If you’re a piece of switching electronics then the hot, dirty, oily, always moving environment of a military vehicle transmission is not a place you’d prefer to find yourself. After all some of these transmissions are in constant aggressive use and the crankcases get hot enough to fry eggs on. Add to that the constant exposure to hot transmission oil up to 150F, and if you’re most switches, you’re probably dreaming of a nice visit to Murmansk, on the Arctic Circle, doing some light duty as a dogsled horn. In heavy duty transmission applications however, so called interlock switches are a critical part of safe operation. A typical such application is the detection of Neutral Safety in certain US Military Vehicles. This class of switch applications known as an interlock safety, is crucial to the safe operation of a 3 or 4 ton troop carriers or Humvee. The switch has to reliably detect when the truck is in neutral in order to enable other operations on or within the vehicle. No remote sensors will do for this application because to be really, really sure you are in neutral requires an actuator driven switch mounted in the transmission itself and thus exposed to the same punishing environment that any combat ready military vehicle is designed for. CPI Switches Live in Hell, and Like it. Specifically designed for punishing interlock applications in extremes of temperature and vibration are the CPI J4 Series Ball Switches below. Originally developed for military transports the switch has evolved and improved over decades of field use all over the world to become one of the most hardened solutions to interlock detection to be found anywhere on the planet. The key to understanding the engineering beauty of the J4 can be summed up in two words: elegant simplicity. As pictured the J4 boasts all stainless steel construction. While the switch can be procured in a ball or a plunger variation, the basic design is the same. At the heart of the J4 is a patented ball carrier design which prevents contaminates such as mud, dirt, ice, sand, dust, etc. from jamming the ball. The switch employ’s a patented double exclusion seal which actively removes contaminates from the housing during depression and release. This unique design effectively cleans itself and prevents early wear of contacts in a hostile environment. The switch is rated to perform from -50C to 185F and is one of the few switches in the world designed to operate while frozen in ice. These switches are also ideal for heavy industrial equipment applications that are subject to the same conditions. The switches are completely submersible and are unaffected by water, salt spray, humidity, dirt, dust, sand, icing, oil, shock and vibration. Just some of the applications for this switch have included:
Made in the USA too.Our J4 Ball Switch and all our switches are painstakingly assembled right here in our factory in East Hanover New Jersey. As are all our products. It’s the only way to really have quality at this level and our competitors know it, having largely surrendered the field to us when it comes to these kinds of harsh duty applications. Make the switch to CPI. Give us a call today to discuss your application. Original content posted on https://www.cpi-nj.com/blog/NeutralSafetySwitches/ Taken directly from a competitor’s website, is this description of their watertight limit switch “…have internal parts that are protected against splashing or hose-directed water seepage within the limits of the NEMA specified tests for type 4 watertight enclosures. These switches are not sleet or ice-proof.” That’s a lot of words to say, “not really waterproof”. For engineers looking for a small form factor, truly waterproof and can’t-kill-it-with-a-hammer limit switch we offer, well…our whole product line. To break it down lets take a look at the major types of switches and switch configurations we manufacture. Ball and Plunger Limit Switches Our J4 series limit switches come in both a ball and a plunger variation. These have seen use in military vehicles, construction vehicles, emergency and work trucks, even submarines. These switches can be mechanically activated by a transmission sliding into neutral, or a door or hood closing, or a valve opening up and reaching the limit of its travel, or any one of a hundred other applications where size and durability were the primary concerns. Made of all stainless steel with a patented double seal mechanism, these switches are usually the final resort of engineers who don’t want to mess around with safety limit switches who fail in the field. That’s because configurations of our limit switches have been qualified to over one million cycles. Shown here is one of our cab down detect applications for a military transport. These applications can use our J4 plunger switch typically though many make use of our E1 series switches discussed below. E1 Series Limit Switches When you take one of our Santoprene or Neoprene (extended temperature range) sealed momentary or maintained contact pendant switches and combine them with CPI’s custom actuators and bracket mounting options, the result is a broad line of waterproof limit switches that can be readily configured for your specific applications, usually with an off the shelf purchase from one of our distributors. Many combinations of travel parameters, electrical configurations, roller lever or panel mounting configurations as well as our standard high-endurance capabilities are offered as standard products. It’s Easier to say “Heavy Duty” with CPI Limit Switches. Did we mention that our limit switches actually operate underwater? And at -40F or 220F? Here’s how we say that in our product description. “CPI limit switches are waterproof and weatherproof.” Easy right? Original content posted on https://www.cpi-nj.com/blog/a-heavy-duty-limit-switch-with-a-simple-explanation/ For many applications, standard garden variety ball switches won’t cut it. In fact, even Google is confused about ball switches, conflating them with tilt switches that happen to use a floating ball in their implementation.
