In fact, we’ve been having one for over 70 years now. Our J4 series waterproof ball switches might be considered the belle of the ball, when it comes to high performance, high electromechanical endurance, waterproof ball switches.
The CPI J4 Waterproof Ball Switch is used in thousands of product and vehicle applications all over the world, and has been for decades now. If we had to pick one reason why so many manufacturers eventually gravitate to our ball switches in their application, it would be this: Durability. The Patented J4 Seal – An Engineering Marvel. Forgive us if we gush a bit, but after replacing thousands of other manufacturer ball switches in the field, it finally occurred to us that our patented J4 ball switch design was indeed unique in the industry. The patented double seal design and solid stainless steel construction conspire to create a high level of survivability, in some of the most toxic environments that machines find themselves in. Just a few of places our J4 ball (and plunger switch variation which uses the same double seal mechanism) are used include:
The Secret To Durability and Endurance Is… Well actually it’s a few things. It all starts with a small form factor, all stainless steel construction. At the heart of the J4 is its patented ball carrier design which prevents contaminates such as mud, dirt, ice, sand, dust, etc. from jamming the ball. This double seal design actually forces airborne contaminants from the chamber upon switch release, where other switches are most vulnerable. This constant purging of contaminants is one of the reasons our switch has been qualified to over 1 million cycles of electromechanical endurance. Furthermore the switches are completely submersible and are unaffected by water, salt spray, humidity, dirt, dust, sand, icing, oil, shock and vibration. It Plunges Too The same patented ball carrier design used on our J4 ball switch is used in our plunger actuator variant, allowing a host of different implementations to take advantage of what is essentially the same robust, sealed, and completely waterproof operation. View your J4 Plunger Switch Data Sheet Here And finally the CPI team can modify, and quality your switch into your application providing all appropriate mechanical and environmental documentation to satisfy even the most stringent regulatory requirements. We’ve done it many, many times. Make the Switch To CPI If you think you might have an application for one of our completely waterproof ball or plunger switches, don’t hesitate to give us a call. Or check out all our Waterproof Limit Switch Options. Our application engineers are standing by to chat. Original content posted on https://www.cpi-nj.com/blog/you-can-have-a-ball-with-our-waterproof-switches/ Lets face it… electronic stuff packed away in some cramped, poorly ventilated enclosure can get hot. Really hot. And CPI thermal switches are one of the planet’s best solutions to monitoring and shutting down hot equipment in remote places before bad things happen. But what about when things get cold? Like really really cold? Like when it’s so cold your electronics can’t function properly or accurately? What is an engineer to do then except put on some extra layers and hope for global warming? CPI Thermal Switches – With Low Temperature Set Points!It turns out that CPI is one of the very few manufacturers of high endurance thermal switches that can do low temperature set points. Well below freezing in fact, and we do them reliably. Take our standard M1 Series Bimetal Thermal Switch. Our switch can be programmed to a set point of -17C to 343C with tolerance of +/- 2C. Example Low Temperature Thermal Switch ApplicationNot long ago we shipped GE some of our thermal switches for use on a Wind Farm project developed on a 540ha site in the East Dam region of Bac Lieu province, Vietnam, the 99.2MW Bac Lieu near-shore wind farm is Asia’s first offshore wind farm in the Mekong Delta region. Our M1001 was deployed here as a fail-safe detector in the following way: The windmills depend on critical voltage converters to translate the mechanical energy of the turbine to electrical energy. But these converters have a lower limit on the temperature under which they can safely operate. Our switch is meant to be a cold temperature indicator that the converter controller software reads. If the temperature hits the low temperature set point (in this case -3C) it is a signal that the internal heating system for the voltage converter has failed to turn on. To prevent a failure, our switch sends a signal to fault and shut down the converter. The phased development of the Bac Lieu wind farm included the installation of 62 1.6MW wind turbines, supplied by General Electric (GE). Construction commenced in September 2010 and the first phase was grid-connected in May 2013. The wind farm became fully operational in January 2016. The Cold Truth About CPI Thermal SwitchesFor over 70 years CPI has been making thermal switches that go where other technologies can not. Whatever your thermal application, hot or cold, CPI is likely to have the most robust and reliable standalone thermal switching solution you will find anywhere. Call us today to discuss your thermal switch application. Original content posted on https://www.cpi-nj.com/blog/cpi-thermal-swiches-dont-need-to-come-in-from-the-cold/ In addition to providing advanced electromechanical switches and linear position sensors for harsh duty applications around the world, CPI also holds intellectual property rights for a number of engineered system designs. Perhaps one of the most promising is the RPG shield initiative, an Active Protection System (APS) which explores the possibility of protecting our military from one of the most insidious and prevalent threats on the battlefield.
