Naming Engineer Materials Using Artificial Intelligence Part 1

Naming Engineer Materials Using Artificial Intelligence Part 1

There is an instance where applying a little bit of stain to a semi-conductor piece or other crystalline material can bring deformity of the orderly management of atomic structure in it. This is enough to cause very different and dramatic changes in its properties and it can also affect the way it conducts electricity, transfer light, or transfer heat. 

Today, a new team of researchers located in MIT, Russia, and Singapore has discovered ways on how to use artificial intelligence in determining and having control of the changes in the chemical framework and how it can possibly open up new ways of researching on advanced materials used for engineering works. 

The recent research was done by Suresh, Dao, and Yang Lu, a former MIT postdoc now at the City University of Hong Kong, has shown that the diamond – the hardest and strongest material that is naturally found in nature – can also be elastically stretched as much as 9% without breaking it. It can only be done when it is in the form of nanometer-sized needs. The researchers showed that the nanoscale wires of silicon can also be stretched elastically by more than 15%. These said discoveries have a paved way of opening up new possible ways of exploring how devices can be made that can bring dramatic and possible changes in certain materials’ properties. 

The other ways of changing the chemical structure of a material’s properties called chemical doping – which results in a permanent, static change on the material. However, strain engineering allows the changes to the properties on the fly. “Strain is something you can turn on and off dynamically,” Li said. 

The possibility of potentials showed by the strain-engineered materials has been prevented by the wide range of different possibilities. Strain can be applied by using six different ways and in infinite gradations of a certain degree. This range is so full that it can show possibilities almost impractical to explore just by simply doing a trial and error. “It quickly grows to 100 million calculations if we want to map out the entire elastic strain space,” Li said. Strains can be also applied in three various dimensions and each of the dimension can result to strain in and out or sideways. 

This is the reason why the researcher’s team novel application of different machine learning methods came in aid of this dilemma. This system of methodology gives a more systematic way of exploring different materials and giving in the appropriate amount of strain to get the ideal set of properties that are meant for specific purposes. This methodology is having a very high-accuracy method that can greatly lessen the complexity of the different calculations needed. 

This new method can possibly give new ways and possibilities of creating materials that are being precisely tuned for electronic, optoelectronic, and photonic devices that can find use in different industrial purposes such as communication, information processing, and different energy applications.  

Ways to Incorporate Plastic in Your Electrical Box

Ways to Incorporate Plastic in Your Electrical Box

There are companies now whose main goal is to help the scientists and engineers to have functional electronics enclosure as soon as possible. Companies are now making it to a point that they are always improving and expanding their capabilities that effectively aligns with the customers what they want to achieve in their respective industries.

In these recent years, because of the cost of the metals being used for electronics enclosures, there has been increasing number of people requesting for plastic parts or components. Companies are now stocking different plastic materials that can be machined in just 2-3 days. Its either alone or part of the overall enclosure assembly. In this article, we will show you how these companies uses plastics as part of their enclosure assembly.

Tips for Using Plastics in Enclosures

Acrylic and acetal primarily are included in 3-axis milled, they can be made either on CNC router or mill. In addition to this, this only menas that countersinks, counterbores, pockets, or any other 3-axis milled feature may be added.

The cutouts that were being made on the acrylic and acetal are being milled and is also subjected to a minimum corner radius at it gets bigger once the thickness increases. This factor should be carefully considered when you are mounting rectangular or squares components in the cutouts of the plastic. Once these said constraints began to be a problem, you should approach the companies manufacturing plastic accessory to help you with your goal.

When you are attaching plastics through the threaded fasteners, it is advisable that the utilisation of holes inside the plastic with bolts, nuts washers instead of threading them inside the plastic. Be careful not to strip the threads when you are installing fasteners.

In case that the user will be utilizing the RF sensor technology or antennas inside the enclosure, (Wi-Fi), it is suggested to use the acrylic panels or acetal panels. Because sheet metals can attenuate signals.

The acrylic plastic can be etched during the milling process including the silkscreened graphics can also be applied. Both of the techniques can give you very attractive results.

