People are always proposing pneumatic tubes for all sorts of far-fetched ideas (going back at least to the Jetsons!), but the folks are Greener Ideal think that pneumatic tubes are the future of garbage removal. Their interesting piece details some of what’s being done on Roosevelt Island area of New York City. 16 residential towers there are already part of the system.
If that wasn’t enough sci-fi news for pneumatics, some students at Brigham Young University recently made news when they created a Batman-inspired wall scaling system that uses a compressed air cannon to shoot a grappling hook up several stories. Fun stuff!
There seems to be a lot of stuff happening in pneumatics the past few weeks. Tata Motors has been all over the news with the viability tests of their proposed compressed air car being completed. BodyShop Business reports that CAGI, the Compressed Air and Gas Institute, has a re-designed website. Looks nice, check it out at CAGI.org. Airline Hydraulics Corp. and SMC Corp. of America recently signed a distribution agreement covering New England. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao took a whirlwind tour of Europe recently, and his stops included Festo Corp. and Bosch Rexroth. British compressor manufacturer Mattei has stated that the new international standard ISO 11011, Compressed air – Energy efficiency – Assessment, will help compressed air users to save energy, while also standardizing energy audits. And, hey! Pneumatic shipments are up, says the NFPA.
Product news includes extra large suction cups from PIAB, modular safety lockout valves from Ross Controls, a way-cool robotic hand from Festo Corp., and a gage “instrument doctor,” who is now on call from Ashcroft.
In the online realm, check out this nice EXAIR blog on the parts of a compressed air system. And Festo Corp. has been pushing engineers to its Facebook page as of late. Look at this interesting video of a soft pneumatic gripper developed at Harvard. And speaking of videos, here’s a fun one from the Engineering Exchange, a chitty chatty bing bang compressed air GoKart.
I love this offbeat story about John Smith, president and CEO of Ross Controls Co., who is apparently also a big shot in the banjo world. Interface Devices will be appearing on the “World’s Greatest!” TV show. And in the maybe-not-appropriate-for-work department, it was reported that the new Vibrator Museum opening in San Francisco includes a compressed air version of the, um, self-help devices, called The Detwiller Pneumatic, from 1906.
Looking for a job? Steiner Electric Co. in the Chicago area is searching for a Pneumatics Product Manager. And Camozzi Pneumatics wants a Regional Sales Manager in the Dallas area.
Lastly, we have a free webinar on lockout/tagout information for pneumatic systems on May 30th. Sign up now!
Hot Tweets of note:
@SMCCorporation Excellent view of how automatic leak detection works vimeo.com/39710287and a great cool gadgets video… fb.me/1uBib8xYZ
@TheNFPA [EL] Correct sizing of pneumatic cylinders helps save $300K per year bit.ly/JbaQ0R via Compressed Air Best Practices
@acecontrols ‘More could be done’ on Olympic Park motion control: Vibration is one element of motion control that was overloo… bit.ly/K0xCoA
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