Charter Films: Bigger and Better Than Ever
Company Overview
Charter Films, located in Superior, Wisconsin, was formed by three entrepreneurs that have a combined over 45 years of experience within the film extrusion industry. Although Charter Films may be considered a new company in the field, their skills and know-how have made this company a major player in the world of plastic film suppliers. Charter specializes in mono and co-extruded films which are used for printing and laminating, banners, surface protection and thermoformable applications. These products are commonly used in food, medical, cosmetic packaging, graphic arts and advertising, adhesive coaters, extruded sheet stock, and automotive applications.
The Challenge
Unique to Charter is their aggression to keep up with new, state-of-the-art technology. Since their inception, Charter has purchased and installed three single and multi-layer Varex blown film lines from Windmoeller & Hoelscher in less than two years. The first two installations included a 103-inch mono-layer and an 83-inch three-layer Varex blown film extrusion line from W&H. According to Mark Tesmer, Charter’s V.P. of Sales & Marketing, “W&H’s superior products have provided us with service and support that is unmatched in the industry.” Because of this, Charter installed a third 63-inch three-layer Varex line.
“When we started our company, we needed treating equipment that would provide us with a lot of flexibility and reliability,” explained Chris Trapp, V.P. & General Manager of Charter. “We needed a treater that could provide a uniform treat at a wide range of dyne levels on many difficult types of polyethylene films."
The Solution & Benefits
For the purpose of printing and laminating from one to two sides, Charter’s new W&H line will include three of Pillar’s Universal Surface Treaters, each equipped with Pillar’s new P6000 Power Supply that features the latest in IGBT technology, keeping Charter on top of the new equipment market. This allows Charter to treat up to four sides including treating inside and outside of the bubble, which may generate a whole new breed of customers for Charter. The Charter team specified that they were looking for Universal Treaters consisting of one two-sided universal covered roll and two single-side universal covered roll stations for the purpose of four sided treatment. Pillar’s Universal Surface Treaters offer Charter ease of maintenance due to the interchangeable electrode assembly that is built into the design, which is important when the station is located in the tower. In addition to this, the treater stations also allow Charter to clean their electrodes “off-line” which becomes a safety benefit as well.
Trapp explains, “We have worked with Pillar over the last 15 years and we have found their surface treaters provide the best turn-down ratio in the industry which allows for the widest range of treat levels. Pillar has always been a good company to work with. It was important to us to equip our extrusion lines with the best treaters on the market.”
Charter Films: Bigger and Better Than Ever
Company Overview
Charter Films, located in Superior, Wisconsin, was formed by three entrepreneurs that have a combined over 45 years of experience within the film extrusion industry. Although Charter Films may be considered a new company in the field, their skills and know-how have made this company a major player in the world of plastic film suppliers. Charter specializes in mono and co-extruded films which are used for printing and laminating, banners, surface protection and thermoformable applications. These products are commonly used in food, medical, cosmetic packaging, graphic arts and advertising, adhesive coaters, extruded sheet stock, and automotive applications.
The Challenge
Unique to Charter is their aggression to keep up with new, state-of-the-art technology. Since their inception, Charter has purchased and installed three single and multi-layer Varex blown film lines from Windmoeller & Hoelscher in less than two years. The first two installations included a 103-inch mono-layer and an 83-inch three-layer Varex blown film extrusion line from W&H. According to Mark Tesmer, Charter’s V.P. of Sales & Marketing, “W&H’s superior products have provided us with service and support that is unmatched in the industry.” Because of this, Charter installed a third 63-inch three-layer Varex line.
“When we started our company, we needed treating equipment that would provide us with a lot of flexibility and reliability,” explained Chris Trapp, V.P. & General Manager of Charter. “We needed a treater that could provide a uniform treat at a wide range of dyne levels on many difficult types of polyethylene films,” he said.
The Solution & Benefits
For the purpose of printing and laminating from one to two sides, Charter’s new W&H line will include three of Pillar’s Universal Surface Treaters, each equipped with Pillar’s new P6000 Power Supply that features the latest in IGBT technology, keeping Charter on top of the new equipment market. This allows Charter to treat up to four sides including treating inside and outside of the bubble, which may generate a whole new breed of customers for Charter. The Charter team specified that they were looking for Universal Treaters consisting of one two-sided universal covered roll and two single-side universal covered roll stations for the purpose of four sided treatment. Pillar’s Universal Surface Treaters offer Charter ease of maintenance due to the interchangeable electrode assembly that is built into the design, which is important when the station is located in the tower. In addition to this, the treater stations also allow Charter to clean their electrodes “off-line” which becomes a safety benefit as well.
Trapp explains, “We have worked with Pillar over the last 15 years and we have found their surface treaters provide the best turn-down ratio in the industry which allows for the widest range of treat levels. Pillar has always been a good company to work with. It was important to us to equip our extrusion lines with the best treaters on the market."
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.