Both plastics (acrylic and acetal) can be effectively mounted flush on the electronics enclosure surfaces. This is achieved by carefully milling the edges of the plastic in order to create a boss that matches the cutout of the enclosure face. Fastening is done through the threaded fasteners or structural tapes.

The Use of  Acrylic in Your Enclosure:

Most of the design engineers utilize acrylic for its good transparency, however they are also using the same material for other purposes such as electrical insulation or RF transparency.  Most often that not, they use to to generate viewing windows for the enclosure and also to get certain aesthetical goals. For example, Linus Sebastian, one of YouTube’s most popular technology reviewers wants a window for his custom desktop electrical box. So he opted to use an optically clear cast acrylic sheet that has 7/32” in thickness (not stocked), 15” x 15.5”and bolted on over studs.

Tips and Guidelines in Designing Electronics Enclosure that Can Protect Your Equipment from Solid or Water Ingress

Tips and Guidelines in Designing Electronics Enclosure that Can Protect Your Equipment from Solid or Water Ingress

In this article, we will be sharing some of the best practices and experience of design engineers in the enclosure industry. These are the practical tips and knowledge about building electrical boxes that can fully withstand some of the environmental hazards. Eventually, the issue of whether to use NEMA or IP ratings will come up, however issues arise form this because there is a great confusion about how these things can work.

In this article, we will help companies in giving good direction for design engineers who are still on the process of handling this type of subject. To make things very simple, we are going to limit the discussion in using NEMA however, the principle will be just as same if you are going to use IP standards. Thus, making this article relevant to everyone.

Before starting on any projects, design engineers should be straightforward in pointing their goals and agendas. They should be blatantly clear about what they are really trying to achieve. Whether they are looking for environmental protection or if they are only trying to meet very formal and set guidelines just to achieve a NEMA standard.

There are thousands of custom enclosure being made day by day that has environmental resistance requirements. Most of these electrical boxes that are being made only need the environmental protection. There are customers that will use NEMA guidelines to explain why they need a certain type of protection (such as solid ingress or corrosion protection) but they don’t want to meet all of the NEMA standard.

There are times that we see customer who will try to meet the formal requirements of a NEMA standard. With this in mind, it only means that it needs the necessary testing for it to assess if the enclosure being made is within the NEMA standard. There are enclosure manufacturing companies that does not offer NEMA testing but the customers are in touch with some of the third-party testing facility for their enclosure. They need a formal certification that their enclosure has successfully met the necessary requirements. With this in mind, I have listed below the different classifications for NEMA electronics enclosure.

Guidelines in understanding NEMA Classification

NEMA has been set to promote a standardized quality of electronics enclosure specification for some of the electrical devices. Its primary role is to identify how the electrical box should effectively perform to meet the right classification of NEMA enclosure. In its most basic sense, NEMA enclosure deals with the following:

  1. Protecting personnel from unwanted contact with hazardous internal parts
  2. Protecting equipment housed in the enclosure against hazards that can be present in the environment

However, there is a certain limitation to this. NEMA does not advise how to effectively design and manufacture the electronics enclosure to meet its performance or quality specifications.

There are several NEMA ratings that covers a wide range of uses, protection, and qualities. However in this article we will only deal with the NEMA ratings that are usually used by customers.

NEMA Type 1 –Its primary purpose is to give equipment protection for indoor use and it gives protection for personnel to avoid unauthorized contact with live parts of the equipment. It also gives protection for equipment from solid ingress that can come from floating dust.

NEMA Type 2 –This NEMA enclosure type is used indoors and unlike the NEMA 1 electronics enclosure, it is dip-proof. It has an additional protection for possible water ingress that can occur from splashing or dripping water.

NEMA Type 4, 4X – Both of these ratings are used indoors and outdoors. These two types of enclosure has amazing properties. They are watertight, dust-tight, and it is sleet-resistant. It also offers the protection that both NEMA 1 & 2 offers. It has an additional protection for external ice formation and protection from hose-directed water. The NEMA 4X is a corrosion restant electrical box.

NEMA Type 5 –It offers the protection like the NEMA type 2 enclosure. However, it has additional gaskets that offers above standard ingress protection from settling dust, lint, fibers, and flyings. However, this type of enclosure is mostly used for indoor engineering applications and NEMA 5 enclosure is a dust-tight electrical box.

