UEA Tech Talk

The UEA Way!

UEA is always planning for future facility growth needs of our slip ring, cable reel and transmission shift control product lines.  The current economy has made building construction prices more attractive.  We started construction on an additional 4300 square feet of production area in June.  We are anticipating completion sometime in late August. 

Our south building addition will fully utilize the land area available for this plant.  The new building will actually attach to one of our current warehouses to facilitate cable reel inventory storage.  All future building expansion will be done at our north facility which has ample area for future growth.

This addition will allow our cable reel and shift controls departments to return to their old homes at the south plant.  We have completely reconfigured our slip ring production areas to more fully utilize lean manufacturing techniques and interdepartmental flow efficiencies.  All of the slip ring, cable reel, and transmission shift control departments will have gained 25% - 50% in potential capacity with the space reorganization and improved efficiencies. 

The areas at the north facility that the cable reel and transmission shift controls departments vacated will be utilized for up to three additional dedicated lean manufacturing lines for slip rings for wind generator clients.  We will always have the capacity to meet your slip ring, cable reel, and transmission shift controls needs.  Being proactive for our customers is the UEA way.

-Mark Hanawalt, President

Reflections of Progress (shift controls, cable carriers) Part 2

Our first CNC was a small, though it seemed large to us at the time, vertical machining center.  This machine could speed through drilling, tapping and milling operations much faster and more repeatable than could ever be imagined on the multiple drill presses that previously executed these functions.  The next addition was a pair of machines.  A larger vertical machining center and a CNC lathe with live tooling. The lathe changed the way we looked at many of our common operations.  This machine allowed us to complete secondary operations on a part without the need to transfer the part to another machine and we could do things that were not even possible with our previous equipment.  One operator + one machine + one handling of the part + multiple operations = higher efficiency and better throughput.  We later added another similar lathe to increase capacity.

 Two CNC Live Tooling Lathes

The next major update came with the addition of a horizontal machining center with an automatic pallet changer.  This piece of equipment became a necessity due to our entry into the wind turbine slip ring market. The ability to be loading one pallet with parts while the other pallet is being machined keeps the productivity of the cutting tool at its highest possible level.  This machine also added the capability to machine on three sides of the part in one clamping.  This has eliminated having to clamp parts in four different positions to complete all operations. It is now done with two positions and with much higher accuracy than before.

 

Horizontal Machining Center with Automatic Pallet Changer

 

 Automatic Pallet Changer Loading Station

 

Our latest addition is a dual spindle dual turret live tool lathe.  This new piece is basically two lathes built in one cabinet end to end such that one spindle can actually move over and grab a partially finished part from the other spindle to do work on the back side.  This allows the machine to be cutting on two parts simultaneously.  In effect, two machines in one footprint.  Due to our rapidly filling floor space, this is a serious consideration at present.

 

With the advances that I have witnessed in the last 2 decades, I can’t wait to see what the next decade will bring.

Kent Davis

Design Engineer

Reflections of Progress(slip rings, cable reels)Part 1

Throughout the 20+ years that I have been employed at United Equipment Accessories I have seen some things change substantially, and have seen other things that continue to remain the same.

In the realm of the manufacture of electrical slip rings, cable reels and shift controls, the basic principal of creating  sound, reliable and durable products that consistently outperform the competition has remained the top priority at United Equipment Accessories.  Meanwhile, the processes and equipment used to achieve this end goal has evolved dramatically.  The production of electrical slip rings at UEA involves several operations that tend to be specialized.  In the past these operations were sometimes completed with the combination of workers with special skill sets or custom built equipment, or a combination of the two.  Over the years I have been involved the design and building of several of these specialized machines.  As technology has advanced in the marketplace of CNC (computerized numerical controlled) machinery, several of these specialized or “purpose built” machines have been replaced by more standardized CNC machines that can perform the functions of the old machines as well as in some cases also perform additional “bonus” functions, and do it all in equal or less time than was required by the specialized equipment.  It can be a little bit of a mixed emotion to see one of these old machines that was designed and built in house and worked so well in the past be pushed to the store room or scrapped when a new CNC machine arrives.  But this is overcome when you see the new capabilities being utilized to do operations and make parts in ways that weren’t possible just a few short years before. (Con't...)

Slip rings and Cable Reels

United Equipment Accessories manufactures slip rings for a number of different and diverse industries from utility grade turbines to anti-two block reels (for both the service and maintenance and vacuum pumper truck industries). What has impressed me is the variety of different slip ring applications for which UEA can manufacture. We offer electrical cable reels with our slip rings in place. We design, develop and manufacture rings to our client’s exact specifications within four weeks not months as I have seen from other manufacturers. UEA engineering listens to our customer’s particular needs and designs a ring to not only meet but exceed those requirements. I am proud to say that UEA manufactures for a number of premier utility grade turbine OEMs. The list of crane companies for which we manufacturer is second to none. As the UEA mission statement states, “UEA provides innovative solutions for our customers specific motion application needs” and “to succeed where others have failed.”

 United Equipment Accessories is striving to be the leading manufacturer of quality custom components for motion applications, Worldwide. Our customer satisfaction is beyond reproach. The UEA engineering and support staff is always available to answer questions on the four products that UEA offers, which means that you can actually talk to someone.