But engineers know, that’s not a real ball switch. So for the cognoscenti among us, we understand that a ball switch generally consists of a metal ball in some kind of carrier which when depressed, either opens or closes a circuit. The ball actuator has many uses in applications where mechanical parts pass over the actuation point in an imprecise way. There is no stick or plunger in a ball carrier, and the ball sticks out ever so slightly providing a low profile solution to sensing mechanical position for a wide variety of equipment. For Ball Switches, The Devil Is In The Details So if we are looking at true ball switches, they all have a similar profile. The real difference between ball switches offered on the market and the ball switches CPI makes have to do with four things:
CPI’s J4 Series Ball Switch Design Perhaps the first thing to understand is that unlike virtually every other ball switch in existence, the J4 Series Ball switch is waterproof, period. Not splash-proof or “moisture resistant”. And not just water. The switch rejects oil, gas, dust, sand, mud, ice and all manner of airborne contaminants. Unlike the ball switches of some of our competitors it has no plastic parts. Variations of our switch can operate over a temperature range of -50°F to 185°F without locking up (cold side problem) or failing to make contact. The way CPI has achieved this has everything to do with our patented ball carrier design. As shown below, the J4 ball switch employs a double exclusion seal. This seal coupled with the incredibly tight tolerances achieved in manufacturing, keep contaminants out of the switch housing. An available stainless steel body and internally sealed contacts that can be manufactured in any lead length, complete the picture. Call CPI Today to discuss Your ApplicationIn the world of ball switches, the CPI offering is truly unique. Call our engineering team today to discuss your applications. Original content posted on https://www.cpi-nj.com/blog/j4-ball-switch-for-robust-position-sensing/ Sometimes, the best engineering advances arise out of failure. To quote Thomas Edison “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that don’t work!” Indeed as one looks at the development history of CPI’s patented J4 ball switch, its current category leading performance did not come without decades of trial and error, and improvement. Perhaps the best way to illustrate this is through the story of our use on one of the military most famous military vehicles of the the last 30 years, the Hummer. In the late 80’s and 90’s the Hummer or Humvee was born. Tipping the scales at 10,000 lbs and getting less than 10 miles per gallon, the military version came to the publics attention when it saw action in the 1989 invasion of Panama, and the first Persian Gulf War. A civilian version of the vehicle dubbed the “Humvee” was first released in 1992 and shot to fame, embraced by celebrities like Arnold Shwartzenegger who went on to own a whole fleet of them! A Technical and Reliability Challenge Even the smaller commercial versions of the Humvee faced some challenges owing to the massive size and power of the transmission and drive train, supporting all that weight under extreme operating conditions. One such problem had to do with the detection of neutral in the transmission, the so-called “neutral-safety” application. Neutral safety refers the need to detect when a vehicle transmission is not in gear. Certain actions in the vehicle are only permitted when the vehicle is in neutral and there is no danger of sudden movement. Detection of neutral is one of the most critical safety systems in a vehicle and is present in almost all modern vehicles, both military, and in regular automobiles. In the Humvee, detection of neutral safety was becoming a big headache for its maker (AM General Corp, and later GM). Qualification requirements for neutral safety required an extremely robust “ball-switch) type design that was waterproof, vibration resistant, could even operate when frozen in ice! It also had to have low profile and extremely high electromechanical endurance over hundreds of thousands of cycles. But when the makers of the HUMVEE came to CPI, nothing they had tried was surviving the qualification requirements. Where Other Switches Fail, The J4 Evolves and Succeeds.While the J4 was already a robust, class leading all stainless steel switch, the requirement to operate when frozen in ice was particularly problematic, as were the mounting considerations for this application. Learning heavily from the failures of many different manufacturers parts, CPI engineers came up with an entirely new (patented) ball carrier that had the potential to solve both the freezing problem, while simultaneously increasing the endurance of the switch. It works as follows: In the new J4 design a “double seal” is employed. As pictured below, this