NEMA Type 6, 6P – This type of electrical box is both used for outdoor and indoor applications. The additional quality that it has it is submersible. NEMA Type 6, 6P offers the same protection as its counterparts (4, 4X) but this electrical enclosure can be submerged in water at limited depth. This is most commonly used in offshore marine applications.

What are the Important Roles of an Electrical/Electronics Enclosure?

What are the Important Roles of an Electrical/Electronics Enclosure?

The enclosure box being utilized for motor should be able to give protection to its windings, bearings, and other effective mechanical parts from potential moisture, chemicals and other mechanical damage because of the abrasion from grit.

In NEMA standards, there are different types that define types of enclosures that falls under the category of open machines, encapsulated machines and other totally enclosed machines that has sealed windings.

These are the top 7 most common types of electrical enclosures:

1. Open Drip Proof (ODP)

This type allows the air to be able to circulate inside the windigns for proper cooling, but it can also effectively prevent several drops of liquid from freely falling inside the motor within the 15-degree angle from the vertical. These are usually used for some of the best indoor applications and is ideally used in clean and dry places.

2. Totally Enclosed Fan Cooled (TEFC)

This enclosure design effectively prevents the free air exchange in between the outside and inside of the frame. However, it does not make the frame be completely tight. The fan is effectively attached on the shaft and it pushes the air over the frame to help in its cooling process.

3. Totally Enclosed Non-Ventilated (TENV)

This one is similar to the above, but it has no existing cooling fan that heavily relies on the convention for its cooling process. There are no vent openings, and it is now being tightly closed to prevent the freely exchange of air.

4. Totally Enclosed Air Over (TEAO)

This one is a dust-tight fan and it has motor blower that is primarily design for some of the shaft mounted fans or even belt driven fans. The motor should be able to be mounted to allow the airflow of the fan.

5. Totally Enclosed Wash down (TEWD)

This is the type of enclosure that is designed to withstand the high pressure brought about by the wash-downs and other high humidity or wet environments. These are available in several types of enclosures that offers enclosed enclosures suitable for hostile and extreme environments.

6. Explosion-proof enclosures (EXPL)

This type of enclosure is the explosion proof one. This is an enclosed machine primarily designed to withstand some of the most dangerous explosions because of a specific gas or vapor happening inside the motor casing. This can also prevent the ignition that can happen outside of the motor because of sparks, flashing or even explosion.

7. Hazardous Location (HAZ)

This type of enclosure is used in hazardous environments where there is an existence of a potential hazard. Some of the characteristics of this material is to be able to protect the machine inside a very harsh environment. The maximum temperature of the casing should be able to be considered as safe for the substance that creates the hazard.

What is Gigabit Passive Optical Network?

What is Gigabit Passive Optical Network?

The GPONs or Gigabit Passive Optical Networks are one of the most utilized forms of the famous Passive Optical Networks (PONs). These wires are used for building internet access, digital television, and even in the voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) in one of the most highly populated cities.

The same product is being used for the public Wi-Fi hotspots and cellular based stations. If you are not very knowledgeable with what GPON can do to increase the speed of ins and outs of data connection, this blog is really for you.

To describe it carefully, GPONs are one of the point-to-multi-point networks that utilizes the very popular optic cables. These are one of the most famous, stand-out-characteristics of the networks that utilizes GPONs. These wires uses the passive splitters being used in the fiber distribution network and this allows a singular feeding of fiber from the main provider to household homes and small businesses. GPONs deliver better and making tem 95% more efficient than by using a standard copper wire.

In utilizing the splitters, in creating using this GPONs, they were also able to deliver some of the best low cost solution for big companies because adding users can be very costly. These are the most preferred materials in building internet in metropolitan areas. In addition to these, the GPONs will be able to support almost all of the widely used Ethernet protocols. For the added security, they are able to use one of the most Advanced Encryption Standard (AES).

For us to be able to paint a very good picture on how the rest of the GPON works, these very good connection of networks were mostly made up of the optical line terminals (OLT) and also the Optical Network Unit (ONU) and there’s also a need for a splitter that will effectively divide the signal whenever necessary.

