Ink adhesion for wire and cable jacket marking

Jan 16th, 2012 | By kmaier@enerconmail.com | Category: Field Applications, Wire and Tubing

Atmospheric plasma is used to prepare wire & cable jackets for ink jet marking.Creating indelible markings on wires and cables for military, aerospace, automotive, telecom and datacom applications can be a challenge for many manufacturers. Certainly highly aggressive solvent inks can be used to mark wire and cable, however there is a growing interest to develop greener technologies that can provide additional economic and production benefits.

Many companies have begun using aquesous and UV ink jet processes to mark a wide range of wire and cable jacket materials such as XLPE, PTFE, FEP, PEEK and more. The key to enabling and ensuring adhesion in these applications is through the use of atmospheric plasma surface pretreatment.

Plasma treatment cleans, etches and functionalizes surfaces to increase their surface energy and receptiveness to bonding. By using a plasma treater wire and cable marking operations can become greener, more economic and more productive.

A recent educational webinar on using atmospheric plasma to pretreat wire and cable jackets prior to ink jet printing is available by following this link.

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