Have you ever encountered plasma’s power? You may observe its process by looking at fluorescent or neon signage. These two lighting techniques exploit the visible light that plasma discharges emit.
On a different note, have you heard about Plasma Surface Treatment? It is another use of the matter beyond fluorescent and neon lights.
Surfaces can be cleaned, activated, etched, and coated using this technology. Compared to other processes, it is more economical and ecologically beneficial because there is no need to dispose of hazardous chemical waste. As a result, this technique is perfect for various tasks, including plasma cleaning aircraft or automobile parts.
Applications for plasma spray coating include polishing semiconductors, metals, and architectural glass.
Thermally spraying one material (often in powder form) onto another is known as plasma spray coating. To illustrate, a jet engine’s turbine tips’ bearing surface is plasma sprayed with a high-temperature ceramic coating.
Every day, technology is evolving. Transistors are getting smaller, and phones and computers are now more compact. Considering this, it begs the question: can we also make plasma surface treatment compact using a Duino? Let us find out as we elaborate on the matter in this article.
Mechanism of Plasma Surface Treatment
Power management is crucial for the coating process to produce the most consistent results. You can achieve better deposition rates, easier usage of various coating materials, and improved layering uniformity with a pulse-width modulated (PWM) DC power source. Increased productivity and efficiency are additional benefits of the procedure.
Engineers employ pulse-width modulation and silicon-controlled rectifier (SCR) DC power sources in most plasma spray coating applications. SCR and pulse-width modulated plasma power sources offer more excellent power factors and need less power source kVA since they employ electronics rather than magnetics for modulation. However, each control method has benefits and drawbacks.
The most popular type of DC power supply now in use is SCR-based. Because the working voltage is roughly half that of the open-circuit voltage or around 0.5 PF, these power sources often have low power factors (PF). The primary cause of the greater kVA demand is the higher open-circuit voltage requirement.
The popularity of the pulse-width modulated DC power supply is rising gradually. This is because a pulse-width modulation DC power supply has reduced kVA needs, which aids in lowering the amount of incoming power needed, and a higher power factor (about 0.9 PF), which is large enough to help reduce total electrical running expenses.
The IEEE 519 standard has also increased the importance of its diminished harmonic currents. As a result, industries aiming to reduce harmonics in their electrical power distribution networks are gradually adopting this standard. In addition, engineers can produce smoother coating due to the decreased output ripple of the pulse-width modulated DC power control.
Including a DC capacitor bank and a transistor is the only meaningful distinction between the SCR and pulse-width modulation one-line layouts. For the SCR type, its namesake is what performs controls. It fills the DC capacitor bank in the pulse-width modulation type, and the transistor controls the DC.
Now that we know how plasma surface treatment works, let us study how a Duino works.
Mechanism of A Duino
Open-source electronics development platform Duino is built on free, adaptable, and user-friendly hardware and software for designers and developers. With the help of this platform, you may create various single-board microcomputers that the maker community can utilize in many ways. However, to comprehend this notion, you must first be familiar with the ideas behind free hardware and free software.
Free hardware is anything whose blueprints and specs are available for anybody to copy. It implies that Duino provides the framework so that any other individual or business may design their own boards, each of which can be unique yet function well when built upon the same blueprint.
Meanwhile, microcontrollers are integrated circuits you may program using the programming language available in the Duino IDE environment. You can store instructions on the microcontrollers. Using these commands, you can also write programs that communicate with the circuits on the board.
Both input/output and communication interfaces are included on the Duino microcontroller. It allows us to connect various board-mounted peripherals. Additionally, the device responsible for processing the data via them will receive information from these connected peripherals.
Create freestanding components, connect to devices, and interact with both hardware and software with Duino. It helps us read information from a source, like a keyboard or a web page, and turn it into action, like turning on a light and writing what you type on display. It also helps us to control an element, for instance, a motor that elevates or lowers a blind based on the amount of light in a room, thanks to a light sensor connected to the Duino.
Can You Create A Duino Device for Plasma Treatment?
In plasma surface treatment, engineers need high voltages to heat up the Helium or Argon gas to high temperatures. Therefore, it requires a power supply that reaches 400 VDC and 600 ADC. That is why engineers use pulse-width modulation and silicon-controlled rectifier (SCR) DC power sources in plasma surface treatment technologies.
High voltage and high frequency are formed when power source 110V-220V is transmitted through the plasma generator. A transformer, an ADC, a high-frequency pulse generator, a high-frequency transformer, and a plasma chamber make up the plasma power supply. Multiple components are needed to create this power supply making it impossible to use a Duino to create a project.
To answer the question: you can create a power supply using a Duino, but it will just be a 0 to 12 V variable power supply and not much more than that. You can also program it to be a variable resistor to alter some properties of the plasma ejection and release the powder from the device to the substrate. Besides that, there is not much use of a Duino in a plasma system.
If there will be a way in the future for Duinos to handle higher voltages and frequencies, engineers can use it to create power supplies that are compact yet effective.