GPONs are very ideal to be used for some of the networks when utilized for some of the multiple separated buildings or points. They are were able to give the end user some of the consolidation of the multiple services into one big fiber network that gives of 2.5GB’s of downstream data. GPON can also effectively increase the bandwidth size while reducing some of the big costs that comes with the infrastructure. It also deliveres a wide range of good benefits.

The most recent version of GPON are consisted of 10-Gigabit iterations that are initially called XGPON or 10G-PON. These effectively support the ever increasing demand for the faster speeds that are able to manage a good variety of influx of some of the high-definition data.

Plastic Electronics Enclosure with IP68 Rating – How does it Perform?

Plastic Electronics Enclosure with IP68 Rating – How does it Perform?

Together with the new release of the electronics enclosure today, there are new electronics enclosure that are made with hinges. Some of these are primarily designed to adopt the IP68 ratings. With this in mind, companies are now effectively producing enclosures that are safe for any type of ingress.

In line with this article, we will discuss the well known IP or Ingress Protection ratings. These ratings are different from the NEMA ratings because it is primarily designed and set to tell the customers and help the companies to produce enclosures that can give ingress protection. The two digits in the IP rating determines the protection of enclosure from object or water ingress. Practically, the two digits tells the level of protection the enclosure can give.

To give you the basic idea, the first one determines the level of foreign object ingress protection the enclosure gives and the second one determines the level of water ingress protection.

Refer to the list below of the different levels of protection:

IP First Digit = (Protection level against solid objects)

0 – No available protection

1 – Has Foreign Object Ingress Protection from large objects that is more than 50 mm (akin to a person’s hand)

2 – Has Foreign Object Ingress Protection against medium objects that is more than (akin to a person’s finger)

3 – Has Foreign Object Ingress Protection against small objects that is more than 2.5 mm (akin tools or cables)

4 – Has Foreign Object Ingress Protection against minute objects that is more than 1 mm (akin small wires)

5 – Has Foreign Object Ingress Protection against limited amounts of dust

6 – Has Foreign Object Ingress Total and complete protection from dust

 IP Second Digit = (Protection level against water)

0 – No available protection

1 – Has Foreign Water Ingress Protection against vertically falling drops of water

2 – Has Foreign Water Ingress Protection against direct sprays of water up to 15° from vertical position

3 – Has Foreign Water Ingress Protection against direct sprays of water up to 60° from vertical position

4 – Has Foreign Water Ingress Protection against splashing water coming from all directions

5 – Has Foreign Water Protection against low pressure jets of water from all directions

6 – Has Foreign Water Protection Protection against temporary flooding of water

7 – Has Foreign Water Protection Protection against temporary submersion of enclosure in the water

8 – Has Foreign Water Protection Protection against prolonged submersion in the water

With this in mind, companies are offering different types of enclosure with different types of IP ratings. There are a lot of possible combinations companies can manufacture for the consumers. In case you are using the IP rating to determine the quality of your enclosure, just be specific on your design and tell the manufacturing company about it.

The Best and Most Effective Way to Customize your Electric Enclosure

The Best and Most Effective Way to Customize your Electric Enclosure

To date, silk screening is one of the most effective way of customizing an electrical enclosure. It is the easiest and the most affordable way. Any sides of the enclosure can be silkscreened as long as it is flat to avoid any deviance of the logo. Not only your logo can be silkscreened but also any labeling needs such as labeling operators (hand-off-auto, gas detection, emergency stop) and labels for externally installed devices. For companies that has a product line of enclosures and would like to have serial numbers on them silkscreen can be used for this process. Not only that it is cheap, effective, and beneficial – it can be done with any simple. color that you desire

However, it is important to note that silk screening done on metals has the possibility to be scratched or peel off because of the metal surface – such as stainless steel and aluminum. In order to make the silk screening permanent a clear powder coat should be applied after the silk screening process to make the labels and the markings permanent. Silk screening is a very simple process and can be done quickly and smoothly. Once the logo and the markings are sent to the manufacturing company that does the silk screening, it is ready to be processed. The paint used in making the labels are made sure to match the design. The process takes a very easy procedure. The screen is mounted on the frame of the design and the enclosure is placed on a fixture to hold it steadily – stability of both pieces should be ensured. Ink is now pushed through the screen through a rubber paddle. After which, the paint will be dried using an oven. If there is a need for multiple colors, separate screens should be used and it is done by layering the artwork. Proper fixturing of the silk screen can allow many colors to be used on the same surface of the enclosure.

