United States
Manufacturer / Exporter / Supplier Of Electrical Raceways Connector Cover, Flange Nut Wire Processing Equipment, Dual-Steel Gripper Ring Plumbing, Reverse Engineering Pinwheel Sprocket, Aluminum Air Restrictor, Knee Airbag Grommet
Year of Establishment
1990
Primary Business
Supplier
Number of Employees
10-49
Market Covered
Latin America/Caribbean, Western Europe, Africa, Middle
he challenge was that these electrical connector covers were meant to be used to daisy chain cables inside of in-floor and under-floor electrical raceways in industrial settings, applications with strict size limitations. Their original electrical connector cover was a complex part. It consisted of three distinct surfaces: the cover, an L-shaped flag, and a U-cutout flag. This one part was made up of two separate metal stamped pieces — the cover and U-cutout flag was one piece, the L-shaped flag was the second. After being manufactured separately, the two pieces were welded together, a slow and expensive process. Part of the reason AFC employed this method was because not every job required a fully completed connector cover. Many jobs did, but others required only the cover and U-cutout flag, while still others required nothing but the L-shaped flag. AFC manufactured each piece separately for when they were required separately, and welded them together when the full connector cover was needed. Th
ESI Engineering Specialties, Inc. manufactured an aftermarket add-on component for their facility’s arbors. The component required a flange nut that could be affixed to the arbor to keep the material that the arbor held in place. The requirements were specific: they had to be both wide and strong enough to hold large coils of material in place, but they could not hinder the rotation of the arbors in any way. The nuts also had to easily screw onto the arbors quickly and easily.
At Engineering Specialties, Inc. (ESI), we pride ourselves on our ability to design and build any part our customers need — no matter how unusual or complex the project. Recently, we were approached by a New England-based security products company to manufacture an aluminum-machined component. Unfortunately, the requested part — a 1.25 inch thick x 2.375 inch diameter pinwheel sprocket — had become virtually obsolete in recent years; there were no drawings or CAD models available for our team to reference. The customer needed 100 of these parts made with each piece part having several tolerances of +- .002 inches; ESI was determined to deliver them.
Plumbing fixtures, particularly connection or joint fittings and faucet components, are increasingly made out of plastic as opposed to metal; this makes the use of gripping style connection rings, also known as gripper rings, problematic. An important component of fixtures — they are used to help keep a connection in place and sealed — traditional water line connections are soldered into place. Soldering is time consuming and at times can pose a significant fire risk, especially in retro-fit or re-modeling situations. First and foremost, ACCOR® Technology needed a gripper ring that could function with copper, PVC and pex style tubing. The ring needed to be thin, but it also had to meet a high, 1000 PSI requirement to ensure that it would hold the fixtures effectively in the absence of a soldered joint.
Grommets are generally made of metal, plastic, or rubber, depending upon the application. They need to prevent critical tearing or abrasion in pierced material, covering the edges of the piercing and protecting it from wire, cable, or line being routed through it. In the case of the Knee Airbag Grommet, the metal component needed to be specially crafted for the automotive industry. It demanded exceptional strength and pressure resistance in order to fit and protect airbags in Ford Transit Vans. The grommet, measuring 34mm x 18mm x 8mm draw, and was engineered to a 0.1mm tolerance. The depth of this draw falls at the upper limit of what a conventional stamping processes can create, and had to be developed to suit the product based upon finite element analysis.
Having worked with ESI previously on other unconventional parts, the aerospace manufacturer felt confident that we would be able to approach the air restrictor with fresh eyes and ultimately provide an effective solution. An air restrictor is an integral part of a pitot-static system restrictor assembly. This assembly is part of an array used to determine an aircraft’s speed and altitude and display those values on the pilot’s instrumentation panel. A functioning pitot-static system restrictor is essential for the safe operation of an aircraft.
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