The Breakroom > The Water Cooler

Anybody Know What This Could Have Been Used For?

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websterz:

--- Quote from: klank on June 08, 2009, 03:23:05 PM ---What I REALLY want is a Jelly-Snake dispenser for those stressful moments - chewing helps you relax, and a pick-n-mix jelly-snake does the biz. :coffee:

--- End quote ---

Jelly snake? Is that anything like a gummy worm? :scratch:

klank:
Probably!?
Very chewy, brightly coloured (supposedly fruity and no e-number additives -ha ha) about 8" long.
Gummy/yummy.

Better than Jelly Babies.

Brass_Machine:
Do they have sour ones?

Eric

rleete:
Well, not to interrupt the candy discussion, but a little more on the original subject.

I worked for a company called Arnold Magnetics for a while.  If you have any of those flat refridgerator magnets, chances are they made them.  They make miles of the stuff, printed with whatever logo and send it all over the world.  They also make magnetic couplings, which is what I worked on.

The ones I worked on looked like a large, square-sided wine glass, about 8" inside diameter, with a shaft on the end (where the stem of a wine glass would be).  Made of steel with the shafts ground and hardened.  Inside this cup, evenly spaced were very strong magnets.  Another shaft, this one without the cup, had magnets fastened to the outside of it.  When placed one inside the other, it forms a coupling, able to transmit a surprising amount of torque.  The huge advantage they have over a direct drive is that they can be designed (based on the size/shape/strength of the magnets) to break free if overtorque is encountered.  They are used where a jam could cause major damage.  By breaking free, they prevent the machinery from destroying itself.  By adding Hall effect sensors, you can add alarms and auto shutoffs to the system. 

The magnets themselves are only about 1" wide, 1/2" thick and 3-4" long.  Plated, rare earth types.  These things are dangerously strong.  Get two within about 4-5 inches of each other, and they will slam themselves together with unbelivable force.  Enough to smash the magnets themselves, and whatever happened to get in the way.  Not a person there had gone very long before discovering this the hard way.  Many pinched fingers with the weaker ones.  If the bigger ones got loose, they could crush fingers.

My job was to figure out a way to attach the magnets safely to the inside of the cup, and outside of the shaft.  Because of their strength, you couldn't just place them by hand.  I ended up using a slide similar to the table on a mill.  Using a gear driven crank to drive the leadscrew, it slowly slid them in place.  They were then bedded in epoxy.

Bernd:
Roger,

Interesting story. Were I worked they used rare earth magnets on chip conveyors. Inbetween the chips and the magnet was a sheet of stainles steal. It was a real source of entertainment for customers. The chips would travel at an angle and go through a chute that would stop the chips from further travel. The magnets were bolted to a chain every foot or so. This gave the chips a chance to fall out of the chute. A few found out how strong they were. There were always a few that got their fingers pinched.

Bernd

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