wire drawing machine

Introduction to Weaving with Sheet and Wire

2010-09-15T04:10:00.001-07:00

extile techniques are traditionally worked with fibers such as linen, cotton and silk. However, they can also be applied to metal.

I weave high karat gold and platinum sheet and wire by hand. The process of weaving creates "fabric". I shape that "fabric" into ribbons and ruffles, spirals and loops, which become earrings, brooches, necklaces and pendants. I create two collections of limited production and one-of-a-kind jewelry, each based on a different technique.

Figure 1 Plain Weave: sheet warp and continuous wire weft (over 1, under 1)
Schematic adapted from Arline M. Fisch Textile Techniques in Metal class diagrams, San Diego State University, Fall 1991. Used with permission.

Weaving is the interlacing of two sets of elements, one vertical and one horizontal. In my first collection, the vertical element - the warp - is sheet that is cut into strips or wedges. The horizontal element - the weft - is multiple strands of thin wire twisted together. The pattern is a Plain Weave (Figure 1), in which the wire crosses over the sheet, then under the sheet, continuing over one warp, under one warp. The strong color contrast in my Large Ruffle Brooch (Figure 2) makes it easy to read the Plain Weave: the warp, the vertical element, is sterling silver sheet; the weft, the horizontal element, is comprised of red magnet wire (resin coated copper) twisted with black silk thread.

Figure 2 Large Ruffle Brooch Barbara M. Berk

When the warp and the weft are the same metal, as in the 18kt gold Ruffle Brooch (Figure 3) it is not as easy to read the pattern. The lighting on the brooch highlights the warp strips; the wire weft can be seen at the end of the bottom ruffle: it is composed of four strands of thin wire twisted together. This creates a thicker weft, which is more malleable than a single wire of the same diameter. As the twisted wire weft crosses under the sheet, the sheet is pressed down over it, which locks the weft in place and adds strength to the piece. (The Ruffle Brooch warp is 36 gauge sheet, the weft is 26 gauge round wire.)

Figure 3 Ruffle Brooch (18kt gold) Barbara M. Berk; photo credit Ralph Gabriner

My second collection is based on a technique that also uses two elements, but both elements are single strands of wire: a thin wire weft and a thicker wire for the warp. The pattern is called Soumak: it is an ancient rug weaving technique named for Shemakha, the city in Azerbaijan in which it originated. Figure 4 shows the weft traveling over two warps and back around one warp, thereby wrapping around each of the warps in turn. The Bow Brooch (Figure 5) is a Soumak weave: the pattern is easiest to see where the ends flare out, in the lacy area above the pearls. The thicker warp wire (20 gauge) is 18kt gold, providing the strength; the thinner weft wire (28 gauge) is 22kt gold, providing the malleability needed to do the tight wrapping that creates a dense weave. The warp is the skeleton, the weft is the skin; the two alloys in combination create a structurally sound piece.

Figure 4 Soumak: continuous wire weft wraps around each wire warp

With both Plain Weave and Soumak, each piece is woven individually. The weaving is done flat: the Plain Weave rests on a thick sheet of plastic, so as not to mar the metal during weaving, and the Soumak is supported in a small vice. Neither pattern is woven on a loom. Rather, both patterns rely on an open-ended warp system, which allows the weft to be easily placed over and under the warps without distorting the warps in the case of the Plain Weave, or easily wrapped around and pushed down the warps in the case of the Soumak. When the weaving is completed, the edges are finished and then the woven "fabric" is shaped into a sculptural form. While the metal is soft enough to weave and manipulate with fingers, it work hardens in the process of weaving and again in the process of shaping, resulting in a stable piece.

Figure 5 Bow Brooch Barbara M. Berk; photo credit Dana Davis

Weaving can be executed with sheet as both warp and weft; with sheet warp and wire weft (as I do in my Plain Weave); with wire warp and sheet weft; with wire as both warp and weft (as I do in my Soumak); with combinations of sheet and wire warps and/or wefts; and either on-loom or off-loom. One can create patterns in the weave by changing the interaction between warp and weft, i.e., varying the number of warps the weft "skips" and varying the rotation of the "skips". One can weave the metal flat and then shape it, or one can create a 3-dimensional form during the weaving process.

