Description

How Different Types Of Touch Screens Work

Touch screen technology has become very popular in industrial and retail products. They’ve also exploded into areas such as PDAs, tablet PCs, airport kiosks and other technologies. Touch screen technology makes our life faster and more convenient by allowing users to quickly and accurate input and access information.

There are many forms of touch screen technology, which we will address in this article. We will also explain how the touch screen technology works. Of all the touch screen technology, we will address three: Resistive, capacitive and surface acoustic wave (SAW) technology.

Resistive

Resistive touch screen panels are the most commonly used and the least expensive type of touch screen. These screens are coated with electrically conductive and resistive layers. Insulating spacers separate the two conductive or resistive layers. When pressure is applied to the screen, by a finger or other objects, the layers are brought into electrical contact which causes a switch closure and a command is registered.Resistive touch screens are widely used due to their durability. Outside elements rarely affect the performance of the screen, which deem these type of touch screens the most practical to use in areas of large use and demanding environments.Examples of resistive screens are point-of sale kiosks, debt card checkout areas and other technologies we use everyday.The figure below shows pressure being applied to a resistive touch screen, causing a electircal contact when the two layers come in contact with each other.