News - ONEX | RF Automation

RF Sealer that meets customer's expectations

Onik Bogosyan — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 17:32:00 GMT

ONEX RF sealers provide better process control and consistency

The RF Sealing PVC Bags Challenge

When sealing medical pouches, blood, urinary or IV bags, process consistency and repeatability is a must. However, this may not be the case in most cases where clasic RF sealer is used with standard oscillator tube generators. The classic RF sealers efficiency is within 30-50%. Aside from the basic inefficiency, users experience down time due to arcs, die reworks and long changeover delays while the process parameters are twicked to produce good parts.

ONEX RF, Inc., Duarte, CA, specializes in the design and manufacture of RF sealers for medical device manufacturing industry. Known for its solid reputation for quality and unique solutions, ONEX RF brings new ways of sealing materials used in the medical industry..

Onik Bogosyan, president of ONEX RF Automation, explains that to improve RF sealing system efficiency, coupling methods needed a technology upgrade. “Instead of typical loading to the heat source, (which constantly created arcs due to the sensitive product nature) we looked at a unique patented solution that uses solid state generator and direct coupling technology. This is similar to high end amplifier tuning as used to obtain maximum audio wattage for quality sound,” he says. “By direct coupling we were sure we would be able to transfer our amplified signal to the source with minimum loss in transaction and precisely control the power at the load in two sealing cycles.”

The concept of direct coupling allows the RF generator to transfer power direct to the load and with the servo controlled Auto Tuner system monitor the reflective power and constantly adjust the load impedance to achieve 99% efficiency. The system runs more efficiently and consistently, while sealing the product to achieve maximum desired quality. The goal was to consistently deliver a more reliable and controllable process.

Moving to Solid State RF Welding

ONEX RF turned to their expertise in solid state technology. Their patented solid state generator technology immediately eliminated the arcing, down time, maintenance and operator safety issues, since it removed the use of oscillator tube. This in turn, eliminated the issue of RF power degradation, producing high quality seals with consistency and repeatability previously unknown in the RF welding industry.

“The solid state RF generator provides a consistent 27.12MHz high frequency signal, which is efficiently is tuned to the load using auto tuner system in addition to consistency the generator power is set via analogue signal from a PLC/PC based control system” Bogosyan says. “The solid state RF generator and auto tuner provide consistent seal with minimal power loss. The analog signal allows the power to be set and maintained precisely throughout the seal cycle, and be quickly changed to perform a different seal cycle. Based on our experience the system uses 50% less power than RF welders based on oscillator tube technology.”

“We tested this technology on a complex application sealing a sensitive medical product,” he adds. “The material was 0.009” thick and required very precise power control to prevent arcing or over-melting, in addition to the shape and size of the product, it had a valve port and a very small 0.032” diameter tubing welded onto the pouch. Initially, we’d done power calculations based on tube style generator which came to 2.3KW power for the parameter seal and 800W to weld the tubing. But, when we tested the dies using a conventional RF generator, we could not control the power efficiently and saw high variations, arcing and material burn. When we switched to solid state generator solid state technology, we were able to achieve excellent results from the first attempt and the system utilized 50% less power compared with Tube style generator.”

Bogosyan points out that having the output power controlled by an analog signal is essential sealing medical bags or pouches with multiple port seals or component assemblies. “In many similar applications where we sealed newly introduce medical materials we were able to tune and control the RF power precisely and perform film seal with less power and without use of external source of heat suggested by the film manufacturers, resulting in a high quality seal without burns or arcs, which would have been impossible using tube style RF generators,” he says.

ONEX RF Sealers come with solid state generator US patented solid state technology that use crystal oscillator instead of vacuum tubes. ONEX RF systems come in different platforms, RF-Shuttle X2, RF- Roto M1, RF-Star M2 and RF-Galaxy inline automated systems. The solid state generators used in ONEX systems are very small and fit in 19” rack mount industrial cabinets and don’t require large floor space. ONEX RF systems allow easy and fast setup of process parameters stored in the PLC/PC based control system, accessed via touch-screen menus. ONEX RF systems offer bar code reader option that reads barcodes on the dies and sets the system parameters instantly. This reduces set-up time from hours to minutes.

