Continue to Site

Eng-Tips is the largest engineering community on the Internet

Intelligent Work Forums for Engineering Professionals

  • Congratulations cowski on being selected by the Eng-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!

Recent content by pierdesign

  1. pierdesign

    Mechanical Engineer's Wishlist

    I used to have a small machine shop to complement our R&D group. Here's a list of accessories that we used or bought over the years. The 40k rpm high speed mill spindle option was an exotic, extra $ purchase that actually got used fairly often. Also we bought a 4th axis for the mill and a...
  2. pierdesign

    Combine Hole callouts?

    A compound or multi-feature hole. As described by others, Solidworks can only autodimension single hole features or hole wizard holes using the default text in the supplied text file. While not an ideal solution, you can force-fake it and keep it parametric: Dimension all hole features, put...
  3. pierdesign

    metal to metal face seal

    It will create a galvanic cell as illustrated as there are dissimilar metals outside wetted area. To compress the copper and effectively seal with your assembly will probably strip the aluminum threads or shear off the fitting head at the threads' undercut. Also, surface finish of the sealing...
  4. pierdesign

    Seeking advice on IP transfer from a mechanical engineering perspective.

    What some aren't aware of is that these client-consultant contracts and the terms and conditions are very often standard templates developed by corporate or bought as part of a package. They should always be read thoroughly, acknowledged, discussed, negotiated and amended as required. Always...
  5. pierdesign

    Bringing samples of work to an interview?

    This is a common question: suitability of interview show-and-tell. Firstly, it is interesting that engineers seemingly rarely have a portfolio, instead relying on employment history, sometimes project name and select particulars, or similar minimal detail. A designers life is his/her...
  6. pierdesign

    Being Charged as a Subcontractor for Electronic Files

    Charging for electronic files is a common practice in Architecture / Engineering / Design consultancies. There are numerous reasons: Some principals see it as another legitimite revenue earner. Fee estimation by pricing deliverables is a common practice, therefore the more deliverables you...
  7. pierdesign

    Do I tell him he is about to get fired

    This situation happened to me. I was co-manager of a group in a company experiencing dowturn with management request to do the 10% decrease. In management meeting we presented our layoff names. Other groups' layoff names included my car-pool partner. As smart person above stated, she and...
  8. pierdesign

    Billing/Invoicing Practices

    I agree with your client. Your model is what public utilities and phone companies print on your home bills. All one steaming pile of confusion, I think. My practice is that each invoice is complete in itself, representing only the current accounting period, and to ensure absolute minimal...
  9. pierdesign

    Simple Scientific and Technical Illustrative, Explaining figures

    The visual display of planes can be dragged and / or resized as desired, visually not geometrically. Perhaps some combination of planes and section views? Theres a button to turn on plane-intersection lines. It is sometimes helpful to make a drawing and manipulate the view and annotate as...
  10. pierdesign

    Is a countersunk flathead screw in and of itself a locking fastener?

    For aircraft application lockwire on screws / bolts is common, for engine assemblies. If your application is cabin only, and an electronic device, then proper seams & joint Design for EMC enclosures is required; and if so then proper contact pressure must be maintained to ensure conductance...
  11. pierdesign

    Colors on the "blue" prints

    At one of my early jobs the company had a standard for different colour paper to be used for drawings depending on their status. White paper, pink paper, blue paper. I don't remember any more what the paper colour signified, but at the time I thought it was the weirdest thing ever in an...
  12. pierdesign

    Least plastic smell

    It's an interesting situation. Any update? What's interesting is that autistic's are sensing this odour and reacting negatively to it. You describe washing and drying the blankets. Forced air convection dryers get quite hot and can affect some polymers. Also, if they are gas fired dryers...
  13. pierdesign

    Design for Manufacturability & Assembly at low production volumes

    Like KENAT I wasn't enthused, and after a little bit I was zzzzzz. The best I remember a report is generated itemizing number of unique assembly steps and time to complete. You can run what if analyses. I seem to remember parallels with FEA: analyze a bracket and you can get good results...
  14. pierdesign

    Meta to metal face seal

    Hi. I did something that might be similar, given your minimal description. The assembly was stainless steel, copper o-rings*, cobalt foil, polished 420 stainless steel. This assembly used dry gases at up to about 1800 psi, not steam. *Copper o-rings were actually partially etched from...
  15. pierdesign

    Design for Manufacturability & Assembly at low production volumes

    It's an excellent topic, I too have gone through the DFMA mantra from executroids at numerous companies I've consulted at. The phenomena really seemed to take hold as a clumsy by-product of 3D CAD: otherwise skilled designers that just hadn't built obscure, complicated assemblies, ended up...

Part and Inventory Search