Product category:
PCB Assembly Equipment and Tools
News Release from: Integrated Dispensing Systems | Subject: Johnson Controls application
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 03 April 2001
Battery plates secured using two-part
epoxy
Leading US battery manufacturer Johnson Controls saw a way to improve the life expectancy of its batteries, and Sealant Equipment and Engineering came up with a novel manufacturing solution.
A typical lead acid battery is susceptible to premature failure if it experiences excessive side loads - not an unusual situation to find itself under the bonnet of a car The lead plates can dislodge or buckle and end up touching each other causing internal shorting and subsequent battery failure
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 27 Feb 2001 at 8.00am (UK)
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Leading US battery manufacturer Johnson Controls saw a way to improve the life expectancy of its batteries.
The approach was to lock the lead plates at the bottom of the battery by effectively anchoring them in cured epoxy resin.
In order for the plate locking operation to be a viable production process, Johnson Controls determined that each battery needed a shot of around 15-20cm3 of mixed two-part epoxy in the bottom of each of the six cell chambers, and that this had to be achieved in no more than 15s per battery.
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Furthermore, Johnson Controls needed the shot size to be repeatable for each chamber within +/-1%.
As a continuous production run was crucial, Johnson Controls could not accept any downtime for material supply drum changeovers.
Initial thoughts were to assume that six independent metering systems were required, which would of made the whole project prohibitively expensive.
In addition, the system would need to be flexible enough to allow adjustment to suit their full range of battery sizes.
Sealant Equipment and Engineering's (SEE) approach was to design a single continuous flow machine with sophisticated shot controls to operate six individual dispense valves sequentially.
Basically, one valve at a time opened and closed until all six cells had been dispensed.
This would make the system considerably cheaper and the project financially viable.
SEE adapted the SeeFlo 582 fixed ratio meter/mix/dispense machine to continuously meter the two-part epoxy formulation accurately without pulsation.
The shot controls enabled a single metering system to supply metered material to six mixing dispense valves in sequence.
Each valve incorporated a low-cost disposable mixer nozzle, removing the need for solvent flushing.
All nozzles are disposed of at the end of each day's production.
SEE then designed and manufactured a suitable fixture that would hold six valves above the battery casing and allow easy adjustment of each valve to suit all battery sizes.
A lifting mechanism was also built in to raise the battery casing so that the mixer nozzles reached the bottom of the casing.
This was done to prevent epoxy getting on the sidewalls of the casing, which would affect the performance of the final product.
Once dispensing had been completed, the casing would be removed from the fixture, and the top cover with lead plate assemblies attached would be lowered into the casing.
The bottom edges of the lead plates become immersed in the rapidly curing epoxy, effectively anchoring them in place.
To ensure continuous dispensing without interruption, a drum over drum, gravity-fed material supply system was used.
This involved mounting dual 45 gallon drums on their sides, one on to of the other on a specially designed rack.
The top drum was connected to the bottom drum via a flexible hose.
The bottom barrel served as a buffer stock of material and the top drum was replaced as necessary.
The outlet of the bottom drum was fed into a stick pump to enable the material to be supplied to the SeeFlo 582 under pressure.
This ensured that the metering pumps never cavitated.
The same material supply system was utilised for the B component.
Once the system was installed at Johnson Controls, it became evident that the casing raising and lowering feature was unnecessary and the material leaving the dispense nozzle travelled vertically to the bottom of the cell anyway.
Without this feature, it became even easier to incorporate the dispense station into a conveyorised system, thereby enabling even faster automatic indexing of the battery casings and removing the need for an operator.
Since the installation of the first system nearly 5 years ago, Johnson Controls has incorporated similar SeeFlo 582 systems in four other plants throughout the USA and Mexico.
Recent developments include a 12-valve system capable of dosing two battery casings at the same time.
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