Die Protection on a Tight Budget, Part 1
July 1, 2009Comments
I will be dedicating the next few columns to helping those of you who are relatively new to electronic sensor-based die protection and have minimal budgets to implement this technology within low-cost parameters. You may be a toolmaker, machinist, millwright or maintenance person, or perhaps wearing a few of these and other titles simultaneously while being given the task of implementing electronic sensors in your tooling, but with limited monies to pull it off.
I will be sharing with you some of the cost shortcuts that I have developed in this field over the past 30 years. In this first of a series of columns on die-protection technology on a tight budget, I will outline the basic necessities that you need to have in place before you make any attempts at testing, mounting and implementing electronic sensors in your tooling. Subsequent columns will address the testing of your inventions and applications of electronic sensors in dies and tooling with minimal cost. Tight budgets will be our predominant guideline.
Those of you without economic restrictions may still enjoy these columns as it may enhance your basic understanding of electronic sensors and their applications in tooling or, at the very least, be a pleasant trip down memory lane as you recall your own past experiences in a similar situation.
Library
For the next month or so, I would like you to contact vendors of electronic sensors and die-protection controls and create a library of their catalogs. These catalogs and associated literature are, for the most part, totally free. A good place to start locating these companies would be PMA’s supplier directory, www.metalformingsearch.com. Your maintenance and tool-design departments may have some current electronic sensor catalogs.
I also recommend the following two books as reference works that should be in this library: Electronics Demystified, by Stan Gibilisco, and The Art of Electronics, by Paul Horowitz and Winfield Hill. There will be situations, from time to time when you will need some basic electrical/electronic questions answered and these books are good sources for those answers. You will need to set aside a shelf dedicated to this library, which in time will occupy the better part of a bookcase.
