In-wheel drive
Wasted space. That's what you find inside most wheels. Filling the void with a compact gearmotor, therefore, makes sense when designing small, electric-powered vehicles.
Custom-built, in-wheel drives from Rockland Precision Gearmotors fully integrate the gearmotor, wheel, and chassis mount. Because the planetary gear's rotating member functions as the wheel hub, the design places vehicle weight on top of the bearings for greater load-carrying capacity.
Use of brushless DC motors, moreover, offers better efficiency, reduced maintenance, and higher power-to-size when compared to more common brush-type motors.
David Silverstein, Rockland Precision Gearmotors, 20 Seaview Blvd., Port Washington, NY 11050 (516) 625-9151.
Photon counter
Photon counting systems typically cost several thousand dollars. Not so with the HC135 Series PMT (photomultiplier tube) sensor module. Plugged to a PC via RS-232C serial interface, the self-contained system integrates all components necessary for photon counting.
Operators program integration time, number of readings, and reading sequence with the host computer. The microcontroller corrects each reading for a linear range exceeding six orders of magnitude and less than 1% nonlinear error.
Designed for medical equipment, industrial measurement systems, and analytical instruments, the modules sell for appoximately $1,800.
Craig Walling,Hamamatsu Corp., 360 Foothill Rd., Box 6910, Bridgewater, NJ 08807, (908) 231-0960.
No-leak Li battery
Within a year, Solid-State System™ lithium batteries should be available in quantity to supplant troublesome liquid-electrolyte lithium-ion designs. Now in development with several portable-electronics manufacturers, Ultralife® batteries use a solid polymer electrolyte to prevent leaks and venting of hydrogen. Energy density ranges between 100-130 W-h/kg, and the design permits prismatic configurations as thin as 0.020 inch.
Greg Smith,Ultralife Batteries, Inc., 160 Summit Plaza, Montvale, NJ 07645, (201) 930-4900.
Ice chips
It's called ice for a reason: diamond has the best thermal conductivity of any known material. Progress in chemical-vapor-deposited diamond now makes it possible to package integrated circuits with a diamond-film heat spreader that swiftly carries thermal energy out to the chip leads. A 208-pin IC with the so-called Norcool™ configuration recently demonstrated thermal resistance of 12.5°C/W at 5W without forced cooling--that's 26% to 50% better than conventional thermally enhanced package designs.
Arjun Partha, Norton Diamond Film, Goddard Road, Northboro, MA 01532, (508) 351-7779.
Self-indexing vise
Vises that grip angled extrusions typically require the machinist to manually adjust the jaws until they conform to the extrusion. By mounting a half-cylindrical jaw insert into this vise's movable jaw, designers enable the vise to automatically adjust to workpieces of different angularities. Depending upon the application, the insert can either freely pivot in the movable jaw, or it can be biased by springs to return to a set position. During extrusion routing operations, the vise frees the machine operator from the need to make adjustments as the angles of different extrusions change.
Mark Turner or Laszlo Ferenczi, Box 655907, M/S MSF-41, Dallas, TX 75265-5907, (214) 266-2772.
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