The Machine Doctor’s Ramblings

Machine Design recently ran a very good article on choosing the right steel, or stainless steel, for your project.  Click here to read the article.

Hydraulics and Pneumatics magazine published a good article on hydraulic seals.  It’s worth reading.

Click here to check it out.

I hope you find it useful.

It has been a long time since I posted anything - I’m sorry… but I have a good excuse.

Last Thursday I spent all day slicing apples for our school’s fundraiser.  I was responsible for slicing of the apples because I designed and built four slicers for the event.  (This was actually the second year we used the slicers but I built new cutting heads this year.)  You can see the slicers in action by clicking here (the slicers are shown about 45 seconds into the video).

More importantly,  last Friday I took the PE Exam in Chicago so for the last 10 weeks or so my spare time has been spent brushing up on my engineering training.  (I am licensed in Wisconsin but Illinois won’t honor my license as I received my license based on years of experience not on taking the exam.)

I hate to admit it but the hours of studying have probably made  me a better engineer.  There are a lot of areas that I studied that I never had in college because they weren’t in my area of specialty.  The morning portion of the test was very general so you had to review every area of mechanical engineering.  And the afternoon session forced me to brush up on areas of design where, after 28+ years in the field, I would just use my experience and “rules of thumb”.

A really innovative cylinder design was outlined in the July issue of Hydraulic & Pneumatics magazine.  Click here to check it out.

Here is in an article from “Machine Design” magazine outlining their view of trends that are shaping the motion control industry.  Click here to check it out.  If you work with motion control systems I think you will find it very interesting.

A very clever design described for moving huge loads is described in an article in “Hydraulics & Pneumatics” magazine.  Click here to check it out.

I can’t believe it has been so long since my last post.  Business has been just crazy and somehow I just haven’t gotten around to making a post.

Once again I am shocked by the number of people following this blog and I would love to hear from some of you.  Please feel free to send comments or suggestions  to blog@machinedocs.com.

Machine Design ran a good article on how tolerance rings reduce noise in appliance design.  Click here to check it out.  If you have never heard of tolerance rings you are not alone but they are extremely useful.  I used tolerance rings to mount timing belt sprockets to the output shaft of a small electric motor.    The primary benefit was that the bore of the sprocket did not have to be machined to a close tolerance because the tolerance ring took up the variation in the bores.  Click here for some details on the design.

Tolerance rings are used primarily to mount bearings in repair situations.  Again the tolerance rings allow bearings to be mounted in repaired bores that may not be held to a tight tolerance.  At one time General Motors mounted timing belt pulleys to cam shafts.  For more details on the use of tolerance rings click here.

I have over 150 people registered to follow this blog, which is totally amazing to me, but I never receive any comments.  Please leave a comment if I’ve touched on a subject that is relevant to you.  It would be great to hear from you.

I would also love to receive suggestions for blog topic.   If you have a design problem, or a machine that is giving you headaches, let me know.  Post some of the details and I will see if I can help!

The Machine Doctor

Motion System Design published a good article on specifying VFDs.  Click here to check it out.

I realize that this has nothing to do with industrial machinery but this video is just amazing.  It shows the demolition of the tallest building ever to be imploded.  Just amazing!

(Click here to view video.)

(Click here to read the story behind the demolition.)