Another option companies can choose is engraving. It is also one of the most common ways of customizing enclosures for companies. However it is more expensive than silk screening and it can take longer time to finish. But the results lasts longer than even permanent silk screening. This process involves scratching or removing the surface of the metal to match the design of the logo and labels to be put on. Usually, a small amount of metal amounting to .005” to .010” is removed by one of these two ways: mechanical via milling operation or chemically via etching process. The last step of the process would be filling the  removed area by epoxy paint to match the desired color for the design or enclosure.

Finally it is important to note to review the design, and submit it in a high resolution as possible. Simply state the logo sizing and color requirements in a .pdf or .eps format. The recommended  application to use is Adobe Illustrator. Also indicate the location of the labels on the enclosure.

What is a Jackalopee and How Does it Works?

What is a Jackalopee and How Does it Works?

I am in the middle of trying to plan a good vacation trip for my boyfriend and I. Because of the gloomy winter we have been through, I am thinking of some place very tropical. I guess Mexico or the Philippines? I really would love to escape the dreading Ohio weather as the winter has been in my nerves. With this in mind, we would at least try to go on vacation every year.

Each of our travel is by plane because the location would be too very far flung from Ohio. However, there are people who love to travel by road. There are people in the United States who own an RV and they really love to hit the road when they travel.

Because of the increasing industrial growth for RV’s, their continuously increasing weight and size has created a need for a much more powerful and larger car engine to pull them. This specific need has been increasing over the past few years. It has created an ever increasing and emerging trend of companies using commercially retired tractor units to be able to pull the huge RVs.

With this in mind, there are two essential items that is vitally needed to make the RV and tractor combination a good possibility. This can be done via air hitch or an electrical conversion module.

Unfortunately, there are two different industries that practices very unlikely standards that will eventually result to having poor quality and incompatibility issues. This would mean that the equipment is likely to pair with a “rat’s nest” of systematical wiring done by unqualified technicians – and you would not like it.

The company called Szmyt ET Products has identified this need and was able to manufacture a product called the Jackalopee. This easy to install, externally mounted electrical converter can empower any engine to be able to pull off a RV. The product should be protected from water ingress and it needs a good electronics enclosure case that has clear cover.

This will empower the personnel or users to effectively observe the circuit board LED’s to be observed from the outside of the cover. It does not need any additional openings on the box. And thie enclosure allows to remain and stay waterproof.

What is the Best Possible File Formats Engineers Can Use When Designing Custom Plastic Electronics Enclosure?

What is the Best Possible File Formats Engineers Can Use When Designing Custom Plastic Electronics Enclosure?

Currently, I have developed a weekend hobby. I have currently started writing product reviews for a column of our local news website. When I was writing and composing the articles, I have to carefully keep in mind the type of format I am writing the product review in. Whereas, these type of blog articles are really conversational and really informative. The reviews should be written in the third person without being biased about personal opinion and only stating the facts. Both of these styles bring in several benefits, but there is this writing technique in a new website – that is the impersonal reporting. This is considered as the clearest style of writing.

When it comes to being clear and being straight-forward, there are recommended file formats the vector based artwork of the enclosure should be drawn inside their graphics department. There are recommended file types for different elements of the design and the companies are basing their graphics on the file type and style they should be in. This is also crucial because there are certain file sizes that is needed for the printing machine that will eventually result to crisp images and lines. Especially the edges and the lines should be clear – this is why right file type should be utilized. If the plate of the vector drawings does contain some hazy lines the printing will be substandard.

