Hydraulic Vises

Posted on May 16, 2012 by admin

Hydraulic swing clamps Within the industrial world of machining and high speed manufacturing, some kind of vise or clamping system is going to be needed to secure the material being machined to the workholding surface. Without it thing will go quickly awry — just imagine using a drill press to make a hole in a block of wood that is just sitting there loose on the surface. As soon as the drill hits the wood, the wood will start spinning and shoot away.

Because of this clamps and vises are an essential part of CNC machines. However, the time required to secure materials to the clamp can be add up in certain kinds of high volume machining production. In these cases hydraulic clamps or vises such as these can provide a much faster way to turn around the process of securing materials.

When Hydraulic is Better

There are two basic situations in which the (hefty) cost of hydraulic vises is worthwhile:

Very precise clamping pressures are required, and consistency of pressure from part to part is important.
Very short machining times for large numbers of parts.

Obviously computer-controlled and automated vises are going to be capable of much more precise and consistent clamping pressures than human operators, even with the aid of digital measuring equipment.

On the time-saving end, however, the expense of hydraulic systems are usually only worthwhile for short run-time, high volume projects. The reason for this is that the actual time saved by hydraulic vises on any single project is relatively minimal. It’s likely, for example, that a 5-minute clamping could be reduced to under a minute.

In a complex machining run where the part is machined for an hour or two, saving four minutes isn’t much of a gain. At the end of the day the time savings isn’t enough to product a single extra part.

However for very short run machining where the actual machining or cutting time is mere minutes, you can quickly reach a situation where the clamping time is near or greater than the machining time. In these cases the move from manual to hydraulic clamping can literally double the production capabilities of a single CNC machine.

Thus when considering adding hydraulic vises to a CNC operation, the best answer really depends on the kinds of jobs that the machine will be running — and thereafter that machine will need to be positioned as the go-to machine for short time / high volume machining.

Dice Bags

Posted on May 10, 2012 by admin

In the world of Dungeons & Dragons and other tabletop RPGs, dice is the one accessory that every gamer must have. But of course carrying a bunch of stray dice around in your pocket doesn’t really work out, and thus you need an accessory for the accessories: dice bags.

As you can see here, the variety of dice bags available is staggering. Everything from plain colored dice bags to bags with fabric prints, special designs, multi-colored velvet and even metallic bags.

This video gives another good glimpse of the popularity of dice bags:

As the video shows, the dice bags are more than just a means of transport, but like dice themselves are tied to gamers’ identity. Certain kinds of gamers use certain kinds of dice bags — other gamers have multiple dice bags to carry their many sets of dice, and use different dice bags for different situations.

The Strangest Dice Bags

Chainmail dice bag Along with the average array of dice bags in all their myriad of colors and fabrics, there are some dice bags that are a step above and beyond even those.

Topping this list is the chainmail dice bag — literally a dice bag made out of chainmail — a surprisingly popular choice and perfect for Dungeons & Dragons players. The other of the strange dice bag choices is the plush Cthulhu dice bag — it’s literally a plush stuffed animal Cthulhu, with a zipper in back where you can store your dice. With a price tag of about $30, these dice bags are still in sufficient demand that they keep making more.

Fire Pits and Safety

Posted on February 14, 2012 by admin

There are basically two kinds of fire pits in the world: the kind where you dig a hole in the ground and haul some blocks around it, and the kind that are elaborate creations of metal that are meant to look good. Don’t get me wrong, you can make some pretty attractive holes in the ground — well maybe not the holes so much as the way you can build up your rocks or colored cinder blocks around it — but it’s not the same as something that’s designed to look attractive.

The fancier fire pits sometimes border on being works of art, rather than just a housing meant to enclose an open flame. However, it it demonstrably true that the enclosed fire pits that they sell at lawn and garden centers the world over are much safer than the average shallow hole.

What Makes Fire Pits Safe

The core concept of why a fire pit is a safe way to contain a fire has nothing to do with the flame itself, but instead is centered around the wood that is burning to create the flame. That burning wood turns into red-hot glowing embers and charcoal and hot ash. All of these substances can become easily airborne in the slightest breeze and blow around the outdoors to start fires.

Thus the fire pits principle purpose is to contain those hot ashes and embers. A typical hole in the ground style fire pit is usually very shallow and with sloped edges, because this is just the easiest way to dig. Unfortunately that bowl-like shallow curve of the fire pit makes it very easy for the hot ash and embers to blow away.

