CHANNELS

Aerospace

Automotive

Automated & Autonomous Vehicles

Battery & Electrification Technology

Defense

Drone TV

Electronics

Manufacturing & Prototyping

Materials

Medical

Motion Control

RF & Microwave Technology

Robotics & Automation

Sensors & IoT

Test & Measurement

Aerospace
Automotive
Automated & Autonomous Vehicles
Battery & Electrification Technology
Defense
Drone TV
Electronics
Manufacturing & Prototyping
Materials
Medical
Motion Control
RF & Microwave Technology
Robotics & Automation
Sensors & IoT
Test & Measurement
Aerospace & Defense
Search Results

Original Pancake Cylinder

The Original Pancake® Air Cylinder was designed in 1958 by Alfred W. Schmidt, the founder of Fabco-Air, Inc. This particular type of pneumatic actuator was designed to satisfy the need for short stroke, low profile, compact air cylinders that would fit in very tight spaces.

Topics:
Automation Manufacturing & Prototyping Motion Control Robotics

More From SAE Media Group

    Transcript

    00:00:01 [Music] hi I'm Bruno Mass I'm here at Fabco a in Gainesville Florida you know Fabco air was founded in 1958 and today their 61,000 foot facility houses manufacturing engineering and assembly it's also home to more than 80 employees with an average time of service of 24 years you know about 50% of Fabco businesses special products designed to

    00:00:31 fit their customers needs got nine seats of solid works to help in the design of products and provide customers with 3D drawings in any format they desire you know while Fabco has a large diverse product line they Pride themselves on being the originator of the pancake cylinder many people have tried to copy the pancake but the fact remains the same Fabco is the leader in compact

    00:00:51 cylinders they call it a pancake cylinder because of the low profile you know pancake offers the most stroke and rod support in the smallest overall height package and that's what you're getting right here you know bores start at/ in and go all the way up to 4 in now they've also made special bores to six and strokes up to 4 in and to get a more in-depth look at the pancake cylinder

    00:01:09 I've got the vice president of Fabco here Scott Lamar so Scott I need to ask you what makes the pancake Superior to other cylinders in its category well we start out with solid bar stock and that lets us machine the boards at the same time so you have concentricity of the boards we Face the mounting surfaces so they're perpendicular to the boore we have a composite bearing and we have a

    00:01:32 303 hardc crumb stainless shaft those two work together and they actually the composite bearing actually polishes the shaft okay so you don't get as much wear on your o-ring so it's more shaft life it is it's more seal life also and we also use a Teflon impregnated grease it's magnol luo G we cross-hatch hone the bore and the microscopic Teflon particles embed themselves in there and

    00:01:55 that you're running Teflon against Teflon okay so talk about mounting options there's numerous for this correct that's right we have threaded nose Mount we have a clevus we have an eye Mount we even have a trunion mount explain to me the trunion mount cuz that's kind of a neat feature you were showing me earlier the trunion mount actually lets you pivot where the rod

    00:02:13 exits the cylinder so you have a lot better geometry there if you have a long-stroke cevus cylinder it could go into a bind where the you're mounting on the back of the cylinder the Piston's excident up here and then it'll actually droop and this this negates that so the Shaft won't air out it won't bend over time it'll swivel and it compensate for any travel better geometry okay that

    00:02:35 makes sense now talk about harsh environments that's something that Fabco was also factored into the design of the of these cylinders well we have electris nickel plating we can do um 303 304 316 stainless Scott give us some insight to some special applications that guys are using you know some motorcycle stuff where are they're using these pancake cylinders you might recognize this this

    00:02:55 would be an aftermarket motorcycle shock and it's a a feed bleed system that that'll let you ra raise and lower on the Fly 3 in on your motorcycle that's really cool a lot of a lot of your custom bikes have these on them uh exhaust brakes uh this is for the airline industry actually um you know we have semiconductor medical okay so pretty much you can run the gamut as to

    00:03:18 where the applications go for for the different pancakes exactly and different environments nice nice so essentially Scott If You Can Dream It Up Fabco can make a cylinder for your application we try real hard thanks for all the info Scott thank you you know for more info on Fabco air and their pancake cylinders or to find Fabco Air's full line of stocking Distributors you can visit

    00:03:37 their website www.fair.com for a complete listing [Music]