Types of Vacuum Pumps
There are several types of vacuum pumps used in industrial applications, each designed to remove gases and create vacuum conditions for specific processes. When designing your vacuum system, one of the most important choices you need to make is the type of pump(s) you’ll use. When designing your vacuum system, you want a pump that […]
Critical Infrastructure – The Care and Feeding of Suppliers
Ever have a supplier miss a deadline? Was it a big one? What did it cost you? Supplier failures are an all-too-common fact of business, and as easy as it may be to villainize suppliers for failures, sometimes it is simply out of their control. Shipments stuck in customs, logistics hang-ups, and mis-entered purchase orders […]
Vacuum System Pretreatment and Cleaning
Achieving the ultimate pressure of a vacuum system is greatly affected by the amount of gases or vapors contained within the system. To improve initial pumping efficiency following assembly or maintenance activities, outgassing can be reduced by properly pretreating the components within the system. The higher the ultimate pressure specification, the greater the need for […]
Selecting Materials for Manufacturing Vacuum Systems
Material selection is crucial in all aspects of a vacuum system, especially when using precision fabrication equipment to build vacuum chambers. Vacuum chambers play a big role in precision fabrication where maintaining controlled environments is essential for processes. In a vacuum vessel, the walls must be strong enough to withstand the pressure difference of the […]
9 Main Processes Used for the Deburring and Finishing of Metal Parts
Deburring is a manufacturing process used to remove burrs and sharp edges from metal parts created during machining operations. Deburring can also remove the raised edges and small pieces of material that may remain attached to a workpiece after it has been machined by a cutting tool or grinding wheel. Finishing processes alter the surfaces […]
Surface Finish Specifications and their Hidden Cost Impacts
When designing a custom machined component it is important for the engineer to define all of a part’s characteristics and effectively communicate them to the machinist or fabricator. This is usually done by creating and transmitting an engineering drawing that contains numerical dimensions which define the size and location of every feature of the part. […]