Textile techniques in general, and weaving in particular, offer the opportunity to work in new ways with familiar forms of sheet and wire. In the process of mastering these techniques, one can explore color, pattern, texture, structure and scale.

Wire Drawing Hints

2010-09-15T04:07:00.000-07:00

The trick to drawing wire by hand is to grasp the tapered end that sticks out the front of the drawplate with the pliers in such a way that there are some 5 mm of play; of movement back and forth to the drawplate. Push the draw tongs up to the plate so that when you start to draw there is a little movement before the wire begins to go through the plate. If it starts drawing with a jerk the inertia carries the wire on and as long as you keep on moving it will not break easily. If you don't start by using this jerk (usually obtained by bending the elbows and throwing your body back until it's weight going backwards starts the wire moving) it can be hard to start it. To find the correct hole to put the wire in next take the back end of the wire and test it in the front holes of the drawplate. When you find the hole it will not fit into then the correct hole is the next one down.

To make the taper on the end of the wire one may file a tapered groove into a flat slope on the bench pin, lay the end of the wire in it and rotate it while one files the wooden slope. This automatically generates a smooth and even taper and is how pinstems are tapered when one only has to do one or two.

An easier method of tapering which simultaneously hardens the point somewhat and prevents its breaking off easily during drawing is to step roll the point in the wire rolls of a hand rolling mill. Roll the end in slightly, back it out and put it in again at 90o to the first direction, then go to the next smallest hole and do the same thing only not as far in on the wire. Continue in this way until you have a smooth tapered point. Tubing too can be step rolled to get a taper on the end for drawing it. One can solder the tapered end for more strength.

People use either beeswax or oil as lubricants. I prefer oil.

If you need only a few holes of an odd shaped drawplate one can be made from an old file, annealed, drilled and burred and filed to shape. The holes must taper to the back and be as polished as possible. A flex shaft is useful for this work. One can however buy drawplates from companies such as TSI (see list) for 10.00 and less which with a little work with a toothpick in the flex shaft and some steel polishing compound can be made acceptable. Eventually one is better off buying a well made one. For larger sizes of tube a hard wood, nylon or Delrin® drawplate can be made for drawing down just a few holes.

One can obtain various shapes by using a square and round drawplate. The wires start out as either round or square and are drawn together with frequent annealings until the proper shapes are achieved. For example a square or round wire is flattened, folded over, soldered to close the 'loop' and drawn through a square hole in the drawplate to produce two triangular wires. One has to work with care to make this technique work well. One can make half round wire by rolling a round wire into a thick sheet of copper on the mill, the round wire then becomes a half round wire albeit with a slight texture to the surface.

The back of a drawplate also serves as a tool for shaping tubing to tapers, both square and round if one makes an appropriate mandrel for the hole. Note that the tool is not hammered in but pushed. Your drawplate is worth more than a bezel forming tool so don't hammer into it. One can also "step draw" both wire and tubing by drawing to a certain point, pulling it back out the way it came in from and then going to the next smallest hole and repeating the process. Richard Mawdsley uses this technique to very good effect in producing stepped tubing for his complex constructed pieces.

A simple wooden device may be constructed for holding draw-plates on the end of a workbench or it can be as simple as two steel rods inserted in the bench to pull against. This frees the vise for other uses.

In many cultures one sits on the ground, draws the knees up, places the drawplate against your feet and then straightens ones legs to draw the wire. Leg muscles are much stronger than arm muscles and it is quite effective.

A draw bench is extremely useful and one may be constructed from wood and canvas or with a boat winch and board. If using steel cable instead of canvas or leather belting steps should be taken to secure the end of the cable from flying up loose and injuring someone if it is accidentally released. An Asian Indian version uses leverage and a ratcheting motion to draw wire on a carved plank on the ground.

Trafilsteel presents its production.

