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An Introduction to Ebble Manufacturing
Ebble Manufacturing is the subcontract treatment and manufacturing side of the Ebble Group, working alongside Tantec UK supplying Plasma and Corona equipment.
Ebble Manufacturing began life as simple support for small scale applications and for extensive trials for those looking to prove the technology before buying their own equipment when working with Tantec.
With time it became bigger than this and has developed in to a standalone part of the business dealing with customers who don’t want to buy equipment. Typical reasons people use the manufacturing side over the equipment side include:
- No need for upfront capital equipment or tooling purchase
- Access to the widest range of systems without having to compromise and pick just one
- Technical knowledge and training
- Staffing and production planning
- Project size or duration
- Machine payback and financing considerations
- Additional manufacturing capacity
What Services Do Ebble Manufacturing Supply?
| Service | Typical Applications |
| Subcontract Plasma Treatment Using either Vacuum Plasma or Atmospheric Plasma to treat a material, these are highly versatile and Vacuum Plasma in particular often requires zero upfront tooling costs to get going. | Treatment of many shapes and materials, widely used for injection moulded plastic components as well as electrical systems such as components, PCBs and fabrications. A mix of materials include metals, polymers, ceramics and glass but really you can try anything in these systems. |
| Subcontract Corona Treatment Simple web treater systems for web and foil materials available for use, generally up to 600mm on site (wider available to purchase) | Corona discharge treatment is most commonly seen as a web treater where it can treat wide, thin materials. This is most commonly for printing or coating but will improve materials for many adhesion projects. Generally polymers are best treated using this system, packaging and printed materials are the most common. However, metal foils are often treated in this way too. |
| Bonding and Assembly | Receiving a treated material back for further processing is one option, another is for us to do some of the further processing and most commonly this is adhesive and tape bonding and assembly. Our core focus is the knowhow around surface treatment, and adding an assembly step secures the treatment process to minimise risks from shipping. |
| Printing, Coating and other processes | Expanding to more technical processes, we offer some inhouse and work closely with trusted suppliers to offer the rest. We’ve found customers find this useful if they’re new to manufacturing or their specific product is a little outside their norm and want to have a robust and existing supply chain. |
| Quality Control and Testing | As part of every treatment project we operate comes a standard operating procedure, drawn out to include machine settings, part handling and processing information and importantly the quality control required. In house quality testing is confirmed as sensible with real world samples and discussion and the test frequency agreed. This process is essential for confirming the treatment and is governed by our ISO9001 quality management system. |
| More coming soon… | Ebble Manufacturing really pushed growth in 2022 when it took on it’s own premises and began investment in new equipment. Since then, the whole business moved to a new building which is 4x larger than before and we’re adding new equipment and systems as we develop. Keeping quality in mind, we work with processes we know and understand. Integrating their use and control within our quality management system. |
Other Useful Info About Ebble Manufacturing
Our teams across Ebble and Tantec work closely so whether you start talking to one or the other, our teams have your best interests in mind and can openly discuss both options.
We also think it’s especially good for those looking to understand the processes and whether they’re right for you. Working with customers who have perhaps used abrasion techniques like grit and sandblasting or chemical primers in the past, it can be daunting to simply jump in to Plasma and Corona treatment.
Working with Ebble you can evaluate costs, performance and ease of use without excessive costs.
A really big advantage of working with Ebble Manufacturing is the fact that any work, settings and quality control developed on this side of the business can be copied directly over to your own business if you decide to buy equipment yourself in the future. No need for future process revalidation or testing as the systems we use and the systems Tantec manufacture are like for like.