sealing mechanism actually seals the actuator both before, and the second seal, seals it during actuation. Not only does this prevent liquid and small particulates from entering the housing, but upon release any unwanted liquids or particulates that have entered the outer chamber are forced back out of the switch. The seal design has the additional effect of preventing “freeze-up” in the housing by double insulating the contacts from the freezing effects that plagued competitor switches. The J4 ball switch was the only switch Humvee ever tested that was able to operate successfully while completely frozen in ice. After meeting these electrical and operational requirements, CPI further expanded the base product with a variety of mounting threads and lengths for installation into transmissions and ultimately CPI created a variation of the original ball switch design – the J4 plunger switch, which was used in the Military’s cab tilt limit application, where once again, nothing else survived the qualification requirements. When You’re Done Messing Around, Try A Real Waterproof Switch If your application calls for a robust waterproof ball switch or plunger type switch, you won’t find a more durable, or easily mounted, truly waterproof limit switch solution than the CPI J4 series. Samples are available for qualified applications. Please call the factory. Original content posted on https://www.cpi-nj.com/blog/cpis-j4-ball-switch-a-problem-solver-for-the-military-and-beyond/ The broad category of “Work Trucks” or “vocational trucks” includes vehicles from ambulances to class 8 heavy trucks weighing over 33,000 pounds . Unlike cars and your consumer oriented pickup truck, these vehicles really work for a living, and are built for a complex purpose beyond getting you from here to there.
As a manufacturer of some of the worlds most durable and reliable waterproof safety switches, CPI brings both deep and broad experience to the problems of safety system designers for work trucks. The CPI switches and sensors designed into these trucks of every type represent a small, but critically important component of overall safety system operation. Chances are no matter what safety system your vocational truck design needs, you won’t be blazing any new trails by designing in CPI hardened limit switches and ball switches. Work Truck Applications for CPI Waterproof Switches Here are some examples: Emergency Vehicles – Often use our E1 limit switches for Outrigger Deployment detection to insure the stabilizer is locked into place. Bucket Trucks – Bucket truck manufacturers have used a wide variety of our E1 limit switches as part of safety systems controlling the boom hydraulics and buckets. Our control panels have been used to provide operator control through our panel mounted waterproof pendant switches. Agricultural Sprayers – Use our J4 ball switch to sense that sprayer arms are locked owing to its ability to withstand highly corrosive spray fertilizers. Sanitation Trucks – Use our waterproof limit switches pre-mounted into a stainless steel control panel to control compressor and lift gate operations on the vehicle. Cranes – Cranes of all types and sizes have made use of our E1 waterproof limit switches in anti-two-block safety systems owing to their robustness and small form factor. They also use our J4 ball switch in hydraulic valve position detection applications using our specialized valve mounting brackets. Forklifts and Construction Vehicles – Our operator controlled, Waterproof Pendant Switches are the perfect solutions to things like backup alarms and siren control. Or put this in any of dozens of mounting brackets we can provide and let the machine activate it. Our K1005 using our E1057 mounting bracket is a great example of this. Military Vehicles – In applications like Door Alarms, and Neutral Safety detection, our J4 ball switch has been designed into tough vehicles for its durability, reliability, and small form factor. Vocational Vehicles Need More Reliable PartsOn Work Trucks costing upwards of $100,000, its seems silly to take a chance on safety system sensors, with cheap, offshore produced switches. All CPI switches are designed and made in the USA right here in our East Hanover NJ Factory. Despite this, our switches often cost less in quantity than comparable switches by Honeywell, Eaton, and Otto. We love solving problems of safety and sensing with our switches. Please give us a call today. https://www.cpi-nj.com Original content posted on https://www.cpi-nj.com/blog/safety-systems-on-work-trucks/ Sometimes in engineering design, you just get it right. The right combination of materials, simplicity and elegance. Just the right amount of cleverness. Sometimes it even looks pretty. Sure as time goes on you make tweaks here and there, but if your basic design is sound, reinventing the wheel is seldom necessary.
