I always think about the test plan and design FMEA and wonder was it succesfully executed. There is more to a design than just the design. Someone in quality shoudl have to validate the design. And if the design passes the the quality tests it was not only design that failed but quality.
Thanks for a great basic article on an important if often overlooked subject. I've been curious about the details of how linear bearings work, and why they sometimes stop working. Lubrication was obvious, but I didn't realize how important contamination is, although that seems obvious in 20-20 hindsight. This article has given me a much better understanding of bearing functioning and needed maintenance.
Yes, you are correct that material hardness plays a very key part of linear bearing life and it is easy to forget that some manufacturers do not harden their raceways or bearing blocks. They try to offer a very low cost solution, but will neglect to inform the customer of this very important oversight in their product design and manufacture.
Hopefully it is clear in my article that we are hoping our customers take the proper planning and care in their choice of linear guide and understand before they start some of the pitfalls and errors which can be made. We much prefer to assist in the front end of the design cycle to prevent errors, rather than come in after the design is assembled and built to correct a problem whcih could have been avoided during the design phase. We feel that this approach offers everyone a better result. A bad design makes my company look bad, even through the product may have performed correctly, it was just asked to do something it wasn't designed to do.
Rick, good article. While bearings may not be glamorous, they are often an essential component of complex machinery. Another aspect of bearing longevity is hardness. When an inappropriate material is used, say to lower cost, the bearings will wear out quickly. This necessitates an expensive replacement operation.
For 3D printing to make the jump from rapid prototyping to manufacturing, engineers will need to find easier ways to move products from their CAD screens to their printers.
Gigabit and PoE are two networking technologies moving ahead in tandem as industrial users power remote Ethernet devices such as IP security cameras at 1,000 Mbps over existing CAT5 cable.
New versions of BASF's Ecovio line are both compostable and designed for either injection molding or thermoforming. These combinations are becoming more common for the single-use bioplastics used in food service and food packaging applications, but are still not widely available.
From Dell / Intel® New Paradigms in Design Work Scott Hamilton, vertical market strategist for Dell Precision workstations, 5/2/2013 5
Early in my career, I worked as a draftsman and remember the days of drawing on vellum with numbered pencils and Mylar with plastic lead. This was a fun experience in the sense that I ...
I've been using workstations for more than 10 years and love finding ways to get more performance from my system. With demanding professional applications that require more power each ...
A lasting memory from my first job as an engineer in an auto assembly plant is standing on hard concrete at six in the morning, vending-machine coffee clutched in hand, listening to ...
For industrial control applications, or even a simple assembly line, that machine can go almost 24/7 without a break. But what happens when the task is a little more complex? That’s where the “smart” machine would come in. The smart machine is one that has some simple (or complex in some cases) processing capability to be able to adapt to changing conditions. Such machines are suited for a host of applications, including automotive, aerospace, defense, medical, computers and electronics, telecommunications, consumer goods, and so on. This radio show will show what’s possible with smart machines, and what tradeoffs need to be made to implement such a solution.
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