Recently CPI was awarded 3 US patents: 8,536,500, 8,399,816, and 8,122,810 which relate to ground missle defense systems and countermeasures, including the APS system dubbed “The RPG Shield”. A System And Method For the Rapid Aiming And Firing of Defense Countermeasures. APS systems have seen much R&D by the military over the last decade, owing to the demonstrated vulnerability of battle tanks, Humvee’s, and helicopters on the battlefields of Iraq, Yemen, and Syria to name a few. To be effective in real-world combat scenarios, an active RPG defense system must be capable of aiming and launching countermeasures within 100 milliseconds (100ms) from the time of threat detection. According to sources with combat experience, the RPG is most typically a “100-yard weapon”. Adversaries know that to be effective, the RPG needs to be fired at close range. The RPG-7’s maximum flight velocity is around 300 meters per second, so assuming roughly 100 yards to target, it could take as little as 300 milliseconds from launch to impact. Given that any (aimed) active defensive system must detect the inbound threat, classify it, process a response, and aim and launch the countermeasure before the threat makes contact; a realistic system design goal would require the aiming mechanism to be capable of addressing a threat from any direction in 100 milliseconds or less. There is presently no traditional “gun and gimbal” turret system that can aim this rapidly. Existing RPG defense systems under development by Israel include their Trophy system which has been deployed and has seen some success on ground vehicles however the US military declined to take delivery on the Trophy system due to concerns about the large lethal zone and the associated high danger for friendly soldiers in the area. In general, current launcher or turret type systems suffer from one or more of the following problems: 1. Long system reaction times (includes time to aim a countermeasure) 2. Long seeking radars used to improve detection range can also be used to find/track the vehicle. 3. Large uncontrollable lethal zone for shotgun type countermeasure. 4. Limited zone of engagement as turret’s may require shields that prevent 360 degree rotation. 5. Limited multi-hit capability, they require reload after firing once or twice. Most systems have only 2 to four countermeasures available prior to reloading. 6. Heavy weight of countermeasure launchers (guns) and need for multiple guns for simultaneous thread defeat. CPI’s Unique Active Prevention System – A Fundamentally New Approach For RPG defense, a continuously-rotating countermeasure aiming and launching system provides a much faster response than a traditional “gun and gimbal” turret system. Many active RPG countermeasures are self-propelled munitions. They do not require robust gun barrels for launch. They may be launched from short tubes that are little more than storage capsules. Self-propelled munitions also do not produce significant recoil. We propose a design of a fast aiming-and-launch system in the form of a rotating drum. This drum-shaped countermeasure launch container houses multiple munitions, each in a short launch tube, in an outwardly-facing circular array. The circular array lies on a plane perpendicular to the drum’s axis. Given that the launch tube is only about as long as the munition itself, this circular array could be realized in a drum-shaped launcher whose overall diameter is slightly larger than twice the length of an individual countermeasure round. Rotating the drum about its axis creates a situation in which any point, or multiple points, on a planar azimuth of rotation are continuously brought into the line of fire of the munitions in the array. Any point within a full 360 degrees can be targeted in the time that it takes to rotate the nearest-available munition (array element) to that point. In one example, 8 countermeasure munitions are arranged in the outward-facing 360 degree circular array with munitions spaced equally every 45 degrees. In this example the drum must rotate (at most) 45 degrees in order to bring the nearest munition to any point around a 360-degree azimuth. Depending upon the rotational speed of the drum, the time required to bring munitions to bear could be on the order of milliseconds. The preceding description provides a rotational turret capable of firing 8 countermeasures. However a drum-shaped launcher suggests the possibility of superposing (stacking) multiple arrays of countermeasures. So a single drum-type launcher is capable of firing 16 or more defensive munitions prior to reloading and would not potentially require a second instantiation of the turret for multiple threat detection. Further calculations on a drum that rotates about as fast as a ceiling fan (300 RPM), show that a countermeasure could be delivered to any point on the azimuth in 25 milliseconds or less. This is roughly the amount of time that it takes an RPG to cover about 7 meters. Another potential advantage of the system is the ease with which a LIDAR system for threat detection could be implemented by fixing a laser triangulation sensor to the top of the rotating launcher. This could be coupled with an IR sensor for further detection reliability. A unitized system like this could be made highly portable and light, suitable for air as well as ground vehicles. For more information on the CPI RPG defense system, contact Cliff Moodie at 973-887-9400 Original content posted on https://www.cpi-nj.com/blog/cpi-announces-patent-approval-for-active-protection-system-against-rpgs/ It was a number of years ago that enterprising aviation experts at Embraer, Brazil’s largest aircraft manufacturer, noticed that the market for turboprop planes was dominated by foreign imports. Despite Brazil being the second biggest market for general aviation the trainer used at the Brazilian Air Force Academy is over 40 years old and lacks the most basic advances in materials and handling of modern turboprops. Privately owned Novaer was formed by ex-Embraer employees with the goal to produce a general purpose small turboprop that could update these aircraft as well as having handling characteristics worthy of an aerobatic single engine monoplane. T-Xc Calls on CPI for Thermal Switch SolutionThe T-Xc had its first flight in 2014 and is headed for production in 2017. Like many aircraft the Novaer T-Xc has requirements for critical temperature monitoring and control in the ECS equipment bay. This is an enclosed area housing critical avionics systems where temperature needs to be tightly monitored. This application is no stranger to CPI thermal switches. On the T-Xc Novaer will use our M2001 Plug-Stat switch. This is a bimetal close-on-rise switch with a programmable set point anywhere through the range 0F – 650F (-17C to 343C). It is also a tough and hardened switch proven to withstand vibration with an all stainless steel construction and a hermetically sealed design. Electrical operation can be specified in multiple options and there is an option for a glass sealed MIL-SPEC connector as well. CPI Thermal Switches Own the ECSWith reliable temperature detection and switch activation from 0F to 1750F across our product line, CPI products have been a go-to solution for ECS temperature monitoring for many aircraft manufacturers and military aircraft for many years. The switches are proven, reliable, heavy duty, and cost effective. If you need your equipment to keep its cool when you take to the skies, call CPI today, our thermal switch engineering team can help. Original content posted on https://www.cpi-nj.com/blog/novaer-trainer-will-take-to-the-sky-with-cpi/ |
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