Manufacturing Videos
We achieve very low driving voltages by using a very thin coating with relatively high opacity and a low surface energy. The thin coating appears highly scattering, white in color, in contrast to the mirror like metallized background. This video shows a competitor’s product. Note that their product is also highly scattering against a mirror like metallized background, but only slightly opaque when placed in direct contact with other backgrounds.
Changes in temperature can cause some liquid crystal and additives mixtures to change state from transparent to liqht scattering. As the bottle is shaken, transfer of heat energy to the glass walls of the vial cause the temperature of the mixture to drop, causing it to go from transparent to light scattering.
Annealling improves the switching times of our mixtures. Careful study of these videos shows how annealling improves these switching times. Annealling can be performed with heat, or with greater precision with an electrical wave of about 100 Hz, 10V-20V.
We have commercialized these products in a simple softwall cleanroom. The walls of the cleanroom are comprised of pink color anti-static polyethylene, identical to the film used for anti-static packaging. Since we did not connect the sheets together, there were large air gaps between the sheets of anti-static film. The floor was an ordinary concrete floor, not a clean room floor. Air was supplied to the cleanroom by 2 sets of hepa filtered fans directly above the printing press.
Pick and Place Machines reduce labor costs, and provide accurate placement of the circuit board. Pick and Place Machines place between 30 and 60 circuit boards per minute, or 3600 per hour.
We assemble the devices using a pick and place machine placing onto the polymer web of a flexo printing press. To improve the placement accuracy, the system is controlled real time with several photocell relays. The web is driven by a stepper motor, not the regular motor of the press. The stepper motor allows precision movement and stopping of the polymer web.