medevexec

Have used cylindrical mounts and leveling foot mounts from AAC on equipment that needed to be partially isolated from table and floor movements. These mounts absorb shock and vibration, especially from motor starts.

Strengths: AAC carries any possible antivibration mount that you could need for industrial/commercial use.

Needs to improve: None

Used many of their push-to-connect pneumatic fittings to speed up assembly of capital equipment. The push in style makes it easy to connect without tools - as long as your end cuts are square. On several occasions, we have had to disconnect and re-cut the end due to minor scratches on the outside of the tubing because of minor leaks. But this will occur with any push to connect fitting.

Strengths: Extensive collection of push-to-connect fluid connectors.

Needs to improve: A little expensive.

Used air regulators and sintered bronze filters. The filters came in handy to lower the noise in a piece of capital equipment that we were manufacturing. When the valve exhausted, the sound of the air escaping was very loud. After installing the muffler to the output port, the noise level dropped dramatically.

Strengths: Good selection of sintered bronze mufflers for dissipation of compressed air quietly. Also have multi-stage filters/lubricators/and regulators that all connect together for compact, single location air regulation.

Needs to improve: None

Used many of their medium and heavy duty levelers for capital equipment we were manufacturing. For fluid environments, used nylon non-conductive based ones, and used yellow chromated steel ones for other products. Good quality - never any issues.

Strengths: Incredibly large supply of any kind of leveling feet, caps, plugs, and surface protectors.

Needs to improve: None

Used a plethora of JW Winco's products: handwheels, leveling feet for capital equipment enclosures, pull handles, casters, ....
All were very high quality and available off the shelf. The part I have used the most are vibration-isolating swivel leveling feet for large enclosed systems.

Strengths: Thousands of mechanical parts - leveling feet, handles, knobs, ball plungers, etc. Very good line of metric offerings as well.

Needs to improve: Good quality, no issues.

Used several different turn counting dials in a few electronic equipment projects. Knobs sit on the front of shafts and count how many turns of the know that are done. Great for controlling minute movements in worm gear assemblies.

Strengths: Only have experience with BI's turn-counting dials, which have always been reliable and high-quality.

Needs to improve: For turn-counting dials, none. Can't comment on all of their other products.

Used Turn-Act and Turn-Dex pneumatic rotary actuators for several projects. Makes designing rotary tables very simple since these products can handle the rotary and the normal load on its actuator. Turn-Dex is a unique, single direction rotary actuator great for rotary indexing applications. Minimized design on an indexing table by allowing me to remove locking actuator used for precision rotary stop points.

Strengths: World-class rotary actuators and indexing rotary actuators for use in automation products and commercial equipment.

Needs to improve: Have not dealt with them since their acquisition by ITT, so unsure if their ability to do quick turn products has changed,

Used their thread-to-barb brass fittings and barb-to-barb plastic fittings for several automation and capital equipment projects. Easy to use and a wide selection of large pipe thread to small barb fittings.

Strengths: Large selection of hard-to-find miniature brass, stainless, and plastic barb fittings for low and high pressure pneumatic circuits.

Needs to improve: None

Used thermoelectric module for cooling a processor on a computer built into a medical diagnostic equipment. Fan cooling was not enough due to the confined space that the board was in. By using the thermoelectric cooler, and a larger heat sink, the fan was able to keep the system cooled.

Strengths: Thermoelectric modules are reliable and have a small form factor. Used to cool chips and other extremely hot components.

Needs to improve: Expensive...but getting cheaper.

Have used Ohmite potentiometers and power tap switches (multi-pole rotary switches) for use in electronics and laser based communication equipment. Have used tubular power resistors in several applications where heat generated by resistors have previously been a problem. Good quality products with time-proven reliability and design.

Strengths: Reliable mechanical potentiometers and power tap switches for panel mounting. Replaces need for PCBs in most cases to do these functions.

Needs to improve: None

Used fiberglass based Duralon bearings in a few application for linear motion where I needed small aspect ratios, and linear and rotary lubrication. A plus to these types of bearing is that the mandrel can be any shape and the bearing can be adapted to it fairly easily.

