Butler Technologies Inc offers product developers a chance to flex their creative muscles and warm up to some new designs on their own. The Pennsylvania-based printed electronics and user interface products manufacturer recently introduced its Heatwave Developer Kits, which provide innovators the tools to experiment and create with Butler Technologies’ flexible printed heaters.
Often, apparel, automotive, medical equipment, and other companies seeking to incorporate a customizable heating solution into their products will come to a manufacturer with the general idea for how they want the heater to work within their project. The kits allow these companies’ engineers to come up with their own design before ordering from Butler Technologies.
“A collaborative spirit is at the heart of our company’s values,” says COO Mike Wagner. “Offering our customers the opportunity to decrease their development time and costs encourages that feeling, and also provides an intimate understanding of our products.”
The kits include:
- 2 fixed resistance heaters: Stretchable, flexible, and comfortable, these heaters are ideal for wearable and textile applications that require stretching such as shirts, gloves, boots or active wear.
- 2 positive coefficient heaters (PTC): Flexible and conformable but without the stretch, making them ideal for applications such as outerwear (coats, skit pants, etc.) and medical wearables like heat therapy back braces and heating pads.
- Power cables and a 12V battery pack
No matter the style, printed heaters stand above traditional wire heaters. Butler Technologies’ heaters are created with a range of conductive inks printed on thermoplastic polyurethane film and can be designed to be self-regulating – they maintain temperature and cannot overheat. These features – along with quality-of-life enhancements, such as being machine-washable – make them ideal for materials designed to be close to users’ skin or indirectly by heating space inside of clothing.