2010-09-15T04:04:00.000-07:00

Trafilsteel S.r.l. works exclusively on the customer’s order. The flexibility of the organization allows the company to satisfy all the different customer’s requirements ensuring the fulfillment of the market expectations. Assuring adequate stocks of raw material Trafilsteel is able to dispatch the orders in a quick way.

The production can be summarized as follows:

- PROFILES: Rounds, hexagons, octagons, flats, squares and special profiles as per customer’s drawing.
- DIMENSIONAL RANGE: Minimum 1,5 mm; Maximum 35 mm on rounds, hexagons and octagons, 25 mm maximum for flats and squares.
- SUPPLYING STATE: Globular annealed, Soft annealed, Pickled, Sandblasted, Phosphated, Bright and Super-Bright.
- FINISHED PRODUCT: Coils of any weight and size, bars with a length up to max 7 meters, chamfered one or two sides if required.
- PACKAGING: Wooden cases, Jute, Pallets, Thermo-shrinking plastic, Special packaging according to the customer’s specification.
- CONTROLS: Chemical Analysis, Metallurgical Analysis, Traction Test, Eddy Current Test and Residual Magnetism Test.

The automatic welding machine type "SAR".

2010-09-15T04:02:00.000-07:00

The automatic welding machine type "SAR" was been realized for the production of meshes having various usefulness as follow: bird cages, equipments for breeding, panel for safety guards, panels for wall and prefabrivated reinforcements in concrete, net fencings, shelves and containers for household electrical appliances. The standards models may have difference width from 1200 mm minimum to 1650 mm maximum and them are particularly able to pruduce meshes having irregular dimensions and shapes with non-uniform distances among various wires cross and longs wires. The machine operate with automatic-cycle by taking long wires from coils, while the cross ones fed in pre-cutted and straightened bars by a magazine-loading hopper. Welding pitches, currents and productions parameters are programmables by electronic operative panel installed on electric general plant.

For special panels of meshes there are accessories as: double cross wires hopper, lateral trimmers to cross bars projections or to cut the mesh in two or three strips, ot to open windows on meshes (cage doors). The indexer is drived by electronic motor type BRUSHLESS with controlled pitch and very strictly tollerancies to guarantee extreme precision. It's very important to accentrate that the machine operate by electronic management having hight productivity and a big trustiness.

Tube Drawing

2010-09-15T04:00:00.000-07:00

Tube Drawing
	Tube drawing is a reduction process in which one end of a tube is grasped and pulled through a die that is smaller than the tube diameter. To obtain the desired size, a series of successive reductions, or passes, may be necessary. Because of its versatility, tube drawing is suited for both small and large production runs. Process Characteristics

Wire Drawing

2010-09-15T03:58:00.000-07:00

Wire Drawing

Wire drawing is a metal-reducing process in which a wire rod is pulled or drawn through a single die or a series of continuous dies, thereby reducing its diameter. Because the volume of the wire remains the same, the length of the wire changes according to its new diameter. Various wiretempers can be produced by a series of drawing and annealing operations. (Temper refers to toughness.)
Process Characteristics

	Pulls a wire rod through a die, reducing its diameter
	Increases the length of the wire as its diameter decreases
	May use several dies in succession (tandem) for small diameter wire
	Improves material properties due to cold working
	Wire temper can be controlled by swaging, drawing, and annealing treatments

Other electronic code breaking machines and the Testery and Newmanry results

2010-05-16T01:24:00.000-07:00

The other code breaking electronic machines in the Newmanry.

Various cryptographic problems required the building of specialist machines.

There was still the need for multiple paper tape comparison, so Heath Robinson evolved into Old Robinson, the first upgrade, then to Super Robinson. The ultimate multi tape machine was Mrs Miles. It had four tape readers and its name derived from a contemporary lady who had quadruplets.

There was also a proposal for a combined Robinson and Colossus, called Robinson and Cleaver, but it is not clear whether this was ever built.

More important were the Dragon series. These were designed to "drag" a series of characters along a cipher text, (usually a DeChi), looking for significant match points. The ultimate machine of this type was Aquarius. This used voltage storage on a large bank of capacitors to hold patterns of bits for testing matches against cipher or DeChi streams. (The capacitor voltages had to be continuously refreshed, hence Aquarius).

