Designfax weekly eMagazine

Subscribe Today!

Archives

View Archives

Partners

Manufacturing Center
Product Spotlight

Modern Applications News
Metalworking Ideas For
Today's Job Shops

Tooling and Production
Strategies for large
metalworking plants

Tech Tip: Fan selection - Why airflow is not just CFM

For many engineers, fan selection starts and ends with a single number: CFM (cubic feet per minute). Higher CFM feels like a clear win. More air moved must mean better cooling. However, in practice, this assumption is one of the most common causes of thermal problems, excess noise, and late-stage redesigns. Find out why.
Read this Orion Fans technical article.

Useful! Snap-together LED enclosure lighting

Seifert StripLite SL 4000 Series LED enclosure lighting provides bright illumination to 700 lumens. On/off switch and motion sensor models are available. Easily daisy chain up to 16 light strips. Magnetic or clip mounting. See video/info on website or contact Bristol Instruments for more information.
Learn about snap-together lighting.

The hidden hardware helping AI's heat problem: PCHEs

Across AI infrastructure, thermal constraints now connect semiconductor design with power and cooling systems. More compact, lighter, and efficient than conventional shell-and-tube models, printed circuit heat exchangers save floor space, reduce energy costs, and improve overall efficiency in dense, hyperscale environments.
Read the full article.

Nearly 1,000 parts: Industrial enclosure range expanded

Altech Corp. has expanded its industrial enclosure lineup to 10 unique series with nearly 1,000 parts! Designed for control, junction, and terminal applications, these plastic and aluminum housings offer up to IP69 protection. They mount directly to walls or panels, resisting chemicals, corrosion, flames, impacts, and severe outdoor conditions without sacrificing aesthetics.
Find your perfect enclosure today.

Cool Tools: MetraSCAN BLACK2 -- Next-gen shop-floor 3D inspection

You'll gain some superhero powers when you brandish FARO CREAFORM's new MetraSCAN BLACK2, a next-gen portable metrology-grade optical 3D scanner engineered to deliver total inspection flexibility on the shop floor. This unit boasts a 3-in-1 architecture that combines C-Track scanning, stand-alone scanning, and probing in a single metrology-grade system.
Read the full article.

Compact, touchless position sensors: Wear-free operation in tight spaces

Novotechnik's TFD-4000 Series of touchless linear position sensors delivers wear-free measurement in tight spaces. Featuring ranges up to 50 mm, IP67 protection, 12-bit resolution, and analog outputs, these reliable sensors operate from -40 C to 125 C across diverse industrial, mobile, and medical applications such as short-stroke linear valve positioning, solenoid valves, off-highway brake actuation, and more.
Learn more.

World's first 10-m safety laser scanner: See farther, protect more

Datasensing, Datalogic's Sensor & Safety and Machine Vision business unit, has launched the SLS10 Safety Laser Scanner, the world's first 10-meter safety laser scanner. Delivering a 275-degree scanning angle, 240-m² of coverage, and an 84-msec response time, the SLS10 protects larger workspaces with fewer devices. It features best-in-class angular resolution for precise AGV navigation, SIL-2/PLd compliance, dust immunity, and the new ONEGUI platform for simplified configuration.
Learn more and see it in action.

Accelerate AI-driven machine vision systems

BitFlow has announced full production of its Claxon CXP-12 frame grabbers, designed for NVIDIA GPU-accelerated machine vision. Across five models, the CoaXPress 2.0 lineup delivers up to 50 Gbps -- five times 10 GigE Vision -- eliminating data bottlenecks. The full CXP-12 specification ensures deterministic, high-bandwidth streaming to unleash modern AI inference models.
Learn more.

Millimeter-wave imaging inspection in real time

With its new quality and inspection R&S IMAGER millimeter-wave scanner, Rohde & Schwarz aims to simplify the industrial inspection of packaged products. The system sees through common packaging materials at production speed without using X-rays, protecting both products and operators. The high-contrast 3D images are used as digital twins and can be automatically integrated into AI-powered fault-detection systems. Sees through plastics, cardboard, and composites. Applications include food and beverage, pharmaceuticals, logistics.
Learn more.

What are single-loop process controllers?

PLCs are powerful, but complex control isn't always necessary. For standalone processes requiring single-variable monitoring -- like temperature, pressure, or flow -- a single-loop controller is ideal. See how single-loop controllers can streamline your next project.
Read the AutomationDirect tech tip.

Great Resources: Flexible circuit design guide

Tech-Etch uses advanced techniques to manufacture flex and rigid-flex circuits to exacting customer specs. Special processes include selective plating a single circuit with two different finishes, contoured circuits with variable metal thickness, semi-additive and subtractive techniques, open window or cantilevered contact leads, plus SMT for component assembly. Tech-Etch specializes in flexible circuits for medical, telecommunications, aerospace, semiconductor, and other high-reliability electronic applications.
Learn about flex circuits and get the guide (no registration required).

