The trend in the industry leads to fully automatic processes, mostly in combination with some robot systems and a complex sequence of several processing and manufacturing steps. Most off all at bonding the meaning of a high process safety is so important. This joining technology is getting more and more important and necessary in the industry sector, so it is also important to observe those bonding applications to ensure perfect results. In case of any imperfections at a dosed bead, e.g. at display bonding for smart phones or tablets, you have to expect production downtimes or some subsequently complaints. This would lead to increased production costs and is also very bad for the machine operator or even the end customer. A pressure sensor in a dosing process is recognizing with the pressure if there is an adhesive on the substrate or not, therefore pressure sensors have an important role in case of cost reduction and reducing the reject rate for those processes. Even tiny air bubbles, which are already inside the glue or get inside through some leakage points in the system, could be detected very easy and prematurely so therefore retaliatory actions can be taken. In addition to that there are a lot of fluids which contains spacers or micro capsules, duo to those fillers dosing valves and dosing needles could be blocked. In this case the dosing pressure is getting higher and higher from time to time and the dosing valves are not operating correctly which means the incorrect amount of adhesive gets on the substrate. At 2 component mixing applications this is a major issue, because here is a perfect and exact mixing ratio absolutely necessary to ensure the characteristics of those adhesives.
The new and innovative fluid sensor flowplus, made by ViscoTec, united all attributes to face this challenge in the dosing market. Due to its compact design the flowplus is one of the smallest piezo-resistive pressure sensors out in the market and is absolute maintenance-free. This is guaranteed through the so-called FFKM function channel inside the sensor, which is absolutely dead-space free and owing to the used material compatible with all media. This function channel is also responsible to transmit the pressure to the micro-chip. Another big advantage is the implemented amplifier who converts the millivolt signal into a standard 0 - 10 V output signal, which can be evaluated over any standard PLC. So you have the opportunity to generate a warning message or an error signal which shuts down your process or system. The standard luer-lock connection on both sides simplifies the integration in existing systems and makes this sensor so unique and user-friendly. The luer-lock connection is one of the most spread connection types out in the dosing market, but even the medical or pharmacy market is using this kind of connection. Those characteristics and the fact, that the pressure sensor gets already temperature compensated to the end customer make this sensor to a "plug-and-play" device. The customer just integrate the sensor in his existing system, connect the three wires to his PLC and the flowplus is poised for action. There is no wasteful and complicated calibration necessary. So do not worry about the pressure, let it do the flowplus for you.