Skutt- p/n 9232

Skutt Ceramics has been a customer of ours for a year now and we’ve recently made some changes to better fit their needs. Skutt produces equipment for glasswork and pottery - wheels, kilns, and electronics that connect everything together. They’ve been in business since 1953 and provide equipment to everyone from elementary schools to world-class artisans.

Spectra Symbol provides a SoftPot for the foot pedal on their pottery wheels. This small sensor allows the artisan to delicately adjust the speed of the wheel as they work, so it must be as smooth and sensitive as possible.

Skutt has published a video showing off our SoftPot and explaining what makes it work so well for them; you can watch it with the link below:

What Makes Skutt Pottery Wheel Foot Pedals So Smooth? 

If you've ever been on a road trip with me, you'll quickly find out that Beef Jerky is one of my favorite road snacks.  There is something about the jerky curing process that adds and enhances the amazing flavor of the meat as well as making it super fun to eat!

Much like making jerky, Spectra Symbol also has curing processes of our own and, while we don't make yummy meat snacks with our curing units, we make some pretty cool sensors and passive electronics!

One of the secrets to making a good, printed, sensor is being able to quickly and adequately cure the inks after they have been printed onto the sheet of substrate material.  Be it silver, carbon, dielectric, or the "special sauce"....mmm-m-m-m sauce... (slurry) used for the pain patches, they all need to be cured correctly.

Typically, Spectra Symbol utilizes three different types of inks for our standard sensor technologies: thermoplastic solvent, thermosetting solvent, and UV inks.  Thermoplastic and Thermosetting inks require heat and IR ( about 200°C to 250°C for 2 minutes) to cure properly, while the UV inks cure instantly when the correct amount of UV light is applied.

Over the decades, Spectra Symbol has used many different types of heating, IR,  and UV systems.  Some have taken up large amounts of space and some have taken up much less space.  Some have been commercially finished units and some have been pieced together systems.  Unfortunately, there isn't a magic one-size-fits-all solution but, ultimately, all it boils down to keeping the inks exposed to the right amount of heat/UV for the correct amount of time.

Today, our Lean Manufacturing journey has led us to smaller, more modular units that give us a wide range of flexibility in our ink curing efforts.  Now instead of one giant curing belt that everything feeds into, our lines have very individualized curing belts that work best for the types of inks and substrates being used and allow us to have several smaller belts per production line.