Because solid state generator technology is far less sensitive to complex material formulations, it allows ONEX RF to easily provide medical users a way to expand the envelope regarding their end products. The technology is easily customized for highly application specific manual or automated systems. “We have accomplished applications that were virtually impossible to seal by creating RF welding fields,” Bogosyan says. “Crystal oscillator technology easily adapts to applications that couldn't be successfully done using other systems.”

Expanding RF Welding Markets

ONEX RF systems are easily validated for all medical applications, specifically RF sealing process parameters set for each and every product. ONEX RF sealers use solid built platform and are great fit for medical and other industrial applications. “Operators can be easily trained on ONEX RF-solid state generator systems in a day,” he says. “Any manufacturer that needs optimal RF welding/sealing at half the energy and maintenance cost will benefit using ONEX RF systems, including automotive, packaging, military, office supply, recreational, flooring, air structure, pool liners and more.”

ONEX RF-solid state generator technology allows customers to achieve results far beyond standard tube style RF sealing machines resulting in higher quality products and repeatable processes. “This is a revolutionary process that has been proven with many systems already in the field,” Bogosyan says.

RF Welding: Necessity is the Mother of Invention

Onik Bogosyan — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 15:01:00 GMT

Any difficult situation gives birth to innovation. Four years ago we were given our first RF welding project. We contacted a few RF welding system suppliers in the US and in the beginning we were given the promises and "no problem" familiar terms. Throughout the entire development time we could not get any sufficient information from the suppliers, it was like a secret mission or pulling teeth from them, even basic theory of operations was given bit by bit. By the time we were ready to seal suddenly the easy project became a nightmare; the process arced every 10th seal and we had to send the dies back to the RF sealer manufacturer to perfect the process before we purchase the system. Weeks went by and finally after calling 100 times to get feedback they replied that they are not interested in the project. No support whatsoever, no sorry, yet our commitment to our customer was carved on a stone.

We then had to start all over, at first we contacted one the best RF Generator manufacturers in Germany and they refused to sell us anything due to the fact that we shared the same customer base and that we were considered a competitor, we than had to conduct more search in the RF industry and finally we found a company that had patented Solid State technology who claimed to have the most efficient process in RF sealing and forming. We contacted the company and sent the samples and after getting their commitment we designed and built an RF press and sent it with the dies for testing. 3 days later we got a call to fly and see the process. We flew to Florida and when we saw the process we just could not believe it, the process worked like a charm no arcs at all and seal looked just perfect. We were very happy with the results and thankful that they could help us on a notice. The rest was a history we finished our first RF rotary sealer and delivered to our customer's site. After completing the first project we saw a great potential to help customers in need that were in a similar situation.

Since then we have spent lots of hours in studying and analyzing old RF welding process problems and customer issues and by combining our extensive experience in automation and knowledge inherited from our colleagues in the High Frequency field, we have been able to design and manufacture state of the art RF welding systems, that allow us to solve a majority of problems in the field.

By bringing science into play, we've been able to give our customers process consistency in day to day operations.

We do not use the term "Black Magic" any more since we can explain and show our customers how things work, which is rather the opposite of vacuum tube generators. By training our customers on ONEX RF systems we've been able to eliminate the need of constant tweaking, "Trial & Errors" or dependency on external resources, the so-called "RF Experts" to make the process work.

ONEX RF prides itself on using quantitative analysis and statistical process controls to deliver repeatable and reliable results to customers in order to make the best RF seal each time, every time.

New Catheter Tip Forming Machine

Onik Bogosyan — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 21:24:00 GMT

ONEX RF Automation offers extensive experience in machine building and catheter tip forming and hole punching applications for our medical customers. ONEX RF is proud to introduce our latest tip forming equipment.

After extensive evaluation and analysis, we have identified the following as common problems with tip forming equipment:

Process inconsistency
Changeover difficulties
Variations after changeover

We have developed patent pending solutions that eliminate most problems customers have in the field. Our new system is designed to form 4 catheters at a time. The forming operation is controlled by 2KW solid state generator and the process is controlled by an industrial PC controller.

The ONEX RF team has a thorough understanding of the medical field and process development, capability to design and manufacture equipment and processes that will ease your manufacturing problems, and dedication to provide our customers with unmatched customer service. We look forward to discussing your manufacturing needs with you and working with you to exceed your expectations.