A preconstructed or free standing fire pit has a distinct and enclosed area to contain the wood of the fire, along with the other hazardous burning and hot materials. This makes the preconstructed fire pits far safer.

It is worth mentioning, however, that the hole in the ground style fire pit can be constructed every bit as safely as the preconstructed ones. A perfect example of this is the fire pits or fire rings that are commonly found at campgrounds. These fire pits have an thick iron sleeve fitted around the inside of the fire pit, and the fire pit itself has a substantial depth. This effectively contains the burning matter and keeps the fire as safe as possible.

Free standing fire pits can also be built with a thick metal screen that covers the fire itself. This is the safest of all fire pits because it ensures that no embers at all can become airborne.

Avery Dennison Tag Attachers & History

Posted on January 30, 2012 by admin

Avery Dennison is a Fortune 500 company known for its manufacture of pressure-sensitive materials and it’s popular retail tag attachers, labelers, and fasteners. Avery Dennison is the combination of the Avery International Corporation and Dennison Manufacturing Company which merged in 1990. Avery’s roots go back to 1935 when it was formed (originally as Kum Kleen Products) and Dennison traces its roots to 1844 box manufacturing company.

The latest readily available data on Avery Dennison sales numbers if from 2008, which lists their total sales at $6.7 billion. The company is divided into four segments. These are the Pressure-Sensitive Materials division which accounts for the majority of the company’s sales and whose products include films and pressure-sensitive roll labels; the Retail Information Services division whose products include the classic line of Avery Dennison tag attachers and various other price-marking equipment; Other Specialty Products division whose products including RFID tags and various industrial products; and finally the Office and Consumer Products division whose products include labels and binders.

The Office and Consumer Products division of Avery Dennison is being purchased by 3M (purchase just announced this month — Jan, 2012) and will soon be a part of 3M’s product family.

Tag Attachers

An example of an Avery Dennison tag attacher

Avery Dennison is the leader in the tag attacher market. These simple hand-held machines look like a labeling gun, and are designed to attach price or other identification tags to merchandise. The benefit of tag attachers is that they work incredibly swiftly — just set it against the item that needs to be tagged and pull the trigger. A loop of fastener is automatically threaded through the item being tagged, wound around, and sealed against itself.

There are many different varieties of tag attachers for use with different kinds of merchandise. Probably the most common tag attacher use is on clothing or other fabrics, and there are tag attachers and fasteners designed to work with just about any kind of fabric, from denim and carpet to the finest silks. Tag attachers can also be designed to work by looping the fastener around an item, rather than threading through it, such as around belt loops & buckles, button holes, and sunglasses.

Some of the most popular Avery Dennison tag attachers include:

Without the help of a tag attacher price tags would either have to be tied in place with string, or literally threaded through fabric with a needle and threat. Tag attacher enable retail outlets to save substantial time on each tag that is attached, and the tag attachers themselves are capable of holding a hundred or more fasteners and so can work non-stop from item to item in a very short period of time. Tag attachers are nearly universal in all clothing stores and throughout the retail merchandise world.

CNC Routers vs CNC Mills

Posted on January 23, 2012 by admin

In the world of CNC machining the terms CNC router and CNC mill are used to describe machining equipment that is often literally the same machine, though there are differences in how the CNC technology is applied between a CNC router and a CNC mill. Both make use of computer drawing, or CAD, software to program the desired shape into a computer which then operates the machine to cut the shape out of various raw materials.

CNC routers generally refer to the application of CNC machines to shape wood or other soft material, including some plastics.
CNC mills generally refer to the application of CNC machines to shape metal or other hard material, including some stones.

Differences Between CNC Routers and Mills

While the type of material being machined is really what determines whether it’s referred to as a CNC router or a CNC mill, there are differences in how the machines are used. Working with wood or softer materials requires a much higher rotational speed of the cutting spindle. CNC routers will spin from 13,00o0 RPG to as high as 24,000 RPM, much faster than the slower rotational speeds of a machine used to cut away metal. While CNC mills used for metal cutting operate at a slower speed, they also require substantially more power.

Unlike metal, CNC machines are commonly used by hobby practitioners (CNC mills are almost exclusive to large manufacturing operations and machine shops). As a result of which smaller CNC routers are manufactured specifically with these hobby enthusiasts and artisan woodworkers in mind. Similarly there are many different CAD software produced specifically for woodworking.

