What is a thin film heater?
What is a thin film heater?
Features and Benefits of Thin Film Heaters Polyimide as a thin film substrate of 0.15mm in thickness can fit onto complex surfaces that may be featured with conners, edges, gaps, curves and bends. They can be fitted in small spaces or space restricted spaces. Installation is easy.
What is a polyimide film heater?
Polyimide heaters, also known as Kapton heaters, are made from Kapton, a polyimide film developed by DuPont. Polyimide heaters provide the thinnest profile of all flexible heaters, offer precise heat distribution, and excellent tensile strength. They work well in extreme heat environments or small spaces.
How does a Kapton heater work?
Polyimide (Kapton) heaters make use of very thin (e.g. 50μm) etched metal (usually nickel based alloy) foil as resistance element. The resistance pattern to be etched is designed in CAD and transferred to the foil, which is then processed through acid spray to produce the desired resistance pattern.
What is thick film heater?
A thick film heating element consists of a stainless steel or ceramic substrate (plate), on which an insulation layer (meets the requirements for dielectrical strength) is printed, then a layer of resistive paste, followed by a contact and connective layer, and finally all these layers are covered with top enamel layer …
How is Kapton flexible?
Due to its polyimide composition, it is resilient to high temperatures, thin, and highly flexible. The resistive property is inherent to the film, so it cannot be cracked, rubbed off or otherwise easily damaged.
Why is Kapton flexible?
How does a PTC heating element work?
The heating element inside a PTC heater has a positive temperature coefficient and its resistance increases with temperature. When power is first applied to the cold PTC heating element, it has a low resistance and draws a large amount of current. As it heats up, the resistance increases and the current draw decreases.
How are flexible heaters made?
An etched circuit or wire wound heating element is sandwiched between fiberglass-reinforced silicone rubber to give these heaters dimensional stability and efficient heat transfer capability without sacrificing flexibility.
Is Kapton an insulator?
Kapton® is not just an electrical insulator; it has many other properties. Its temperature stability, fire behavior and high resistance to chemicals, mechanical stress and radiation make it the ideal material for many industrial applications.
Is Kapton electrically conductive?
DuPont™ Kapton® RS is an electrically conductive polyimide film developed for heating applications where a thin, lightweight, uniform heater is needed.
Are PTC heaters cheap to run?
Base on those two factors, yes, PTC heaters are cheaper to run. They are less costly than the typical resistive heater. These heaters are very cost-effective to install and operate with little no maintenance required over the useful life of the device.