United Equipment Accessories offers a test and loan prototype slip ring built to each client’s exact specifications for actual field testing in various harsh and demanding environments. This offer has been an excellent selling tool when speaking with both the engineering and purchasing managers we meet with, this is just one key point that differentiates UEA from our competition.

   The UEA slip ring is a component that once in place speaks for itself in it performance, offering 50 -75 million revelations before the brushes need to be replaced. UEA is working on bettering the life expectancy so that the UEA slip ring will still be there when others have failed.

 You will not go wrong in choosing to install our slip rings in your machines.

-Jim Carnegie, National Sales Director

Teach Pendant Cable Reel

        Cable reels for teach pendant cables on robots are not only a convenience for the storage of the cable but will usually pay for themselves in a short time period and provide an added safety benefit.  Most robots with teach pendant capability incorporate a cable, usually between  10 meters and 30 meters in length, between the control panel and the teach pendant box.    The pendant control allows the robot to be programmed from the point of best visibility.   Under ideal conditions, once the programming is completed, the pendant cable is coiled and hung on a bracket close to the control box with the pendant control on the end of the cable hung in the same area.   Unfortunately the cable is often not coiled and hung up even if the pendant control is returned to its proper hanger.   Not only does the cable on the floor present a definite safety hazard for tripping and falling but leaves the cable vulnerable to damage from dropped materials, fork lift trucks, etc.    Most of these cables, with high quality circular or other configurations of electrical connectors on each end, are not inexpensive to replace and can cost from a few hundred dollars up to $1,500.00 or more.   Saving one cable can easily pay for the cost of the cable reel required to coil the cable up and off the floor.  Only a light tug on the cable is required to release the latch mechanism as the pendant control is walked back to its correct hanger making the correct storage of the cable easy and convenient.

       The cables supplied by most robot manufacturers are very rugged but also designed to be very flexible and in most cases are suitable for use on a cable reel.  The simplest method of adapting a cable reel  for a teach pendant application is normally to take an existing pendant control cable, cut it and use the reel as a ‘splice' between the shorter stationary cable which plugs into the control box and the longer, pendant control box end of the cable.  The cable reel is built with the correct number of correctly rated slip ring circuits to match the number of circuits being used in the cable.    As a slip ring manufacturer, United Equipment Accessories can provide the exact number and rating of circuits required by each brand of cable and is confident in the slip ring assembly's ability to handle a wide variety of environments.   UEA has supplied cable reels with customer supplied cables attached as above, with customer specified cables and plugs installed and as a ‘bare' reel with the slip ring installed, which allows the customer to attach their own cable.

        In summary, United Equipment Accessories can build a teach pendant cable reel, with or without the cable, which is easy and convenient to operate but also provides for increased safety as well as the potential to pay for itself very quickly.

UEA expands! Slip Ring Assembly

The latest recession has been challenging for many businesses, including United Equipment Accessories, Inc.  However, because of our excellent staff we have managed this downturn far better than those of the past.  Not only have we shown our team how highly they are valued by retaining all full time staff, we have never stopped planning for the future and striving to put systems in place for better efficiency and capacity.

The end of 2009 saw our investment in two new CNC machining centers.  One is a horizontal and the other is a vertical style unit.  Both are state of the art units that will expand our production capacity and capability for continued market expansions. 

We are also planning a facility expansion that will be spread over two years.  The first expansion will be 4,300 square feet on our south plant facility this spring.  This will allow us to have separate areas for shipping and receiving to facilitate better material flow.  It will also allow us to move both our shift control and cable reel departments back into the south facility.  This expansion will connect to a present warehouse to facilitate inventory storage flowing to production.  With this expansion, our south facility will have no more room for contiguous growth.

2011 will see an expansion of our north plant facility with an additional 14,000 square feet.  Since our present CNC area is nearing maximum capacity, we need additional space for not only machine department area, but also potential assembly area. 

As you now realize we never stop thinking about the future.  We want to have the capacity to always meet our customer's needs.  We want to have to facilities to add people and equipment to produce the products on which our customer's rely. 

-Mark Hanawalt, President

New Cable Reels!

United Equipment Accessories, Inc. has identified the need for a more rugged and dependable anti-two block cable reel for small cranes with extensions up to 75'.  This need has been reinforced by discussions with several small crane manufacturers and users who have experienced a variety of problems with the smaller cable reels currently available for this market.   The need exists for reels for both new cranes and for replacement or retrofit applications.  Keeping the replacement market in mind, UEA has and is developing cable reel models with mounting holes to match those currently being used by existing reels.  The UEA cable reels can be supplied with special cable and/or specific quick disconnect electrical connectors to meet customer requirements.

      With over 50 years of slip ring production experience for the harsh environments experienced by off-road and construction equipment UEA is confident that the slip ring portion of this new series of cable reels can easily meet or exceed the expectations of the end users of the equipment to which they are attached.  The slip rings can be built with the exact number and rating of circuits to meet special needs beyond a standard two circuit anti-two block assembly.  The new reels are designed using over 25 years of cable reel assembly and sales experience to be as rugged and reliable as possible for these small crane applications.