I imagine the rivet shown here looks very familiar to most mechanical engineers – at first glance, it looks like a typical metal pop rivet. Upon closer inspection though, you’ll notice the wide head and slotted body; this is an all-plastic expansion rivet designed to be used in similar manners as a pop rivet. It’s a good choice when working with softer materials or where a high clamping force is not needed. I’ve seen flat metal washers used on the back side of riveted joints to help protect the parts from the rivet’s clamping force; a rivet like this would have been a much better choice in that case. They’re made by Fastex.
Author Archives: Matt
How Christmas Lights work, and more holiday tech goodness…
Ever wondered how your Christmas lights stay lit when a bulb goes out, even though they’re all wired in series? EDN has the answers in a nicely technical article here.
Most of you have probably thought about building (or have already done so) a system to automatically water your Christmas tree. Mark McCuller designed a nice system that uses water level sensors to maintain a precise water level at all times. Click here for the extremely detailed plans in PDF format.
Lastly, click here for some good instructions on how to build an electronic circuit that sequentially cycles power strings of Christmas lights (turning on and off entire strings at one time, not bulb-by–bulb control).
Lotus Engineering newsletter
Lotus Engineering, the division of Lotus Cars that does a lot of consulting work for other car companies, publishes a free newsletter every couple of months. The latest issue can be downloaded here, with a focus on vehicle chassis technologies and manufacturing.
Manufacturing car wheels
There’s a neat video showing how forged car wheels are made at Rays Manufacturing. Click through to the rest of this post to see it.
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