Oerlikon Balzers gave a ground-breaking, innovative performance of BALIQ coatings, which are now available in a stunning range of colours with BALIQ UNIQUE.
The innovative scalable pulsed power plasma (S3p) technology was first presented in 2011, and became reality in 2013 with the BALIQ family of coatings. Following release, tool manufacturers could use wear-resistant coatings, which allow smooth chip removal and make mechanical post-treatment unnecessary. With high thickness, excellent hardness, remarkable precision, and high levels of scalability, BALIQ technology was tailor-made for the tool market.
At this year’s EMO, the coating specialists from Liechtenstein presented the next leap forward in innovation: BALIQ UNIQUE, ‘The Art of Coating’. While featuring the same BALIQ quality as before, these new solutions dazzle in a brand new range of colours, which leaves the humdrum grey of standard tools in the shadows.
However, the gleaming colours are more than just pleasing to the eye, they meet the demands of tool manufacturers who need to differentiate, classify, and visualise their products.
Tool manufacturers can now assign specific colours to their tool types or groups, select appropriate colours for particular applications, create a unique overall look for their product range, and use the colour to measure the degree of abrasion.
BALIQ UNIQUE for drills, endmills, reamers, taps, thread formers, and micro-tools
All these benefits are currently available for drills, endmills, reamers, taps, thread formers, and micro-tools, and development is already in progress to extend these applications even further.
As with all BALIQ coatings, BALIQ UNIQUE gives performance improvements of up to 400%, based on the example of a micro-drill with a diameter of 0.6mm. Thread formers can also see their service life extended by 150%, and reamers can see improvements up to 86%.
Presenting the new INLENIA pica and INLENIA kila S3p coating systems
Oerlikon Balzers also presented the INLENIA pica and INLENIA kila, which are based on S3p technology.
While the extremely quick coating times makes INLENIA pica ideal for ramping up smaller batches, INLENIA kila is the logical next step for high-volume production runs. With a load capacity of up to 12 spindles, it is perfect for standard coatings and is extremely versatile.
Head of Balzers Industrial Solutions Marc Desrayaud said: “The enormous improvement in performance achieved by tools with BALIQ coating is now available in colour for the first time with BALIQ UNIQUE.
“This allows our customers to differentiate between their own product ranges, introduce colour coding, classify their individual products, and visualise the benefits of the tools they manufacture. All this is based on our S3p technology, which is now in use in the two new INLENIA pica and INLENIA kila systems.
“We are proud to carry on the success story of recent years, and to continue to offer our customers market-beating performance with a truly unique look.”