CNC routers tend to have larger beds than CNC mills to accommodate much larger sheets of wood than is typically used in the machining of metals and typically include dust collection hoods to limit the amount of sawdust sprayed into the cutting area. Different cutting tools are required for different materials, and thus CNC routers and CNC mills will use different tooling — but even within routers and mills different spindle types are required for different materials (different kinds of wood, different metals, etc) as well as for different kinds of cutting jobs.

Ultimately a large CNC machine could be used for either wood or metal, provided the machine was flexible enough to handle the different rotational speed and power requirements. By changing out the cutting spindle on the machine and using it on a different material you could transform your CNC mill into a CNC router in moments.

Aluminum Cases: Not Just Briefcases

Posted on January 18, 2012 by admin

Aluminum cases are ubiquitous in the business world as a standard style and material for briefcases among businesspeople who are seeking a bit more flair than a standard soft leather case. However the world of aluminum cases is filled with a dizzying variety of uses, including some odd yet pretty awesome cases that you’ve probably never heard of.

Aluminum Cases Basics

Aluminum cases bring two basic advantages over standard cases: aluminum is a strong and very lightweight metal that allows you to take advantage of the strength of a metal case without something that is ridiculously heavy. But modern plastics can accomplish the same protective benefits that aluminum brings.

The second and more significant reason for the popularity of aluminum cases is simply appearance. Aluminum is an attractive metal that can be burnished to a high shine, or etched or patterned with various attractive finishes and designs. While the shiny metallic aluminum is the most commonly thought of for, a black finish is also very popular with aluminum cases. These matte black, often crosshatched cases are popular for firearms and general purpose equipment cases.

Types of Aluminum Cases

Aluminum cases server a wide range of business case needs, from briefcases to presentation cases. But beyond those basics aluminum cases are often used as product cases to store products. As a product case aluminum is chosen to lend a certain amount of implied value to the products. The idea is that while a normal product might be in a cardboard box, only an incredibly valuable and sophisticated product would be displayed in an aluminum case.

One of the best examples of this principle is the aluminum CD or DVD case (yes, they make those). This is a simple case that holds a single CD or DVD, just like your typical plastic CD case, only made of metal. While the concept can seem a bit silly at first, consider this: you’re making a presentation to an important client, or submitting your demo CD to a reviewer. That client or review has a stack of papers and CD cases sitting on his desk. But only yours is encased in aluminum. It’s so unique, stands out from everything else so distinctly, that you know that case is going to get picked up and opened — if for no other reason to examine the case itself. Thus the CD/DVD put in the aluminum CD case is far more likely to get viewed, and viewed far sooner, than the rest of the stack.

Another common use for aluminum cases is in the beauty industry, where make-up cases and many professional beauty cases are made from aluminum — again for the mix of looks and security, but mostly for the looks. Pro and semi-pro beauty cases typically include inline skate wheels and a retractable handle, and the case itself often includes multiple doors into different compartments, that include drawers and other customizable organization.

Stainless Steel vs Aluminum Metal Stamping

Posted on January 12, 2012 by admin

In the industrial manufacturing world metal stamping is one of the leading manufacturing processes for the creation of metal parts. In fact, the metal stamping companies of the US ship over 11 billion dollars of metal stampings, and that’s just domestic. Metal stamping is larger than die casting or even machining for the number of metal parts created and the dollar value of shipped product.

Metal stamping (learn more about the process here) can be used with just about any kind of metal; however, market pressures and engineering concerns mean that in practice there are only a handful of metals that are commonly used in metal stamping, though each metal type has dozens of different grades for different applications.

Stainless Steel and Aluminum Metal Stamping

Two of the most common of that short list of metals used in stamping are stainless steel and aluminum. These two metals surround low carbon steel, which is often considered the base point in metals and exist on opposite ends of the metal stamping spectrum.

Stainless steel metal stampings inherit many incredibly valuable characteristics from the base metal. Stainless steel’s most well-known property is it’s corrosion resistance, which makes it ideal for parts that will be used outdoors or otherwise exposed to the elements or to excessive moisture. Stainless steel is also capable of being burnished to a high shine, and is a very strong metal that is appropriate for parts that will have a great deal of stress on them.

The largest downside of stainless steel is cost: stainless steel is considerably more expensive than the low carbon steel base, and that cost can lead manufacturers to explore other options (such as manufacturing in low carbon steel and then using a secondary coating process to gain weather resistance).