Strengths: Filament bearings are a great alternative for odd shaped rods, and are non-metallic and non-conducting.

Needs to improve: Custom shapes can take some time to get designed and prototyped with them.

Have used Exair Line vacs for transporting debris away from die cutting operations; vacuum cups for picking up products in both automation lines and capital equipment, and air knives in blow-off applications for automation equipment. All of their devices use compressed air for vacuum generation, cooling, blow-off, etc. Much less expensive than electrical powered pumps for these applications, and much smaller in size.

Strengths: Wide selection of air knives and in-line vacuum generators and vacuum cups. Very unique solutions to material transfer.

Needs to improve: None observed.

Used many sizes of colored polyurethane, colored polyethylene, and PVC tubing for automation projects and for fluidic delivery in capital equipment systems. Colored tubing advantageous for systems containing many tubes for identification reasons. Used thousands of feet over time, and never had any pinholes or defective tubing.

Strengths: Excellent selection of natural (clear) and colored tubing for pneumatics or fluids. Quick turn shipping. Best selection around.

Needs to improve: None

Used Salice hidden hinges (prefer Soss though) for enclosures for capital equipment. Good quality - used in sheet metal enclosures. Never had a quality issue with them. Built for heavy loads.

Strengths: Italian manufacturer of a good selection of hidden hinges for industrial and residential use.

Needs to improve: Costly

Used Soss hinges (and Salice - different brand) for a number of doors on enclosures on capital equipment. Very uniform and reliable for attachment into all materials (sheet metal in my case). Never had an issue with these in production or filed use.

Strengths: Soss invisible hinges are rugged and ... hidden. Excellent choice for industrial enclosures. Very reliabel and can handle a large amount of weight.
Webpage redirects to soss.com.

Needs to improve: A little pricey

Used them on SS tubing and vinyl/poly tubing. Not a huge fan due to the permanency of the assembly. Only way to replace damaged components is to cut the tubing shorter and replace ferrule and inserts.

Strengths: Good selection of swage-able fittings for fluidic and pneumatic applications.

Needs to improve: If I can avoid these, I will. Need to be careful not to overtighten. Push to connect fittings work well in many applications instead of these. Be sure to order extra tubing inserts (easy to crush, hard to extract from tubing) and ferrules!

Used strain relief bushings and cordgrips for power cord retaining in sheet metal enclosures; used hole plug and grommets to cover access panel holes or insulate wires from sharp sheet metal edges. Only vendor you need for these applications. Available in any size you can think of, in almost any material. Excellent products.

Strengths: Huge selection of strain relief bushings, grommets, bumpers, hole plugs, etc., to connect wires or plug holes through sheet metal.

Needs to improve: None

Used Papst axial and centrifugal compact fans in numerous electrical device designs. Only ever had one seize during operation out of hundreds. The standard for cooling in industry (at least mine). Centrifugal blowers deliver enough force to replace thermoelectric coolers in some light duty applications.

Strengths: Huge selection of reliable, small cooling fans for all industries.

Needs to improve: One bad fan. Ever.

Used Crydom solid state relays to switch a 20A AC heater using a 10VDC signal in some capital equipment we were selling. Devices were reliable and available from many commercial distributors/sources.

Strengths: Solid state relays are widely available and reliable.

Needs to improve: None.

Used To-O-Matic band cylinders (pneumatic), linear slides (pneumatic), electrical linear actuators, and pneumatic rod cylinder slides in products and automation projects. They all provide a very good range of motion in a small footprint. In my experience, the slides are non-leaking and reliable. The electric ones were the types I used the least of, but are very simple to control. The pneumatic rod cylinders are less expensive that competitor's models.

Strengths: Tol-O-Matic's band cylinders and pneumatic linear slides are self-sealing, reliable, linear cylinders that take up minimal space and come in a variety of sizes. Much smaller profile than other solutions.

Needs to improve: Bought numerous pneumatic and electrical slides from them over the years and never had an issue.