Industrial touchscreen technology has advanced to provide many different options.
5-Wire Resistive Touch Screen Technology
5-Wire Resistive Touch Screen Technology represents a revolution in the industry of touch screens. Technology can sometimes be vulnerable to environmental conditions such as liquid spills, humidity, wash down. Users get an increase in reliability and durability, protecting against these hazards, plus longer product life for their touchscreen. 5-Wire Resistive touch screen panels technology leads the pack in contamination-resistant components with drift-free operation capable of more than 35 million finger touches.
Resistive LCD industrial touchscreen technology consists of a glass (or similar material) panel coated with electrically conductive and resistive layers. Each layer is separated by invisible separator dots. Activated LCD touchscreens displays have an electrical current traveling through the screen, casting a net across the monitor face. Any applied pressure from touching pushes the layers together, generating an electrical current change which registers a command.
Reliable touch screen technology resists environmental changes, meaning that no recalibration is necessary for precise functionality. The most practical of touch screen technologies are resistive-type touch screens; their durability has earned them the reputation as the “workhorse of touch screen technologies.” The overwhelming popularity of this type of touch screen technology demonstrates its reliability and durability under a variety of extreme conditions.
Surface Acoustic Wave Touch Screen Technology
SAW Touch Screen Technology uses ultrasonic wave technology over the touch panel. Acoustic waves travel across the panel with a series of transducers and reflectors, creating an invisible grid across the screen. The waves are broken when a finger pushes on the touchscreen. Industrial touchscreen technology detects the particular location, sending the position data to the controller for processing. If the sensor detects a link, an action is launched -- like clicking a mouse. SAW Touch Screen Technology panels are the most advanced touch screen technologies available but are susceptible to environmental damage.
Made entirely of glass, there are no layers to wear down, giving SAW the highest durability and clarity available. SAW touchscreen technology is ideal for medical applications, touch displays, kiosks, computer-based training, or other high-traffic indoor environments. Also, this touch screen technology requires the use of a glass layer, making it potentially unavailable for all LCD panels.
Projected Capacitive Touch Screen Technology
A Projected Capacitive Touch has the ability to enable multi-touch that Resistive and SAW touch technologies are unable to achieve. Since this glass has multi-touch capabilities, the touch function works a bit differently. The touch glass is embedded with transparent electrode films with an IC chip that creates a three-dimensional electrostatic field. When a finger touches the screen, the electrical currents change. The computer can then detect the touch points to determine the location touched. Projected Capacitive touch screens are clearer than surface capacitive touch glasses. This type of glass is more scratch resistant than that of Surface Capacitive touch glass and has the multi-touch capability.
Traditional consumer grade PCAP has some downsides, including sensitivity to EMI (Electromagnetic Interference) or RFI (Radio Frequency Interference). Activation can only be done with a bare finger or with thin gloves on. Those shortcomings have been improved on our industrial PCAP touch technology.
Go here to find all touchscreen technology display monitors Caltron provides.
This article was originally posted on www.caltronind.com/articles by Caltron Industries Inc, revised it to include PCAP technology recently.