Such is the case with the CPI J4 Ball Switch, the gift that keeps on giving as it were. Originally designed for military applications on armored vehicles and tanks, this reliable, virtually indestructible waterproof ball switch with our patented seal mechanism keeps getting design win after design win in a variety of control and sensing applications such as:
Most recently the J4 Ball received another design-in at a major manufacturer of armored vehicles. This time it will see use in a transmission sensing application where it provides feedback on gear range inside the transfer case (low, med, high). J4 Ball Switch Operational Niche Our ball switch has a few defining characteristics that make it an excellent choice for certain high endurance applications
CPI Ball and Plunger Switches for Harsh Duty Applications Tough and durable is what we make and who we are. All our products are designed and manufactured in the USA. If you think your application is tough enough for our switches, give us a call today. Original content posted on https://www.cpi-nj.com/blog/j4-ball-switch-a-study-in-hardness-durability/ The design of the modern work truck is moving forward at an amazing pace. With long haul trucks, the focus has been on collision avoidance systems and advanced controls for fuel economy, but dump truck builders have long had a different focus.
For Dump Trucks, it’s all about safety. Historically, makers of class 8 dump trucks have not exactly been “early adopters” of technology, preferring instead to allow these advances to trickle down after many years of trial by fire on long haul trucks and other vehicles. More recently however, increased safety regulations, modularized construction methods and accelerated adoption rates for technology have conspired to put more and more intelligence in the “Dumb Dump Truck” than ever before. That means an increasingly connected vehicle, with improved fuel economy, and an ever increasing focus on safety systems. Switches Used in Work Trucks Must be Robust It turns out that CPI switches and sensors are critical components of safety systems on dump trucks, work trucks, and many construction vehicles owing mostly to their extremely durable, and watertight operational characteristics. CPI waterproof limit switches have an extremely small pendant switch style form factor and can be mounted in a wide variety of actuation mechanisms, allowing flexible placement in machines and vehicles. They can be sealed in either Neoprene or Santoprene making them fully waterproof and capable of extended temperature operation from -20 to 120 degrees F. And finally, the switches are capable of extremely high electromechanical endurance. CPI has qualified certain switch models to over 5 million cycles of operation. Safety Systems In Dump Trucks and other Work Trucks Here are just a few safety systems that have used CPI limit switches over the years along with the parts commonly used. Dump Body Detection – Our E1092 simulated roller mechanism is mounted easily under the truck bed using one of our waterproof pendant switches like our B9112, NO switch. When the bed is raised, a circuit is completed, raising a visible (and potentially audible) alarm in the cab. This design is used for safety sensing in bucket trucks, loaders, and other vehicles that require mechanical feedback as to boom or bed position. Cab Down Detection – This is a safety interlock switch function, which prevents the system from operating until the hood or cab is closed. While any of our E-series limit switches can be used, CPI actually makes a specific plunger style switch for this application called our J4 Plunger Switch. Originally developed for the military, this switch has an ultra-rugged design featuring a wiper seal and a plunger that can withstand 50 psi to overcome hardened-sand and ice buildup. Neutral Safety – One of the most common safety systems in commercial vehicles is neutral safety detection. In this application, various vehicle operations are prevented until the transmission is confirmed to be in neutral gear. Commonly chosen for this is our J4 ball switch, a hardened, small form factor, stainless steel ball switch designed with our patented seal exclusion system that actually forces contaminants out of the housing every time the ball is actuated. This waterproof switch design is so reliable and robust that it was used to detect the status of torpedo doors on navy submarines. Back Up Alarm – Another common requirement of work trucks is the audible back-up alarm which sounds when the vehicle is moving in reverse. Our E1092 is a great example of a robust limit switch with a simulated lever actuator that is commonly used in this application. Completely made of high grade stainless steel it is truly waterproof, and completely customizable with almost countless mounting and actuator combinations available. This switch can be designed to meet operational