TechArchive

Original article date: January 2000 BRIAN MANNING and ROBERT FOSTER from Capacitec aim to show that there’s more to measuring gaps than plastic shims and feeler gauges. Quality control, manufacturing engineering and set-up personnel have traditionally used plastic shims and feeler gauges to measure gaps – the sort of gaps that are found in a [...]

Original article date: September 1999 The majority of ground vehicle and transportation applications use the analogue electrical output provided by precision potentiometers but control position transducers offer weight and cost benefits. Alan Quinn reports. Known also as string pots yo-yo pots and draw wire transducers cable-displacement transducers have been used in a broad range of [...]

This article was originally written in the period 1995-2000 Have you ever sat there, about to commence design work on a piece of machinery, with your “Functional Spec” (outlining exactly how you propose to solve the problem and referencing the unambiguous “Requirements Spec” the customer first arrived with) all signed off by the customer before [...]

This article was originally written in the period 1995-2000 Advice for calculation and design of steel belt conveyors comes from a new technical guide from Sandvik Process Systems. This feature concentrates on tensioning. Steel belt conveyors are one form of conveyor used for moving materials between two fixed points. Important factors include the dense, smooth [...]

Original article date: June 1999 DAVID RUSHTON explains how Montech’s slides are intended to cover many applications with as few product types as possible. Slides used in automated systems must be built to withstand tough conditions. Acceleration and direction changes create mechanical stress and – in some cases – a dirty environment clogs up precision [...]

This article was originally written in the period 1995-2000 RDP Howden has introduced a completely new non-contacting method to monitor the extension of a specimen while it is undergoing tensile or compressive tests in a mechanical testing machine. With a high resolution of 1:100,000, RDP Howden’s new non-contacting method to monitor the extension of a [...]

Original article date: January 2002 If your New Year’s resolution was to take control of your PC and get a few things tidied up, then here’s a few tips for getting top performance, based on experience. If your PC is “somebody else’s problem” (ie the IT department) then stop reading now. First, the hard disk. [...]

Original article date: July 1998 Colin Lussenden product manager with Gems Sensors explains how ASICs and CVD have contributed to a new design of pressure transducer. Monitoring and process control devices can significantly affect overall performance by helping to ensure that processes remain within the correct operational limits. Accurate pressure monitoring for example forms an [...]

Original article date: April 1996 What are forms of separation and why are they important? Paul Markham product manager for low-voltage devices at Merlin Gerin provides the answers. National Annex NC to BS EN 60439-1 the new British Standard for switchboards is all about forms of separation. But why separate the components making up a [...]

Original article date: December 1998 HSE turns the screw still further A new substitute material for the high density asbestos-cement type “Sindanyo” boards used for electrical and thermal insulation applications in general industry has been announced by Cape Insulation. Asbestos-cement products have been used for years in the electrical industry for the construction of mechanically [...]