Magnetically driven micro ball valves fabricated by multilayer adhesive film bonding

A new manufacturing method has been used to produce a magnetically driven micro ball valve. The micro ball valve consists of three hot-embossed polymer layers and three metal layers. The layers are bonded with adhesive films which are microstructured by a punching process. The valve uses iron balls with a diameter of 3 rum as moving parts driven by a commercially available coil. The valve switches up to 200 kPa differential pressure with an initial current of 300 mA. The on-off switch frequency investigated was up to 30 Hz. In addition, the valve can operate as a proportional valve regulating the outlet pressure range from 0 to 112.5 kPa at an input pressure of 200 kPa. A switching time of 10 ms was measured.