standards for military use (B2 series) as well as heavy duty industrial applications (B3 thru B9 series). Parameters such as travel length, current rating, and electromechanical endurance are customizable. CPI has achieved endurance qualifications over 5 million cycles with this basic roller limit switch design. Waterproof Safety Switches for Industrial Use There are hundreds of specialized safety switch applications on dump trucks, work trucks and other industrial vehicles. Those that choose a CPI solution generally do so because they want the most reliable operation in the field that they can possibly have. When the safety of operators is on the line, why would you want anything else? We have a vast amount of off-the-shelf options for our switches. And yet all our switches can be cost effectively customized for custom mounting and electrical parameters. Call us today to discuss your safety switch system requirements with a product specialist. https://www.cpi-nj.com Original content posted on https://www.cpi-nj.com/blog/dump-truck-safety-system-design/ Like so many other manufacturing and production industries, automation has become a key part of the economical growth and harvest of agriculture across the United States. Essential to this growth are the large sprayers used to spread fertilizer and crop protection compounds across large swaths of plants covering thousands of acres of rolling farmland. In the past, the choices for a farmer were not great: either hire hundreds of workers to spray crops by hand, or hope it is a bad year for Japanese beetles. With margins on most produce being so low, profitable economies of scale can only be achieved by having maximum yield on acreage. Without it, one bad year of beetles, can make another tract of farmland into Condo’s. In 1947, Hagie Manufacturing took on the challenge of large scale farming and invented the world’s first self-propelled sprayer. Today Hagie has partnered with John Deere to engage globally in the sales and manufacturing of self-propelled sprayers, detasslers, nitrogen toolbars, cutter and puller attachments. One of the key features of Hagie sprayers is their long hydraulically controlled booms which can spread out on either side of the cab, yielding a wingspan of up to 132 feet! Critical to operation of these booms is that they travel to a locked position so that liquids are sprayed evenly and accurately. To provide closed loop feedback on the mechanical locking mechanism, a limit switch is typically used which is activated when the boom reaches its locked position. The problem however, is that these switches must be deployed in an area completely exposed to outdoor conditions on the boom including sprayed compounds like Urea Ammonium Nitrate (URN) which has excellent properties as a fertilizer when mixed with water. Unfortunately, it is also highly corrosive to steel over time and Hagie had difficulty finding a limit switch for this application that did not ultimately degrade, and require expensive field repairs. A High Endurance Limit Switch for Farm Equipment and Vehicles Hagie’s chosen solution for detecting the locked status of their boom turns out to be none other than our J4311 Ball Switch. Hagie worked closely with CPI engineers to develop a variation of our proven design that was hardened and sealed specifically for Hagie’s application. The J4311 is a normally open switch with screw in mounting from a .625 – 18 UNF-2A mounting thread. Our J4 ball switch is a much sought after solution to limit and safety switch feedback applications owing to its incredible resistance to environmental contaminants, shock, vibration, and its electromechanical endurance rating of up to 1 million cycles. Originally designed for demanding military applications the J4 Series switches replace standard ball switches in mission critical applications, where harsh environments cause high failure rates. Our J4 ball for Hagie was customized to use a fully corrugated loom covering the switch and the wiring as well as termination in a custom Deutsch connector. CPI can modify our J4 ball switches for appropriate lead lengths, terminations, and electrical and endurance parameters so that you are shipped a part that plugs directly into your application CPI High Endurance Ball and Plunger Switches for Your Application In the world of agricultural equipment and vehicles, wet and wooly deployment scenarios with corrosive compounds are a fact of life. But whatever your application, if the words “tough”, “corrosive” or “exposed” describes your environment, then our J4 series Ball and Plunger switches may be the solution for your closed loop safety switch or limit switch requirement. Call our engineering team today or visit our website at http://cpi-nj.com Original content posted on https://www.cpi-nj.com/blog/industrial-farm-equipment-looks-to-cpi-ball-switches/ |
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