Thick Film Heater

The term "thick film" relates to conductive, resistive, or dielectric circuit elements that are deposited via screen printing materials (~0.0005? thick) onto the substrate. Thick film technology was originally found in hybrid circuits for military and automotive applications where performance, durability and high reliability were essential.

SmithHeat^� thick-film technology enables our application engineers to create innovative heating solutions. Our thick-film heaters are compatible with numerous substrates including: Aluminium, Stainless Steel, Mica, Glass, Industrial Fabric, Quartz and Kapton. The Mica and Aluminium based heaters are low profile as they have superior thermal response, exhibit uniform heat distribution and allow significant versatility and design flexibility.

Thick film inks are made by mixing ceramics and metals (known as cermets) are used to make the resistors and conductors. Typically the metallic materials are silver, gold, platinum, palladium, ruthenium and related alloys. Glass-ceramic inks are also used for dielectrics between encapsulates covering the circuit layers. Cermet thick film materials and substrates vary, based on the specific application requirements.

SmithHeat^�stainless steel thick film conduction heaters are ideal for use in many applications where fast response and uniformity are essential. A clamp-on thick film heater provides the best possible combination of heat transfer, thermal efficiency and temperature uniformity.

Thick film conduction heaters provide a low-profile heater in a variety of shapes. These shapes include two-dimensional circular and rectangular forms. Due to the direct surface contact, a thick film heater ensures efficient heat transfer through thermally stable substrates and precise resistance trace patterns.

We use the latest thick film materials to formulate dielectric, conductive and resistive elements for producing high performance heaters, resistors, and other circuit elements on insulated steel, stainless steel, and ceramic substrates.

The thick film resistive elements provide very fast temperature response and uniformity in low-profile heaters. Thick film heaters are ideal for applications where space is limited, where conventional heaters cannot be used, when heat output needs to be profiled across the surface, or in high watt-density applications.

Key Features :-

High Efficiency & Energy Saving
Fast Temperature Respond
Low Profile Design
High Mechanical Strength
Substrate Material Can Be Stainless Steel, Glass Ceramic and Aluminium Polyimide Film
Appliance small house hold, food service, sotplate iron heater, Industrial heating equipment, CCD defog, laser print head heating, Car device worm up, ... etc

Advantages :-

Fitting a high power heater into a small footprint :-

The combination of high watt densities (W/in2) and the low profile heating element enable designers to pack more heat energy into a smaller area.

Uniform heat distribution :-

Our thick-film heater resistor circuit covers a complete area vs. other thick-films that offer only a track. This results in inherently even heat.
Aluminium has high thermal conductivity. Marrying our area resistor with Aluminium offers incredibly even heat throughout .

Faster heating and cooling cycle-times :-

High watt densities create very fast heat.
Thermally conductive aluminium enables this heat to rapidly transfer through to the intended target to be heated.
Our thick-film heater adds negligible thermal mass to a system. This lower thermal mass, when added to aluminium, enables rapid cooling as well as rapid heating .

Increased energy efficiency :-

Our unique dielectric layer allows energy to be directly transferred to the intended target. Testing has shown that during the heat up cycle, our heaters are up to 30% more efficient than other traditional low profile heating technologies.

Reduced Cost :-

With an integrated heater system, there will be fewer parts, resulting in reduced part counts and assembly costs
Due to our proprietary production process, we offer a cost advantage over traditional thick-film technologies