Compression Limiters are used to protect plastic components in bolted joints and maintain a threaded fastener’s clamp load by eliminating plastic creep. To function properly, bearing surface beneath the bolt’s head must extend over the Compression Limiter to contact the plastic component. If this … [Read more...]
How to Maximize Retention of Spring Pins
When proper design guidelines are followed, companies can take advantage of the many benefits that Spring Pins offer. They significantly reduce the total cost of the assembly, lower insertion forces and improve the life of an assembly by absorbing shock and vibration. This White Paper walks through … [Read more...]
How to save money and improve productivity with the next generation of vibration-resistant fasteners
The problem: Not all vibrations are good vibrations A properly designed joint utilizing a nut and bold worked perfectly for over a century in applications without vibration. Unfortunately, many fasteners do experience vibration causing the most common reason for failure excluding improper joint … [Read more...]
How To Choose Fasteners That Maximize Assembly Life
Fasteners are usually the smallest, least expensive components within an assembly. Even though fasteners usually hold the entire assembly together, they are often overlooked until the end of the design. As important as fasteners are, Design Engineers usually receive no formal … [Read more...]
How to Design the Optimum Hinge
There are two primary types of hinges: A free fit hinge has little to no friction or drag when the latch or handle is rotated. Hinge components are “free” to rotate independent of one another. A friction fit hinge requires interference to prevent free rotation of components relative to one … [Read more...]
How to Control Shim Tooling Costs
SPIROL has several manufacturing methods that eliminate or greatly reduce tooling expenditures. Shim tooling costs are one of the quickest ways to drive a prototype or short-run production project over budget. SPIROL has several manufacturing methods that eliminate or greatly reduce tooling … [Read more...]
How To Choose the Most Cost Effective Alignment Dowel
There are many ways to align components — the challenge for Design Engineers is choosing the best solution at the lowest cost. The most common, and often most expensive, Alignment Dowels are manufactured per ISO 8734. These precision ground “parallel” pins provide excellent positional tolerance … [Read more...]
Case Study : Robotic Dispensing of Appliance Adhesives Improves Quality, Reduces Cost
Background: The appliance industry bonds glass directly to oven door panels. Their adhesive choices are either very high bond double-sided adhesive tape or a liquid adhesive such as 2-component silicone or methacrylate polymer for high bond strength, long term adhesion and high temperature … [Read more...]
Conventional Fasteners Can Bring Multi-Million Dollar Machines to Their Knees
For fail-safe joint integrity in critical applications, US industry is adopting an innovative fastener locking system that can stop joint failure and production downtime by preventing thread loosening from starting, even in counter bored hole applications … [Read more...]
Installation of Self-clinching Fasteners in Thick Sheets
Self-clinching fasteners are pressed into holes in ductile metal sheets to create a permanent union with the host material and replace one or more pieces of traditional loose hardware or extruded/tapped holes in panels and brackets. Here are important considerations in the design of self-clinching … [Read more...]