Coiled spring pins solve valve assembly problem
A
Spirol Industries product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team
Sep 25, 2009
A manufacturer of an automotive valve body assembly turned to Spirol Industries after needing to locate the upper and lower valve bodies during sub-assembly.
The manufacturer wanted to reduce hole preparation time, reduce the weight of assembly, lower installation forces and simplify the assembly/part feeding process within the plant.
Spirol's coiled spring pins were supplied for the solution.
The assembly consists of two die-cast aluminium valve bodies (upper and lower).
These bodies needed to be 'pinned' in two places 180deg from each other.
The manufacture also wanted to utilise locating pins during final assembly to locate the transmission case.
The total cost of the assembly was also being monitored very closely.
Initially, machined solid pins and slotted spring pins were trialled, but could not provide the lowest installed total cost and were also difficult to install.
The solid pin required a very precise hole, increased the overall assembly weight, had a higher installation force - and was more expensive overall.
The slotted spring pin did not provide precise enough critical alignment to the finished transmission case and could not be automatically fed due to fact that this type of pin is not very straight and the imperfect chamfers on the ends of the pins made it difficult to start the pin during installation.
Spirol Industries said that its light-duty coiled spring pins offered the optimum balance of strength and flexibility that exceeded all of the performance requirements for this particular application at the lowest installed cost.
Evaluation of the assembly revealed that a pin could be fixed in the lower valve body, align the upper body and provide a clearance fit in the transmission case for ease of manual assembly.
As coiled spring pins use the same nominal hole size configurations (except with a wider overall tolerance) as standard machined solid pins and slotted spring pins, Spirol's solution was implemented.
Coiled pins are designed in such a way that their pre-installed diameter is larger than the recommended hole.
The diameter is compressed as the coiled spring pin is inserted.
Once installed, it retains itself by exerting constant radial force against the hole wall as it attempts to recover back to its pre-installed diameter.
This flexibility enables the coiled pin to absorb the widest range of manufacturing tolerances of any other press fit pin while simultaneously providing the required retention force.
The clean, cut square ends of the coiled pin provide a generous lead-in for insertion of the pin as well as for assisting in the alignment of mating components.
The combination of the coiled pin's straightness, its square ends, concentric chamfers and gap-free configuration makes it ideal for automatic feeding and assembly.
Its lightweight construction achieved the weight reduction goal, as well as lower installation forces.
Not what you're looking for? Search the site.
Google Ads
Contact Spirol Industries
Related Stories
- Sea-lion project selects Araldite 2012 adhesive
- Huntsman supplies yacht's adhesive epoxy systems
- Compression limiters stop plastic cracking
- Canted-coil springs used in Hubble repair
- Araldite adhesive bonds components and fixtures
Browse by category
-
Capital Equipment (3,470)
- Capital Equipment (1)
- Compressors and Air Treatment (529)
- Electrical hardware (131)
- Electronics Manufacturing, Tools, Instruments (192)
- Machinery and Production Equipment (1,119)
- Manufacturing Machinery and Plant Equipment (471)
- Production line blowers and fans (69)
- Robotics, Handling and Storage (958)
- Consultancy and Services (915)
-
Control and Instrumentation (5,096)
- Cabling, Conduit, Signal Conditioning (811)
- CNC and Motion Controllers (188)
- Control and Instrumentation (2)
- HMIs/Operator Interfaces (296)
- Logic Controllers, Timers and Relays (96)
- Mid-range and Large PLCs (202)
- Plant- and Machine-Wide Communications (1,195)
- Plantwide control (1,345)
- Power Supplies, Uninterruptible Power (571)
- Smaller-Sized PLCs (390)
-
Drives, Motors and Controls (3,415)
- Drives, Motors and Controls (2)
- Industrial Drives/Controls (1,288)
- Industrial Motors (500)
- Linear Drives and Motors (117)
- Precision Motors and Gears (425)
- Stepper and Servo Drives, Motors, Controls (1,081)
-
Electrical and Electronic Equipment Design (4,259)
- Batteries, chargers and circuit protection (573)
- Connectors, Terminals, Busbars, Slip Rings (705)
- Electrical and Electronic Components (643)
- Electrical and Electronic Equipment Design (3)
- Electrical and Electronic Subassemblies (373)
- Enclosures and Equipment Cooling Fans (716)
- Knobs, Handles and Enclosure Hardware (428)
- PCs and Embedded Systems (818)
-
Engineering Design Software (6,301)
- 2D CAD software (202)
- 3D CAD software (1,174)
- CAM, CNC, production management software (576)
- Data, document management software (319)
- Electrical design software (165)
- Engineering Design Software (15)
- FEA and structural analysis software (375)
- File conversion software, data capture (357)
- Fluid, thermal, noise, vibration software (337)
- Materials design and moulding design software (152)
- Maths, charting, statistics, QA software (324)
- PLM and collaboration software (656)
- Process, instrumentation, automation software (268)
- Publishing and documentation software (234)
- Rendering, visualisation, styling software (205)
- Simulation, modelling, validation software (942)
-
Engineering Industry News, Resources (6,188)
- Electronic Resources for Engineers (278)
- Engineering Business News, Views (388)
- Engineering Conferences (435)
- Engineering Education, Resources, Standards (849)
- Engineering Exhibitions, Events (573)
- Engineering Guides, Newsletters (364)
- Engineering Industry Developments, Awards (636)
- Engineering Industry News, Resources (4)
- Engineering Industry Reports, Surveys (597)
- Engineering Recruitment, Employment (219)
- Engineering Seminars (411)
- Engineering Training Courses (453)
- Health and Safety Consultancy, Software (179)
- Health and Safety Events, Training, News (284)
- Health and Safety Legislation (403)
- Health and Safety Strategy, Risk Assessment (115)
- Machine Building (4,600)
-
Materials and Processing (3,017)
- Materials and components (2,256)
- Materials and Processing (5)
- Materials processing and testing (291)
- Rapid Prototyping (465)
-
Monitoring, Measurement and Quality (5,603)
- Data Acquisition Hardware and PC I/O Boards (484)
- Data acquisition Software and Communications (502)
- Data loggers (424)
- Electrical and Electronic Testing, PAT Equipment (640)
- Form/co-ordinate, optical, vision instruments (754)
- Gauges, Indicators and Instruments (448)
- Materials testing equipment (427)
- Monitoring, Measurement and Quality (1)
- Telecomms/network test equipment, software etc (158)
- Testing and Calibration Services and Information (514)
- Testing, analysing and monitoring equipment (1,251)
-
Powertrain Design (3,682)
- Bearings (971)
- Chains and belts (332)
- Gears, brakes, couplings and engines (1,465)
- Hydraulic Components (473)
- Lubricants (437)
- Powertrain Design (3)
-
Sensors (7,215)
- Accelerometers and Vibration Sensors (444)
- Barcode Sensors (103)
- Flowmeters and Flow Sensors (632)
- Gas, Chemical, Radiation, Magnetic Sensors (288)
- Humidity and Environmental Sensors (155)
- Level Sensors and Leak Detectors (533)
- Linear Position Sensors (411)
- Loadcells, Force Sensors, Torque Sensors (722)
- Pressure sensors (634)
- Proximity Sensors (709)
- Rotary Position, Tilt and Angular Sensors (559)
- Sensors (10)
- Temperature sensors (617)
- Vision and Colour Sensors (1,398)
- Small Mechanical Components, Joining, Tools (2,010)
- Valves, Pumps, Process Hardware (3,688)
