Touchscreens increase environmental stability

Elo TouchSystems has released a new generation of its industry-leading AccuTouch five-wire resistive touchscreen technology.

Elo TouchSystems has released a new generation of its industry-leading AccuTouch five-wire resistive touchscreen technology.

The new touchscreen construction offers original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) improved environmental specifications and a new option for a true flat cable attachment.

Previous significant developments included the change to a Z border electrode pattern for greater edge linearity and the introduction of higher-quality glass substrates for increased durability; now Elo is adding a new construction for increased environmental stability.

"Elo invented the resistive touchscreen 35 years ago", says Michael Bartelmess, Elo Director of Product Management, Europe.

"As one of our core touch technologies, we are committed to continuing to refine AccuTouch, the most respected brand in resistive touchscreens".

Importantly for OEMs, this latest generation of the product maintains all major components of the touchscreen, including but not limited to the material construction of the glass, cover sheet, fired-on electrode pattern, cable and soldered cable attachment.

"With a new manufacturing process for the attachment of the cover sheet, we can now provide a higher temperature and humidity performance range for the resistive product line, all while maintaining our renowned tight cover sheet fit and without lowering any other performance specification".

The operating temperature range has been extended to 70C and operating humidity to 90% RH at up to 50C.

The new construction has been extensively tested for nearly a year to ensure long-term reliability the hallmark of AccuTouch touchscreens.

Specifically for industrial and medical OEMs, the new AccuTouch touchscreens now offer an additional option for its cable assembly a true flat attachment to the touchscreen that significantly improves the integration of the touchscreen with thin front foils.

AccuTouch has always featured a flex cable, which, unlike the cables on most other resistive touchscreens, may be folded and creased for easy routing around other components.

The standard AccuTouch touchscreen uses a powerful adhesive for strain relief for the cable attachment, specified to withstand a straight-line pull of 4.5kg maintained for a period of five minutes, as well as strong pulls from an angle.

However, some OEMs prefer a true flat cable attachment, necessary for cosmetic reasons when the touchscreen is integrated with a thin foil frame such as polyester, rather than a plastic or aluminium bezel.

With the new AccuTouch touchscreens, industrial and medical OEMs now have a choice of extra strength or flat cosmetics on the cable attachment.

Bartelmess continues: "OEMs who produce high-quality products have trusted Elo AccuTouch for years when it comes to their critical user interface".

"The improved AccuTouch touchscreen is part of our ongoing drive to provide customers with the highest-quality, most durable resistive touch technology possible while remaining cost competitive".

Elo's Coach III (controller on a chip, third generation) is a compact universal resistive touchscreen controller solution in a 64pin LQFP package.

It supports both serial and USB communication interfaces and is capable of driving either AccuTouch five-wire or Elo AT4 four-wire resistive touchscreens.

Regardless of the configuration, operation is automatically detected on powerup and needs no user intervention.

The Coach III fully supports Elo's SmartSet protocol and all software drivers, both serial and USB.

For those OEMs who prefer a higher level of integration, Elo offers the 2216 dual serial/USB, four-/five-wire resistive touchscreen controller board in a reduced form factor of only 35 x 60mm.

The complete AccuTouch product line of touchscreens, plus the 2216 controller, Coach III, Coach II and original Coach chips, along with Elo's featurerich touchscreen drivers, are all designed to work seamlessly together from a single supplier.

All components are fully RoHS compliant.

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