Aluminum metal stampings on the other hand are a very low cost metal. Aluminum is also much-desired because it is extremely light weight, and yet substantially strong. While aluminum stampings don’t have nearly the strength that steel stampings will, aluminum has an incredibly high strength to weight ratio.

Like stainless steel, aluminum can be an attractive metal when burnished to a shine, and satisfies the manufacturing needs for parts that do not require great strength or corrosion resistance. Aluminum is much sought after for it’s low weight for parts needed in lightweight applications.

Most Common

Ultimately the most common metal used in the metal stamping industry is low carbon steel — the base metal that we compare others against. Low carbon steel is the ideal mixture of strength and cost and the vast majority of metal stamped parts are stamped out of low carbon sheet metal. However of the other common metals — including brass, bronze, and copper — aluminum and stainless steel lead the pack as the specialty metals of choice for metal stamping.

Dungeons & Dragons D&D Dice

Posted on December 20, 2011 by admin

In the world of table top gaming, Dungeons & Dragons is the game that most gaming dice are based off of. It’s also the one game that nearly every gamers knows how to play, with at least a superficial understanding of the rules and setting, and the one RPG that non-gamers have universally heard of.

Because D&D is the mainstay of the gaming industry, D&D dice are something that every RPG publisher can pretty safely assume that all gamers will have on hand.

The D&D Dice Set

D&D has defined what is considered the standard polyhedral dice assortment. These include:

d4: 4-sided dice
d6: 6-sided dice (standard casino dice)
d8: 8-sided dice
d10: 10-sided dice
d12: 12-sided dice
d20: 20-sided dice

Every one of these dice types is used in D&D, and they are used in different quantities. At one point when the RPG industry was a bit younger — in its peak in the ’80s — the standard D&D dice set was the 10-dice set. This included one of each of the above, but with four six-sided dice. The four d6 was included mostly because character creation in D&D involved rolling four six-sided dice, but the extra d6s were also useful for some more common damage dice rolls, including the fireball spell and some weapon damage.

Later the 10-dice set was replaced by the 7-dice set. This includes just one of each of the dice above, plus an extra “percentile” d10 that is used when rolling two 10-sided dice to get a percentage result. The 7-dice set satisfied some newer games that made heavy use of percentile rolling, but was also less expensive than the 10-dice set because it had fewer dice.

Today the 7-dice set remains the standard D&D dice set throughout the RPG industry, and for many other RPG games as well.

D&D Dice Exceptions

Despite the standardization of D&D dice, not all games make use of the D&D dice set. Two particular exceptions are games that make use only of six-sided dice (and usually larger quantities of them) including Champions and Shadowrun. Both of these are venerable games that were released with the first wave of RPGs capitalizing on D&Ds success.

By using exclusively six-sided dice, these games were able to very apparently distinguish themselves from D&D in mechanics, and took advantage the fact that most people had a decent number of six-sided dice that could be salvaged from various board games. In addition, many miniature war games that the RPG industry grew out of used a large number of six-sided dice. This was at a time when other dice types were harder to come by and only available in hobby games stores, which were somewhat far and few between (usually comic shops).

As a result of the popularity of these games dice manufacturers started producing “dice cubes” that were sets of 12 or 36 six-sided dice.

The other major exception to the D&D dice formula was the relative late-comer, and arguably the last truly successful new RPG, White Wolf’s World of Darkness. Their Storyteller system made use exclusively of 10-sided dice, but rolling large quantities of them rather than using a percentile system.

The success of White Wolf games in the mid ’90s prompted dice manufacturers to start producing sets of 10 10-sided dice. These 10d10 dice sets are still manufactured today, a testament to the continued popularity of White Wolf games, despite their decline since White Wolf’s amazingly unpopular system revamp.

Gas Detection & Gas Detectors

Posted on December 14, 2011 by admin

Gas detection is a significant and important safety industry that includes everything from simple home gas detectors to complex gas detection systems that are used in factories and other manufacturing facilities. Gas detectors are created to detect the presence of various hazardous and toxic gases, as well as dangerously low levels of oxygen.

Home gas detectors focus primarily on detection of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, while industrial gas detection systems must cover a range of gases, depending on what kind of chemicals are used in the industrial production and cleaning processes (often it is the chemicals used for cleaning that are the most potentially hazardous gases).

Gas Detection Systems

In industrial plants, energy plants, and other sectors in which use of hazardous and toxic gases are common, complex gas detection systems are used to manage the safety of the entire plant. The common plant-wide gas detection system is a multi-point system that has built-in redundancies and automated alarm triggering.