EMI Investigations: New immunity development system

Saelig Company announces the Langer E1 Immunity Development System for EMI investigations. This compact, affordable kit simulates burst and ESD interference to pinpoint layout weak spots down to IC pins. By eliminating "black box" guesswork early in development, engineers can efficiently identify coupling mechanisms, test measures, and resolve immunity issues before compliance failure.
Learn more and see it in action.

Battery packs for unmanned aerial vehicles

Re:Build Manufacturing has launched U.S.-assembled, NDAA-compliant lithium-ion battery packs for commercial, public safety, and defense UAV applications. Available in Core, Power, and Performance series, the packs use non-FEOC cells and are produced at Re:Build's advanced facility in New Kensington, PA. Re:Build also offers custom pack and battery management system development.
Learn more.

Easy-to-use precision measurement system

Optical Gaging Products has announced the StarLite S1, a compact, semi-automatic 3-axis video measurement system. It combines fully automatic video measurements with manual stage motion and features an IntelliCentric-S optical system for high-resolution images. Powered by Measure-X software, this system delivers fast, repeatable, high-accuracy results, making it ideal for both shop-floor and quality-control applications.
Learn more.

Why a soccer kick bends the ball path: SOLIDWORKS simulation

With SOLIDWORKS Flow Simulation, you can virtually test a ball's flight path and see the science behind its amazing trajectory. Visualize anything you want to test, including the physics that make a ball curve and dip, to optimize performance and reduce physical testing. See the SOLIDWORKS Flow Simulation study setup and learn about the Magnus effect where a spinning object moving through a fluid curves away from its straight path. [Credit: Screenshot courtesy of SOLIDWORKS]
View the video.

Say what? Installed ultrasound device improves charge time and run time in lithium-metal batteries

Researchers used a new ultrasound device to generate a flow within a smartphone battery's electrolyte. [Credit: David Baillot/University of California San Diego]

 

 

Researchers at the University of California San Diego developed an ultrasound-emitting device that brings lithium-metal batteries, or LMBs, one step closer to commercial viability. Although the research team focused on LMBs, the device can be used in any battery, regardless of chemistry.

The device that the researchers developed is an integral part of the battery and works by emitting ultrasound waves to create a circulating current in the electrolyte liquid found between the anode and cathode. This prevents the formation of lithium metal growths, called dendrites, during charging that lead to decreased performance and short circuits in LMBs.

The device is made from off-the-shelf smartphone components that generate sound waves at extremely high frequencies -- ranging from 100 million to 10 billion hertz. In phones, these devices are used mainly to filter the wireless cellular signal and identify and filter voice calls and data. Researchers used them instead to generate a flow within the battery's electrolyte.

"Advances in smartphone technology are truly what allowed us to use ultrasound to improve battery technology," said James Friend, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego and the study's corresponding author.

Currently, LMBs have not been considered a viable option to power everything from electric vehicles to electronics because their lifespan is too short. But these batteries also have twice the capacity of today's best lithium-ion batteries. For example, lithium-metal-powered electric vehicles would have twice the range of lithium-ion-powered vehicles, for the same battery weight.

Researchers showed that a lithium-metal battery equipped with the device could be charged and discharged for 250 cycles and a lithium-ion battery for more than 2,000 cycles. The batteries were charged from zero to 100 percent in 10 minutes for each cycle.

"This work allows for fast-charging and high-energy batteries all in one," said Ping Liu, professor of nanoengineering at the Jacobs School and the paper's other senior author. "It is exciting and effective."

The team details their work in the Feb. 18 online issue of the journal Advanced Materials.

Most battery research efforts focus on finding the perfect chemistry to develop batteries that last longer and charge faster, Liu said. By contrast, the UC San Diego team sought to solve a fundamental issue: the fact that in traditional metal batteries, the electrolyte liquid between the cathode and anode is static. As a result, when the battery charges, the lithium ion in the electrolyte is depleted, making it more likely that lithium will deposit unevenly on the anode. This, in turn, causes the development of needle-like structures called dendrites that can grow unchecked from the anode towards the cathode, causing the battery to short-circuit and even catch fire. Rapid charging speeds this phenomenon up.

By propagating ultrasound waves through the battery, the device causes the electrolyte to flow, replenishing the lithium in the electrolyte and making it more likely that the lithium will form uniform, dense deposits on the anode during charging.

The most difficult part of the process was designing the device, said An Huang, the paper's first author and a Ph.D. student in materials science at UC San Diego. The challenge was working at extremely small scales, understanding the physical phenomena involved, and finding an effective way to integrate the device inside the battery.

"Our next step will be to integrate this technology into commercial lithium-ion batteries," said Haodong Liu, the paper's co-author and a nanoengineering postdoctoral researcher at the Jacobs School.

The technology has been licensed from UC San Diego by Matter Labs, a technology development firm based in Ventura, CA. The license is not exclusive.

Source: UC San Diego

Published March 2020

Rate this article