Consistency + Dependability = Treater of Choice
Company Overview
Central States Products (CSP, Inc.), located in St. Louis, Missouri, focuses on plastics for printing and foils for stamping. From extruded sheets to complete products, Central States Products brings years of experiences to high quality finished products.
The Challenge
CSP’s excellence in the industry has been accompanied by an experienced treater from its first line, purchased in 1971, that was supplied with a Pillar Corona Treater – the OEM’s choice. As technology changed over the years, CSP wanted to be assured that subsequent treater models would provide the same high-quality performance that they had been used to receiving. And because the majority of CSP’s products are decorated in some way (they print in-house as well), it is critical that treatment levels remain consistent.
The Solution & Benefits
As a result, CSP recently added yet another Pillar Universal Surface Treater and 2kW P6000 Power Supply combination to their line. The Pillar Treaters are used to treat both sides of the web on their sheet extrusion lines. The Pillar treaters are used to treat both sides of the web on their sheet extrusion lines. “The Pillar units have provided CSP with consistent levels of surface energy across our product range, .010’’ to 0.125’’ in thickness, and up to 60’’ in width,” states James Fleming, President of CSP. In addition to the corona treatment equipment present in the plant, CSP utilizes several of Pillar’s Ozone Destruct Systems to reduce ozone emissions in the plant.
“The Pillar system provided such reliability that subsequent purchases have had CSP specifying Pillar as their equipment of choice,” states Fleming. “By working with our Pillar Representatives, we were able to gain a comfort level between us. We were involved with the design that was being sent to our OEMs, as all of our units were customized to fit new sheet lines.”
Consistency + Dependability = Treater of Choice
Company Overview
Central States Products (CSP, Inc.), located in St. Louis, Missouri, focuses on plastics for printing and foils for stamping. From extruded sheets to complete products, Central States Products brings years of experiences to quality finished products.
The Challenge
CSP’s excellence in the industry has been accompanied by an experienced treater from its first line, purchased in 1971, that was supplied with a Pillar Corona Treater – the OEM’s choice. As technology changed over the years, CSP wanted to be assured that subsequent treater models would provide the same high-quality performance that they had been used to receiving. And because the majority of CSP’s products are decorated in some way (they print in-house as well), it is critical that treatment levels remain consistent.
The Solution & Benefits
As a result, CSP recently added yet another Pillar Universal Surface Treater and 2kW P6000 Power Supply combination to their line. The Pillar Treaters are used to treat both sides of the web on their sheet extrusion lines. The Pillar treaters are used to treat both sides of the web on their sheet extrusion lines. “The Pillar units have provided CSP with consistent levels of surface energy across our product range, .010’’ to 0.125’’ in thickness, and up to 60’’ in width,” states James Fleming, President of CSP. In addition to the corona treatment equipment present in the plant, CSP utilizes several of Pillar’s Ozone Destruct Systems to reduce ozone emissions in the plant.
“The Pillar system provided such reliability that subsequent purchases have had CSP specifying Pillar as their equipment of choice,” states Fleming. “By working with our Pillar Representatives, we were able to gain a comfort level between us. We were involved with the design that was being sent to our OEMs, as all of our units were customized to fit new sheet lines.”
There are two basic types of corona treater stations. One type of system is designed to treat non-conductive materials. This system uses a metal electrode over a dielectrically covered roll.
The other type of system is designed to treat conductive substrates. Early designs used a series of driven covered rotating electrodes placed over a bare grounded roll, enabling the conductive web to be grounded. The newer design is an open style, called bare roll, which extracts the ozone between two fixed ceramic tubes, cooling the electrodes, as well. The ceramic tubes are placed over a bare grounded roll.
Corona Treater Systems
Narrow Web Treating Systems
Though both types of systems are used on narrow web presses, the bare roll style (conductive design) has been more popular in recent years. This is primarily due to the compact design and because it can treat both conductive and nonconductive materials, although not as efficiently. The harder to treat materials require higher power levels, making treater versatility more important.
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The increase in power has also caused treater stations to become larger. Since space on a narrow web press is very limited the challenge to treater manufacturers recently, has been to develop compact designs which can handle higher power levels and efficiently treat conductive and nonconductive substrates.
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In order to improve treat levels, many newer designs incorporate two electrode assemblies. One with a metal electrode and the other with ceramic electrodes. These assemblies are mounted over a ceramic covered roll. The operator then connects the appropriate assembly for the type of substrate.
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These designs improve the efficiency of treating nonconductive webs (metal electrode over a ceramic roll), however, the dual dielectric combination (ceramic electrodes and ceramic roll) is less efficient for conductive materials. This style treater station is also fairly large due to the need for two electrode assemblies.
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The newer approaches incorporate an open style bare roll design, which employs an electrode magazine and an easy roll change mechanism. The user can quickly change from covered roll to bare roll by changing magazines. This feature also enables the user to treat conductive or nonconductive films efficiently, without having to run with a dual dielectric. In addition, the system is more compact since there is only one electrode assembly.
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Most of the newer treater station designs usually offer several other features intended to simplify operation and maintenance. These features may be such things as external gap adjustment knobs, pneumatic mechanisms for simplifying web thread up, access for easy cleaning, quick electrode and roll replacement, the use of ceramic dielectrics to reduce pinholing and easy to replace ground brushes.
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Solid state power supplies have proven to be reliable for years, however, they have become more compact recently. In addition, they have increased in frequency, in order to help reduce the required electrode area, enabling the non conductive treater stations to become smaller. They have taken advantage of microprocessors, by becoming capable of being controlled by an external (customer supplied) processor, or can be supplied with their own microprocessor controller. These new microprocessors feature memory for storing common job parameters, watt density control, proportional speed controls and various levels of system diagnostics.