Designer's Corner 162

Downed-line sentinel

Storms or motor-vehicle accidents bring down power lines with disheartening regularity. The Safety Yoke could greatly reduce the danger of live wires on the ground.

Safety Yoke attaches to utility poles with the power line cradled between extensions on its housing. Installation includes connecting a spring-loaded copper bus bar within the housing to the pole's ground and common neutral wire. As a power line falls, it pushes the flexibly attached XENOY(R) housing down and triggers the bus bar. The bus bar pushes past a resistance-fit cover, and springs forward to make contact with the live wire. The resulting positive ground fault trips existing circuit-protection hardware to kill power to the line.

Safety Yoke: Ron Young, Electric Safety Products, Inc., 1176 Grimes Bridge Rd., Suite 300, Roswell, GA 30075, (404) 993-2809.

XENOY(R) resin: GE Plastics, One Plastics Ave., Pittsfield, MA 01201, (800) 855-0600.

Handle with care

The attrition rate for imaging chips picked up with forceps proved too high. Enter the 90 degrees Manual-Rotation vacuum wand. With it, workers can pick up and manipulate delicate parts during microscopic inspection with a much lower incidence of damage.

The part handler incorporates a blunt-end syringe needle coupled to a hollow, rotating spindle. Stainless steel bevel gears and shaft seals in the spindle minimize contamination and vacuum leakage. Approximately 4.5 inches long and two inches high, it easily fits beneath most microscope inspection stations. A quick-disconnect fitting plugs directly into a 29-mm-Hg vortex vacuum generator.

Edward Johnson, ModelMax, 2132 East Lake Rd., Skaneateles Falls, NY 13152, (315) 685-4285.

Retrofit valve indicator

Troubleshooting ac-piloted pneumatic valves can be a headache without a quick way of checking operating current. Lumi-Nut(TM) retaining nuts feature an induction-powered LED to indicate when the solenoid is powered up. Available in 5/16-18 or M8 x 0.75 sizes, they're compatible with 12- to 460-V, 50- or 60-Hz power. Users can upgrade existing applications without removing valves from fittings or OEMs can stock the devices as an option for their current valve lines.
Detroit Coil Co., 2435 Hilton Rd., Ferndale, MI 48220, (810) 398-5600.