Modern vacuum coating machine is mainly composed of vacuum chamber, vacuum acquisition part, vacuum measurement part, power supply part, process gas input system, mechanical transmission part, heating and temperature measurement parts, ion evaporation or sputtering source, system system and other parts.

       Vacuum coating machine mainly has two forms: continuous coating production line and single-chamber coating machine. Because the mold coating has high requirements on heating and mechanical transmission parts, and the shape and size of the mold vary widely, continuous coating production lines are usually difficult to meet the requirements. A single chamber coater must be used.
      In vacuum technology, the vacuum acquisition part is an important part. Due to the high adhesion requirements of the coating of the workpiece, the background vacuum degree before the coating process is preferably higher than 6mPa, and the vacuum degree after the coating process can even reach more than 0.06mPa.
It is very important to choose the vacuum obtaining equipment rationally to achieve a high degree of vacuum. For now, there is no pump that can work from atmospheric pressure all the way to near-ultra-high vacuum. Therefore, the acquisition of vacuum cannot be achieved by a vacuum equipment and method, and several pumps must be used in combination, such as mechanical pumps, molecular pump systems, and the like.
      The vacuum measurement part of the vacuum system is to measure the pressure in the vacuum chamber. Like a vacuum pump, no vacuum gauge can measure the entire vacuum range, so people have made many types of vacuum gauges according to different principles and requirements.
      The target power supply mainly includes DC power supply (such as MDX), intermediate frequency power supply (such as PE, PEII, PINACAL produced by American AE company); the workpiece itself usually needs to add DC power supply (such as MDX), pulse power supply (such as American AE company produced PINACAL+) , or radio frequency power (RF).
      Process gases, such as argon (Ar), krypton (Kr), nitrogen (N2), acetylene (C2H2), methane (CH4), hydrogen (H2), oxygen (O2), etc., are generally supplied by gas cylinders. Gas pressure reducing valve, gas shut-off valve, pipeline, gas flow meter, solenoid valve, piezoelectric valve, and then into the vacuum chamber. The advantage of this gas input system is that the pipeline is simple and clear, and the maintenance or replacement of the gas cylinder is easy. Each coating machine does not affect each other. There is also a situation where multiple coating machines share a set of gas cylinders, which in some regulations
Coating shops with larger molds may have a chance to see it. Its advantages are that it reduces the occupancy of gas cylinders, and has unified planning and layout. The disadvantage is that due to the increase in the number of joints, the chance of air leakage increases. Moreover, each coating machine will interfere with each other, and the pipeline of one coating machine leaks, which may affect the product quality of other coating machines. In addition, when replacing the gas cylinder, it must be ensured that all the main engines are in a non-gas state.
      Tool coating requires that the circumference must be uniform in thickness, so three rotations are required in the coating process to meet the requirements. That is, when the large workpiece table is required to rotate (I), the small workpiece carrier also rotates (II), and the workpiece itself can rotate at the same time (III).
In terms of mechanical design, there is generally a large driving gear in the center of the bottom of the large workpiece turntable, surrounded by some small planetary wheels meshing with it, and then the workpiece is rotated with a fork. Of course, when doing mold coating, two rotations are generally sufficient, but the gear load capacity must be greatly enhanced.
      The evaporation source of multi-arc plating of vacuum coating machine is generally round cake, commonly known as round cake target. In recent years, rectangular multi-arc targets have also appeared, but no obvious effect has been seen. The round cake target is mounted on the copper target base (cathode base), and the two are connected by rib. A magnet is installed in the target base. By moving the magnet back and forth to change the intensity of the magnetic field, the moving speed and trajectory of the arc spot can be adjusted. In order to reduce the temperature of the target and the target base, cooling water should be continuously supplied to the target base. In order to ensure high electrical and thermal conductivity between the target and the target holder, a tin (Sn) gasket can also be added between the target and the target holder. Magnetron sputtering coatings generally use rectangular or cylindrical targets.