A completely different machine was the 5202 photographic system this did not become operational until 1945. It worked by comparing optically film of cipher text against expected Lorenz patterns. The Newmanry report says that it was successful against a narrow range of problems but was not as flexible as Colossus.

The Testery and Newmanry contribution to the War effort

The contribution to D-Day

Colossus reduced the time to break Lorenz messages from weeks to hours. In January 1944 it was just in time for the deciphering of messages which gave vital information to Eisenhower and Montgomery prior to D-Day, 6th June 1944. These deciphered Lorenz messages showed that Hitler had swallowed the deception campaigns, the phantom army in the South of England, the phantom convoys moving east along the channel; that Hitler was convinced that the attacks were coming across the Pas de Calais and that he was keeping Panzer divisions in Belgium.

After D-Day the French Resistance and the British and American Air Forces bombed and strafed all the telephone and teleprinter land lines in Northern France, forced the Germans to use radio communications and suddenly the volume of intercepted messages went up enormously. Here are some of the German radio links using Lorenz, which were intercepted and broken. They all had FISH names, like JELLYFISH, the German High Command link from Berlin to Western Europe Command.

The Mark 1 had been rapidly augmented by the Mark 2 Colossus in June 1944 and eight more were quickly built to handle the increase in messages. The Mark 1 was upgraded to a Mark 2 and there were thus ten Mark 2 Colossi in the Park by the end of the war. By the end of hostilities, 63 million characters of high grade German messages had been decrypted — an absolutely staggering output from just 550 people at Bletchley Park, plus of course the considerable number of interceptors at Knockholt, with backups at Shaftesbury and Coupar in Scotland.

The Colossus its purpose and operation

2010-05-16T01:20:00.000-07:00

Colossus, the revolution in code breaking

Heath Robinson worked well enough to show that Max Newman's concept was correct. Newman then went to Dollis Hill where he was put in touch with Tommy Flowers, the brilliant Post Office electronics engineer. Flowers went on to design and build Colossus to meet Max Newman's requirements for a machine to speed up the breaking of the Lorenz cipher. Tommy Flowers' major contribution was to propose that the wheel patterns be generated electronically in ring circuits thus doing away with one paper tape and completely eliminating the synchronisation problem.

This required a vast number of electronic valves but Tommy Flowers was confident it could be made to work. He had, before the war, designed Post Office repeaters using valves. He knew that valves were reliable provided that they were never switched on and off. Nobody else believed him!

Colossus design started in March 1943. By December 1943 all the various circuits were working and the 1,500 valve Mark 1 Colossus was dismantled, shipped up to Bletchley Park, and assembled in F Block over Christmas 1943. The Mark 1 was operational in January 1944 and successful on its first test against a real enciphered message tape. This is a 1945 photograph of a Mk II Colossus. No pictures of the Mk I have been found, but the Mk I did not have the large switch panel rack with the sloping plug panel on its front and only had a sigle bedstead frame, like Heath Robinson.

The Colossus Computer

Each of the ten Colossi occupied a large room in F Block or H Block in Bletchley Park.

The racks were 90 inches, (2.3m), high of varying widths. There were eight racks arranged in two bays about 16ft (5.5m) long plus the paper tape reader and tape handler (known as the bedstead). The front bay of racks, spaced 5ft (1.6m) from the rear bay, comprised from right to left, the J rack holding the master control panel, the plugboard some cathode followers and the AND gates.

Next came the K rack which contained the very large main switch panel together with the very distinctive sloping panel at the front which was a duplicate patch panel for the thyratron rings. Next came the S rack which held the relays used for buffering counter output and making up the typewriter drive logic. The left hand rack at the front was the C rack which held the counter control logic on the front and the decade counters on the back.

