatment station supplied by Ancaster, Ontario-based PlasmaTreat North America Inc., the North American subsidiary of Steinhagen, Germany-based PlasmaTreat GmbH.
Plasmatreat's global market segment manager Edgar Düvel said the plasma process equipment consisted of PFW10 and PFW10-PAD plasma cleaning and coating nozzles, a FG5002S plasma generator, two PCU-M plasma control units and a PAD-PLUS plasma polymerization system.
Key to effectiveness of plasma treatment on bond strength, as the PST Plasma-SealTight name implies, is prevention of humidity and oil ingress between bond partners. This is also important in bonding copper conductors to plastics for long-term reliability of electrical connectors, as confirmed by helium leak detection.