Precision Equipment Replaces Steel Balls With
All simple and complex mechanical products need the application of ball bearings. These were of paramount importance for manufacturers of precision equipment such as watches, optical devices etc. Historically, the vast majority of balls were made from some alloys of steel. But steel has relatively week resistance to chemical attack under aggressive environments. Therefore the need rose for some exotic materials that could withstand very high temperature and aggressive corrosion under acidic environment.
Sapphire balls and ruby balls have found to be matching these requirements as they are allotropes of aluminium oxide. They were strong when treated at aggressive temperature and strenuous polishing in an acidic environment. Precision balls have been made from sapphire and ruby in modern days by majority of the industries. They find their application more mandatory in fibre optic collimation industries and opto-electronic industries across the Globe.
Optical applications such as microscope lenses and slides use Glass balls as they are optically very clear and precise. Also, precision glass balls and ball lenses provide simple, precise and economical means of indicating flow rates in fluid systems. Glass balls and ball lens are used as float and sight indicators in rota meters. These indicators can also be manifested in aircraft slips and aircraft instrumentations. Polished ceramic glass balls are ideal to be used for checking valves in food processing, pharmaceutical industry and photographs processing equipment.
Owing to the less density of Ceramic balls, they can be used in instruments where rotation of the object is mandatory as ceramic balls can rotate with a greater speed as they have less centrifugal speed. They are also porous glass balls and could be used in water purification and filtering mechanisms and as check valves in flow control applications. Synthetic sapphire balls are used in applications requiring hardness, lightness, corrosion-resistance and electrical non-conductivity such as bearings, and as wear points in instruments.
Both Ruby and Sapphire can be highly polished to get transformed to ball lenses which are optically transparent materials of very less thickness, about 0.25 mm to 8.0 mm and they can also be cut into two to form half ball hemispheres with a very less diameter of about 1.0 to 10 mm. These half balls have a range of applications in optical industry and medical field in the manufacturing of diagnostic equipment. But all these processes require very good technology with superior quality raw material. All the process should be run under the supervision of experts from the fields using machines of superior technology. Carefully controlled manufacturing process produces spheres with precise diameters and unsurpassed surface quality.
In is also essential that the companies abide by the 6 sigma quality assurance protocols and aims at zero defects from the initial manufacturing process till the production of final product with zero defects. Only few companies with such great mission are available in the market, but could be easily reached via Internet for all your precision equipment needs.