TechArchive

Original article date: July 1999 Hanging on to old but working data acquisition designs may make sense, but with the PCI architecture now being an absolute PC standard, perhaps you should be thinking about updating those ISA based systems. Jaime Peters and David Norris explain The Peripheral Connect Interface (PCI) is now the major connection [...]

Original article date: June 1998 Bearings still fail at least once on average during a plant’s service life. Why? TONY HERRATY Engineering Manager of FAG (UK) explains how to avoid premature failures. The modern rolling bearing is a high reliability super precision component which transmits high specific loads with very low energy absorption. This is [...]

Original article date: June 2000 Press-fit techniques have proved a major success since their introduction with early mass production lines. But, warns Bob Barrett of process monitoring specialist HBM, unless accurate monitoring is adopted, the benefits can be wasted Press-fit is a technique used to accurately join together two components, whether it be a valve [...]

Original article date: April 1999 Motorola Manufacturing Systems make stronger global connections with SMC Pneumatics Check the connection between SMC Pneumatics and Motorola Manufacturing Systems in Livingstone, Scotland, and the message is crystal clear. From a highly successful base in mobile phone assembly and testing, MMS is moving into other industry sectors. And it regards [...]

Original article date: April 1999 New free source book for engineers Pilz intends that its guide to machinery safety will become “the definitive engineers’ guide” to the application of Puwer, and we think it probably will, in just the same way that the first Pilz book became the source book for machine builders CE marking [...]

Original article date: July 1998 Nickel-cadmium or lead acid batteries for standby applications? Alan Quinn takes a look at the case for the nickel-cadmium pocket-plate battery. Nickel-cadmium batteries are widely used for critical standby power applications where their reliability and long life often mean they are preferred to lead-acid batteries. Pocket-plate Ni-Cd batteries get their [...]

Original article date: July 1999 Dr Brad Johnson from Atlanta company Ingenius ATG explains how the company has developed an innovative new method of recycling alkaline batteries commonly used in small electronic devices found in homes and businesses. In recent years battery technology has quietly revolutionised the way we live. Many of us have integrated [...]

Original article date: October 1997 Industrial fieldbus systems have been available in different forms for around a decade, and are now becoming increasingly used or considered for pneumatic applications, says MARTIN EADON, Senior Product Analyst with SMC Pneumatics. One major problem in the fieldbus arena is that the number of different protocols and variants continues [...]

This article was originally written in the period 1995-2000 Strange materials, known as auxetics, get fatter when stretched and thinner when squashed. “Pull a rubber band”, says Professor Ken Evans, “and you will see that two things happened. The band gets longer and also gets thinner”. Most materials do this. But auxetic materials are different [...]

Original article date: February 2000 Where does static electricity come from? What problems does it cause? And how can you avoid it? Tommy Miller gives some advice, based on a paper from Linx Printing Technologies. Static electricity causes productivity, quality and safety problems in all areas of industry. In the form of electrostatic attraction or [...]