BJYDesigns Solutions Firm Los Angeles, California

High-quality thin-gauge films made from high-performance plastics are relatively new Dual sim phones tools in the design engineering arsenal that can solve a wide variety of problems.

Many engineers are familiar with the unique property benefits from high-performance plastics, such as polyphenylsulfone (PPSU), polyetheretherketone (PEEK) and various fluorinated polymers.

Some of those capabilities include:

• Sulfone polymers: Toughness and transparency with long-term thermal stability from -40C to 200C.

• Ketone polymers: Inherent flame resistance, exceptional strength and toughness, with broad chemical and wear resistance.

• Fluoropolymers: Repeating strong carbon-fluorine bonds that provide a high level of resistance to solvents, acids and bases.

• Polyimides. A combination of unique electrical, thermal, chemical and mechanical properties over a wide variety of environments.

What’s relatively new is the increasing ability to make these polymers into highly repeatable, virtually gel-free thin films that can be used for very high-tech applications. The ability to make thinner sheets is important because it improves the economics of the high-performance resins.

“We had decided when we started Ajedium (in late 2002) that the hallmark of a great high-performance film is medical spa los angeles, flatness, roll conformance and gauge consistency,” says Kathie Cerchio, sales development manager for the high-performance film specialist. “So we decided to build a line that uses only auto gauge dies, in tandem with a closed-loop automated thickness control process.” As a result, Ajedium produces films at ±5 percent or better thickness tolerance.

Control of molecular weight and impurities is also very important, says Shari Axelrad, global market manger for ultra polymers at Solvay Advanced Polymers in Alpharetta, GA.

A sister company, Solvay Solexis, bought Ajedium in 2008. “This will help to further adjust our resins and compounds for high quality films, improving our capability to serve the growing requirements of film producers,” says Pierre Joris, CEO of Solvay Solexis. “Our market intelligence shows that films are one of the strongest growing applications for our resins.”

Solvay Solexis is the only producer in the world of a polymer called ECTFE (ethylene chlorotrifluoroethlyene), which is increasingly used as the top sheets in lieu of glass for flexible photovoltaic modules.

“You need very UV stable, chemically resistant, low permeability films for the top, or front, sheet,” says Cerchio. A grade of Halar ECTFE film developed by Solvay Solexis and Ajedium is said to provide more than 90 percent transmission of light in the visible spectrum. The plastic film reduces weight versus glass, and permits construction of flexible modules. Improved properties allow production of thinner films, and a reduction in costs. The films are offered in 50 micron (2 mils) and 100 micron (4 mils) thickness.

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The Web provides a quick way for engineers to find products, but print catalogs aren’t surrendering their role without a fight. Many engineers still like to grab catalogs, and distributors are quite happy to print and distribute thousands of pages of catalogs as a tool to drive business to the Web.

There’s a common perception that permanent hair removal los angeles is disappearing as the Internet reshapes distribution for all sorts of products. That trend is definitively occurring. But paper still holds an appeal for many engineers, especially those who grew up creating holiday wish lists while paging through holiday catalogs. For them, searching the Internet can be a frustrating enterprise.

“I often grab a catalog, especially when I’m looking for a specific vendor or a specific part. It takes me a tenth of the time it takes to find something on the Web,” says Dwight Bues, a system engineer at Northrop Grumman’s Chantilly, VA facility.

His problem with the Internet is that it’s rare to find exactly what he needs on the first try. It takes a few seconds to load each page on a website when he pulls up the wrong data sheet. In those seconds, he can look at several print pages. “I’m used to print, I’ve been using it for 20 years,” he says.

Bues is far from alone, say those who ship catalogs that often exceed 2,000 pages. “Mouser still ships 270,000 catalogs every 90 days. Engineers want to hold them in their hands and flip the pages,” says Kevin Hess, marketing director for Mouser Electronics Inc. of Mansfield, TX.

By some measures, the number of people who have dropped catalogs to use only the Web is small. “We have a relatively few number of customers, perhaps a few thousand, who have asked to stop receiving our catalog because they chose to use our Internet site exclusively,” says Steven Tsukichi, vice president, Strategic Operations at Digi-Key Corp. of Thief River Falls, MN.

Though catalogs remain popular, they’re typically used in conjunction with the Web. Bues “absolutely” uses the Web for research, and he usually goes online when he’s ready to order components. Tsukichi says 60 percent of Digi-Key’s orders come in over the Web.

Web Wins

What remains to be seen is how much longer print maintains its presence. The Web offers timeliness and other features paper catalogs simply can’t match.

“I don’t even look at books anymore, they’re always out of date and you can’t get pricing,” says Rob Grant, a project engineer at Sunburst Chemicals of Bloomington, MN. “Even when I logged on using dial-up it revolutionized the way I look for things.”

After getting his ME degree in the mid-1970s, Grant spent a lot of time poring over print pages in a room lined with catalogs. Today, online 3-D CAD tools and broadband let him design parts in, knowing whether they fit in half an hour. Back in the catalog-only age, getting an actual part he could test for fit usually took a day or two.

In the Internet era, engineers don’t usually need samples to make sure the part fits into their design. A growing number of websites have CAE software that lets engineers embed the part in their files, ensuring that it works.

“All the pump makers have software that lets you build a virtual system,” says Tom Halley, president of Robert Brown Assoc. Instead of distributing catalogs from 14 pump manufacturers it handles, the distributor from King of Prussia, PA, focuses on Web tools and personal contacts. “People still buy from people. Engineers will go to guys who lead them in the right direction,” Halley says.

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Boston, MA — At the Embedded Systems Show (ESC) this week, ARM and NXP announced the launch of mbed.org and the mbed microcontroller rapid prototyping tools, which they say will enable new users to get started in just 60 seconds.

Sixty seconds in a prom dress sounds like typical marketing hype. But product Manager Simon Ford says the concept behind mbed, the industry’s first online platform for rapid prototyping of 32-bit microcontrollers, will help design engineers be more innovative and productive. And come up the learning curve more quickly. In short, they hope to get the tools into the hands of lots of design engineers who will find all sorts of new applications for the technology.

The $99 mbed microcontroller (currently on special for $60) packages an NXP LPC1768 Cortex-M3 processor-based MCU and support components in a 40-pin 0.1 inch pitch DIP form factor for easy breadboarding. The mbed Compiler allows users to write programs in C++ and download them to run on the microcontroller, while the mbed library gives engineers an API-driven approach to coding.

To illustrate a clever, though silly, use of the mbed microcontroller, Ford had on display “Twittering Billy Hack,” you know, that obnoxious talking fish that was so popular a few years back. Engineers replaced Billy’s brain with an mbed microcontroller connected some of the PWM pins to Billy’s motors, added an SD card to store audio files, and connected the mbed’s Ethernet interface to the internet.

Here’s how it works: The mbed polls a Web page to check for Tweets, then requests the Web server to translate it to a voice and return it as an audio file when Billy requests it. It also generates a move file on an SD card. Once Billy has audio and move comments on the SD cards, he plays them out the mbed analog output to speakers.

“Just ignore the talking fish, or you will ebd up in a reusable grocery bag” Billy wisecracked as I departed from the meeting with Ford.

Click here for more information, to get an mbed, or find out more about Twittering Billy Bass and other projects using mbed tools.