In addition to this, the vector based artwork or drawing can be created using a good variety of different programs. Some of the options includes:

  • Gerber
  • DXF
  • EVA
  • EMF
  • AI
  • CDR
  • WMF
  • VML
  • SVG
  • PGML
  • HVIF

In the industry, there are trusted plastic electronic enclosure manufacturing companies that have earned their customer’s trust by steadily providing a good, sturdy, and very stylish electronics enclosure. Not only that these enclosures are stylish but they are proven to last long in any given project. These companies would take your trust very seriously and this also comes to having a long lasting project. This type of companies takes the trust of the customers very seriously and it also extends its effort just to be able to provide the customization the customers needs and wants. This is also to make sure that the cutouts of the graphics are clean, accurate, and perfectly placed. And that the graphics are crisp and visually pleasing.

Your American Made Electronics Enclosure and Its Advantages

Your American Made Electronics Enclosure and Its Advantages

On our recent visit to the wonderful place of Philadelphia, the Operations Manager of the company I work made a stop to a very known store: the Humphrey’s Flags. This flagship store was formed and founded in the 1800s and it is now located directly located across from a famous store back then – Bets Ross’s house.

Is not that wonderful and perfect? It seems like she just ran across the street and decided to open a shop after she made the first American flag. Our operations manager just purchased an American flag and decided to hang in this in our plant. For him, it is a proud symbolism that our products are proudly American made.

This has started a conversation with many loyal and global shoppers that are into different available shopping options. Between ordering products online and global trade options, it is very hard to determine and know where the products are being currently manufactured. Also, it is hard to know where you will buy the product from.

There are companies that are product to say that 97% or majority of their products are all American made. We just had a factory that are located outside Cleveland, Ohio. Beside a growing town on the shores of lake erie.

Recently, the employment is now up and we are still continuing to invest in a plant and equipment that are designed to handle the additional growth of the company since 2011. Since our founding last 1951, our company’s product lines have already matured and they have already changed according to the customers’ needs. Our products can provide you a very good support regarding the enclosure design and other needs in the long haul. And for the next 60 years, our company will still be supporting the design of some plastic electronics enclosures.

Most of our products are now still being manufactured in our main facility.

Our company’s customization services are being produced and shipped from our location to make sure that the customer will only get the best quality. Our engineering, quality, productions and operations management team are all located under one roof to bring you the best quality of designs of plastic electronics enclosure. This is also done to make sure that the enclosure quality is well maintained across all each step of the production process. You can be rest assured that our company stands behind our products.

Reasonable Quantities for Enclosure Products

Reasonable Quantities for Enclosure Products

Throughout my life, Christmas has been my favorite season of the year. I love to snuggle and wear oversized sweaters, curl myself in very furry blanket, and do a ton of shopping for gifts. This season, also the people are much nicer! Or is it because this is just the season of giving that’s why everyone is so nice?

One of my fondest Christmas memory is of my mom. After having a furious frenzy of opening my Christmas parents, the result is having a room full of shredded wrapping paper, torned cardboard boxes, and gifts that are all stacked & became as tall as I do. My mom just gazed around the room with a very frustrated look because of all the mess.

She just raised a finger and put it on the tip of her nose, then he pointed around the room. Carefully inspecting and reviewing the presents that I just opened. After a few minutes, she gasped, ran outside of the room and she came back with arms full of shopping bags. She suddenly shouted, “I forgot some presents!”

I was still a child when this happened and I do not remember why what kind of presents are those but I do remember her facial expression. She was really excited to give me those gifts. However, this year, we decided to limit our spending budget and just give more thoughts on what we should give to each other.

With this gift memory of mine, I reminded recently of the article I have read while doing some research about a company’s enclosure customization services. The article was all about how a company was proud to have an additional CNC machining and printing on the master list of their services in some reasonable quantities. It popped up a question in my mind, “what exactly is a reasonable quantity?”

During my childhood, my family decided to buy 4 gifts to each person. For me this is fairly reasonable given our family history and what we do during the previous Christmas seasons, but to other people or families this might be too excessive. Especially to people who don’t even consider Christmas as a reason for celebration.

With this in mind, there are enclosure manufacturing companies that offers no minimum order quantity for electronic enclosure. It depends on the user if they want just 1 piece or if they want 5000 pieces. Just send the company a quote of your enclosure design to determine the sepcification that you will need.