February 05, 2019 | Volume 15 Issue 05 |
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| Custom Wave Springs from Smalley Smalley can manufacture custom Wave Springs quickly and economically to meet your specific application requirements. Because force and deflection requirements are application-specific, custom springs are often needed. With Smalley's No-Tooling-Cost™ manufacturing process, customs can be produced from .157" to 120" diameters in carbon steel, stainless steel, or other readily available exotic alloys. Prototypes can be available in as little as two weeks for testing. Free samples are available of standard parts for testing.
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| World's Smallest Stepper Motor is a Big Win MICROMO presents the FAULHABER FDM 0620 series stepper motor. Measuring just 6 mm in diameter and 9.7 mm in length, including all components and connections, and with a 0.25 mNm holding torque rating, the FDM 0620 stepper motor series is small enough to fit in the most compact spaces for limitless applications. This micro stepper motor is also now available for purchase online with and without leadscrew options.
Click here to learn more. |
| Neat! Gecko Gripper with NASA tech comes to market End-effector tooling specialist OnRobot is now taking orders for its Gecko Gripper, which uses millions of micro-scaled fibrillar stalks that adhere to a surface using powerful van der Waals forces -- the same way that geckos climb. The technology was first developed at Stanford and perfected by NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab. It's fascinating how it works. It's kind of like Velcro -- if you only needed one side of the Velcro tape.
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| Harley goes electric with LiveWire motorcycle There's a new sound at Harley-Davidson, and it's not that deep rumbling roar you hear from their traditional two-wheelers. It's more of a high-pitched zip, and it comes from LiveWire, the company's first electric production motorcycle, which is now available for pre-order. LiveWire's instant torque rockets riders from 0 to 60 mph in under 3.5 sec, so that mosquito-on-steroids buzz sound is no indicator of the bike's real power.
Read the full article. |
| The always-on magnetic encoder! Novotechnik's RSM2800 Series measures up to 5,760° of rotation (16 turns) while measuring angles to less than 0.1° resolution. The RSM2800 continues to count turns and measure angle -- even when you lose power! There are no gears, optics, or batteries. Applications include robotics, material handling, forklifts, overhead doors, agricultural machines, and more.
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| Selecting the best option for coloring plastics products Designers of plastic products know the importance of choosing a dynamic color in order for a product to stand out from the competition. Not surprisingly, many are not as familiar with the fundamentals of color matching in plastic and the challenges certain resins can pose. Unfortunately, often this isn't discovered until deep into the product development cycle and after considerable time and money are invested in the project.
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| Top Tech Tip: Bearing insulation prevents electrical current damage Bearing damage can occur when electrical currents use the rolling contact as a conducting path. Insulated bearings prevent premature bearing failures eventually caused by stray electrical currents. But insulation properties must remain stable regardless of environmental conditions, in particular when bearings are stored, handled, and operated in humid climates. SKF dives deep into this issue.
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| Direct interface for cobots and CNC machines launched Manufacturers struggling to get CNC machines to communicate directly with their collaborative robot now have a solution: VersaBuilt's CNC Communication URCap is a simple yet powerful interface for machine-tending applications with Universal Robots. Launching at Universal Robots' booth 4605 at the ATX West show this week in Anaheim, the URCap allows a UR cobot to easily execute any machining program stored on the CNC directly through the cobot's own teach pendant.
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| Quiet 3-to-1 speed reducers use traction drive technology for 98% efficiency Rolling Motion Industries (RMI) has released two new traction drive speed reducers. With only six moving parts, they typically outlast conventional gearboxes and speed reducers by a factor of three. The MAR17-1-3.1 Speed Reducer is designed for input speeds up to 3,600 rpm with 10 to 20 in.-lb of torque, and the MAR-23-1-3.1 Speed Reducer is rated for the same speeds but with an input of 20 to 30 in.-lb of torque. As the output speed is reduced by a factor of three, the output torque increases by a factor of three. These high-efficiency speed reducers generate up to 72 percent less heat because they use a special engineered fluid that cools and lubricates the traction drive.
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| Springs made of high-performance, engineered plastic Lee Spring's LeeP plastic composite compression springs molded from Ultem resins provide critical advantages over traditional metal alloy springs. They feature high strength-to-weight ratio, no magnetic interference, high corrosion resistance, and dielectric insulation for non-conductive applications. They are stocked in a variety of standard sizes, each available in a "rainbow" of strengths formulated from different Ultem resins. They were designed to meet a wide range of spring applications where non-corroding, non-metallic, inert materials are preferred.
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| Gain more torque with a cooler-running motor The slim-design G3718V whisper torque motor from Lin Engineering incorporates a heat-sink design within the stator laminations to allow for passive cooling. When your motor operates cooler, you can increase power to gain more torque without overheating, or you can save energy and still perform at optimal performance. At only 22.8 mm long, this motor produces 25 oz-in. of torque.
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| Integrate Alexa and more into your product or project The MATRIX Voice Development Kit from MATRIX Labs aims to lower the barriers to entry for the creation and deployment of Internet of Things (IoT) voice applications. This platform enables users to develop voice recognition and detection projects that utilize Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa -- or any other voice recognition API. This open-source platform for the Raspberry Pi consists of a 3.14-in.-diameter development board, a radial array of 7 MEMS microphones, a Xilinx Spartan6 FPGA with 64 Mbit SDRAM, 18 RGBW LEDs, and 64 GPIO pins. It can also be used as a standalone device with the ESP32. Available from Newark element14.
Learn more from MATRIX Labs.
See purchase options from Newark element14. |
| NASA ebook: The Power for Flight -- NASA's Contributions to Aircraft Propulsion Since 1958, NASA researchers have pushed the boundaries of the design of power plants for both subsonic and supersonic flight. Innovations that emerged from NASA programs contributed to the development of ultra-high bypass turbofans, advanced turboprops, and refined systems reflecting the desire for more efficient, quieter, cleaner, and safer engines. "The Power for Flight" by Jeremy R. Kinney is a survey of NASA's work in aircraft propulsion from its origins as the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) to the early 21st century -- all neatly packed into more than 300 pages. Enjoy!
Learn more (no registration required). |
| Most popular last issue |
| Toyota Supra is back! And it's sportier than ever After 20 years out of production, Toyota is resurrecting the Supra, the sporty two-door that traces its DNA back to the Celica, but also shares a more than 50-year lineage with unique Toyota sports and GT cars. This fifth-generation Supra is a fully forward-looking sports car, brimming with a cutting-edge powertrain, chassis, and multimedia technology. The 2020 GR Supra is also the quickest Toyota-branded production vehicle to date.
Read the full article. |
| Solar device turns water into superheated steam MIT engineers have built a device that soaks up enough heat from the sun to boil water and produce "superheated" steam hotter than 100 degrees Celsius, without any expensive optics. On a sunny day, the structure can passively pump out steam hot enough to sterilize medical equipment, as well as to use in cooking and cleaning.
Read the full article. |
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| Videos+: Technologies and inspiration in action |
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