Tint Construction 101

April 4, 2010

Been searching and reading various forums for hours on this subject and thought it advantages to start a thread on multiple tint construction processes. Pick a number and explain what you know on that manufacturing process.

Which process is the best in your opinion and why? Which process has been around the longest? Which holds up the best or is poor?

1. Color in mounting adhesive.

2. Color in laminating adhesive

3. Chip dyed color extruded

4. Dyed Polyester

5. Metalized Polyester

6. Nano Ceramic

7. Dyed polyester metal hybrid

8. Sputtered

9. Vapor deposited aluminum

10. Nickel-chromium

Remember to include #& process name when posting explanation.

Thanks

April 4, 2010

Been searching and reading various forums for hours on this subject and thought it advantages to start a thread on multiple tint construction processes. Pick a number and explain what you know on that manufacturing process.
Which process is the best in your opinion and why? Which process has been around the longest? Which holds up the best or is poor?

1. Color in mounting adhesive. Called color coating and is the weakest way of coloring film

2. Color in laminating adhesive See mounting

3. Chip dyed color extruded First color stable using pigment rather than dye

4. Dyed Polyester First dyed polyester from martin processing (now solutia/cp) and became color stable about 5-6 years ago. Deep dyes in the poly structure or surface dyed

5. Metalized Polyester First came from madico and is done by vapor coating through melting of pure metals

6. Nano Ceramic First done by cp in a formulaone product followed by huper/southwall who made good of the ceramic name

7. Dyed polyester metal hybrid Two separate treated polyester components laminated together

8. Sputtered Invented to use alloy since vapor coating could not

9. Vapor deposited aluminum See metallized polyester

10. Nickel-chromium Alloy used in sputtering and found in many different brand film

Remember to include #& process name when posting explanation.

Thanks

Neither metallizing nor sputtering is better than the other in terms of component life. It's the metal used that has staying power

Pigmented poly came from Mitsubishi polyester and was found to be troublesome in the early versions getting other components to stick to the surface

Nano particle technology uses metals disguised as or wrapped in ceramic to produce today's Ti N, ITO, ATO and others

This is what I can remember from a presentation.

Try aimcal's website where you can post a question that can be answered by any of its members

aimcal = association of industrial metalizers, coaters and laminators

April 4, 2010

April 5, 2010

thanks for the very imformative post! Makes a lot of sense.

April 5, 2010

Been searching and reading various forums for hours on this subject and thought it advantages to start a thread on multiple tint construction processes. Pick a number and explain what you know on that manufacturing process.
Which process is the best in your opinion and why? Which process has been around the longest? Which holds up the best or is poor?

1. Color in mounting adhesive. Called color coating and is the weakest way of coloring film

2. Color in laminating adhesive See mounting

3. Chip dyed color extruded First color stable using pigment rather than dye

4. Dyed Polyester First dyed polyester from martin processing (now solutia/cp) and became color stable about 5-6 years ago. Deep dyes in the poly structure or surface dyed

5. Metalized Polyester First came from madico and is done by vapor coating through melting of pure metals

6. Nano Ceramic First done by cp in a formulaone product followed by huper/southwall who made good of the ceramic name

7. Dyed polyester metal hybrid Two separate treated polyester components laminated together

8. Sputtered Invented to use alloy since vapor coating could not

9. Vapor deposited aluminum See metallized polyester

10. Nickel-chromium Alloy used in sputtering and found in many different brand film

Remember to include #& process name when posting explanation.

Thanks

Neither metallizing nor sputtering is better than the other in terms of component life. It's the metal used that has staying power

Pigmented poly came from Mitsubishi polyester and was found to be troublesome in the early versions getting other components to stick to the surface

Nano particle technology uses metals disguised as or wrapped in ceramic to produce today's Ti N, ITO, ATO and others

This is what I can remember from a presentation.

Try aimcal's website where you can post a question that can be answered by any of its members

aimcal = association of industrial metalizers, coaters and laminators

#1 Is better known as "glue dye" by the folks in the orient, it is very prevalent there. It is a very cheap way to construct film with the inherent flaw of the color being fully exposed with no UV protection, it is also been know to "bleed off" during installation if handled imporperly.

#2 Is much different from color in the mounting adhesive. Color in the laminating adhesive means that you can protect the dye by placing a piece of weatherable polyester in front of the laminating adhesive and laminate a clear coat with SR coat on top of that. This setup extends the longevity of the dye and also eliminates the bleeding problem. Some MFG's that use this technique will offer lifetime warranties (translation= 7-10yrs expected life) on this type of film construction.

#3 Color chips are mixed with PET chips and extruded... it is getting better but you can still see the difference between extruded and dyed films. Dyed still looks better -imo.

#4 Not too many dye houses out there... CPF owns two of them. Deep dye layers with UV absorbers in front accelerate test out far enough to where they are marketed as "color stable."

#5 Coating metal on to PET substrate. Leo will say that the Russians did it first. 3M says they invented it. Madico was in there early on. CPF will say that they do it better than anyone but doesn't everyone make that claim? The most common material used is aluminum.

#6 They been coating ITO to PET for over 25yrs now. I don't believe that CPF was the first to do it. Ceramics start as metals but once they go through a chemical reaction and are changed to "oxides" they become atomically stable or "inert" and can no longer go through a chemical reaction. In this state they are no longer classified as metals but are now ceramics, there are thousands of combinations but only a few work well for solar control window film.

#7 Dyed polyester is laminated to a metalized layer to reduce reflectivity and visible light transmittance. Some dyed layers are actually pigmented layers and MFG's are really testy about calling them "dyed."

#8 A general term that is used to refer to a method of depositing metals and oxides to film substrates. Dislocation of surface atoms of a metal from bombardment by high-energy positive ions from an argon gas plasma and the deposition of these freed atoms onto a substrate. Sputtering offers a lower-temperature process than thermal evaporation and produces deposits that more closely replicate the initial composition of the metal, allowing thin depositions of a great variety of materials that have a much higher melting point than aluminum. Atoms freed in the sputtering process unite easily with gases such as oxygen to produce reactive deposits to achieve metallic oxide coatings with transparent and/or insulating properties.

#9 Vapor deposition metals are changed to a vapor state and condensed through condensation, chemical reaction, or conversion to form a solid material. Vapor deposition is a common way of depositing elements with low melting points like aluminum to film substrates. There are two types (PVD & CVD) CVD involves heat & gases and PVD involves plasma & gases.

#10 Popular alloy used in sputtering.

Just a side note on ITO, ATO, TiN they are not coated metals, they are classified as ceramic. Two out of the three are nano in size. You can coat metal with them but the downside is the haze factor that is present in some combinations.