These multi-point gas detection systems make use of multiple gas sensors throughout the danger areas of the plant. Each separate kind of gas that needs to be detected requires a different kind of sensor, and a typical gas detector might have several different sensors in it. Each sensor must be calibrated, and over time the calibration of the gas sensors much be checked and maintained. The duration that a gas detector will keep its calibration varies depending on the model, but some detectors have calibrations that are good for six months to a year.

All of these gas sensors are wired (or wireless) for communication to a central computer system. Very often this is the system that handles all of the building automation, and is usually manned by several people. When the sensors detects a level of a hazardous or toxic gas above the limit to which they’ve been set, they trigger the central computer system with an alert. Depending on the level of the gas and the setting of the system, an alarm may automatically sound, or a simple alert may be fed to the operator of the central computer, who has discretion in investigating the problem vs. evacuating depending on the severity of the gas levels.

Gases Commonly Detected

The following are some of the gases that industrial gas detection systems must commonly monitor:

Oxygen: typically referred to oxygen deficiency detectors, these sensors trigger when oxygen levels fall too low. These kinds of systems are common in mines and underground facilities in which the atmosphere is dependent on artificial circulation machinery.

Ammonia: also knows as NH3, ammonia is used commonly as a cleanser in countless industries and can also be used in the manufacture of everything from meat packing and refrigeration to textile mills and refrigeration. Ammonia is poisonous at higher concentrations, and an irritant at lower ones, and ammonia gas detection typically uses sensors to trigger at lower concentrations.

Chlorine: CL2 is used both for manufacturing production and as a disinfectant. Chlorine can be highly poisonous and is heavier than air, meaning that in industrial plants it will tend to settle down to the level where workers are, making chlorine gas detectors essential.

Sulfur Dioxide: SO2 is a toxic gas that is used as a preservative in food processing and is also found in coal and oil fueled power plants. Sulfur Dioxide detectors are necessary everywhere the chemical is used, or where it is a byproducts of combustion.

This is of course just a small sampling of the kinds of gases that gas detectors are used to detect. Other hazardous gases that gas detection systems are designed to monitor include carbon monoxide, nitric oxide, nitrogen dioxide, ethylene oxide, hydrogen cyanide, hydrogen flouride, and many others.

Composite Disc Couplings

Posted on December 13, 2011 by admin

Composite disc couplings, also known as CD couplings, are a specific kind of flexible shaft coupling. Composite disc couplings are used heavily in servo motors to join two shafts. Quality disc couplings offer high torsional stiffness and dynamic load capacity.

Disc couplings for use in servo motors in particular must be manufactured from extremely durable materials to handle the high stress that servo motors put on couplings: unlike other motor applications in which the motor tends to run continuously at a constant speed, servo motors are constantly changing their speeds, turning off and on, and even reversing spin direction. All of these factors result in high wear on disc couplings and spacer couplings.

Flexible Composite Disc Couplings

Composite disc couplings are commonly considered within the flexible shaft coupling family. A flexible shaft coupling corrects for some minor amount of misalignment between the two shafts that are being coupled. In most situations two shafts are almost always slightly out of alignment in some way, with either lateral or angular alignment issues.

The reason is simply that it’s virtually impossible to install two shafts that are not a part of the same manufactured piece so that they align perfectly. The role of the flexible composite disc coupling is to correct for that misalignment while maintaining a high torsional stiffness to maintain the rotational power of the motor through both shafts.

Composite Disc Coupling Specifications

Different applications will demand different specifications from composite disc couplings. The most apparent specs include the degree of misalignment that the disc coupling must handle, and the amount of torsional stiffness required by the motor application. Other considerations include operating temperature tolerances and the environment in which the disc coupling is expected to operate.

Most composite disc couplings have an operating temperature range from well below zero — as low as -70 degrees F to over two hundred degrees F, and the materials that the disc coupling is constructed from will determine the exact operating range of that composite disc coupling. The materials used in the manufacture also determine other properties of the disc coupling, including its resistance to moisture and other chemicals to which the coupling may be exposed in the course of operation.

Composite disc couplings are commonly used in applications requiring a high degree of precision and industries that make use of CD couplings include packing, printing, and machine tools. In addition, almost any industry making use of servo motors for industrial automation technology (including many robots applications) will make use of composite disc couplings.

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