The rear bay of Colossus contained four racks, the R rack holding the staticiser and delta boards for the paper tape reader output and the K and S-wheel thyratron ring outputs, the M rack for the M-wheel staticisers and S-wheel motion logic. The very large W rack held, on one side all the thyratrons making up the wheel rings, 501 in all, and on the other side the 12 thyratron ring control panels. Also on the W rack were the link boards for the wheel patterns and the uniselectors for setting wheel start positions. The end rack of the back bay held the power packs. These were 50 volt Westat units stacked up in series to give +200 volts to -150 volts. The total power consumption was about 5 Kilowatts most of which was to the heaters of the valves.

The circuit layout was all surface mounting on metal plates bolted to the racks. The valve holders were surface mounting with tag strips for the components. This form of construction had much to commend it, firstly both sides of a rack could be used, secondly wiring and maintenance were very easy and lastly cooling of the valves was expedited by them being horizontal.

How Colossus worked

Colossus read teleprinter characters, in the international Baudot code, at 5,000 characters per second from a paper tape. These characters were usually the intercepted cipher text which had been transmitted by radio. The paper tape was joined into a loop with special punched holes at the beginning and end of the text. The broad principle of Colossus was to count throughout the length of the text the number of times that some complicated Boolean function between the text and the generated wheel patterns had either a true or false result. At the end of text the count left on the counter circuits was dumped onto relays before being printed on the typewriter during the next read through the text, an early form of double buffering.

Colossus had two cycles of operation. The first one was controlled by the optical reading of the sprocket holes punched between tracks 2 and 3 on the paper tape. The sprocket signal was standardised to 40 microseconds wide. The optical data from the paper tape was sampled on the back edge of the standardised sprocket pulse as was the outputs from the rings of thyratrons representing the Lorenz wheel patterns. The result of the logical calculation was sampled on the leading edge for feeding into the counter circuits.

The second cycle of operations occurred at the beginning and end of the text punched onto the paper tape. The paper tape was joined into a loop and special holes were punched just before the start of text between channels three and four (called the start ) and just after the end of text between channels four and five (called the stop). This long cycle of operations began with the electrical signal from the photocell reading the stop hole on the tape. This stop pulse set a bistable circuit which stayed set until the optical signal from the start hole was read. The setting of this bistable thus lasted for the duration of the blank tape where the text was joined into a loop, typically about 100 millisec.

The first operation after the stop pulse was to release any settings on the relays from the previous count. Next the new count was read onto the relays. Then the counters and the thyratron rings were cleared and then the thyratron rings were struck at the next start point to be tried. When the bistable was reset by the start pulse, sprocket pulses were released to precess the thyratron rings, to sample the data read from the paper tape and to sample the calculation output to go to the counters.

The various components of Colossus were the optical reader system, the master control panel, the thyratron rings and their driver circuits, the optical data staticisors and delta calculators, the shift registers, the logic gates, the counters and their control circuits, the span counters, the relay buffer store and printer logic.

The optical reader system

In order to break the Lorenz codes in a reasonable time the cipher text had to be repeatedly scanned at very high speed. This meant at least 5,000 characters per second and in the 1942 this implied hard vacuum photocells to optically read the holes in the paper tape. The smallest photocells available were some developed for proximity fuses in anti aircraft shells. Six of these in a row meant an optical projection system to enlarge the image of the paper tape about 10 times. Dr Arnold Lynch designed the paper tape reader and used slits cut into black card to form a mask in front of the photocells. The output from the data channels went to the staticiser and delta circuits.

The master control panel

This was where the start and stop pulses from the optical reader set and reset the bistable. Monostable delay circuits generated the voltage waveforms for releasing the relays, for staticising the counters, for resetting the counters and thyratron rings, and for striking the rings. Gate circuits controlled the flow of sprocket pulses.

The thyratron rings and their driver circuits

These circuits were the most complex on Colossus.

Thyratrons are gas-filled triodes which strike a discharge arc between anode and cathode when the grid voltage is raised to allow electrons to flow. This discharge when struck continues quite independent of the grid voltage. Thus the thyratron acts as a one-bit store. It can only be switched off by driving both the anode and the grid negative with respect to the cathode.

To construct a shift register with thyratrons requires that the striking of the next thyratron in the ring also quenches the previous thyratron. This leads to a biphase circuit with anodes of alternate thyratrons connected together and the grid voltage partially biased by the cathode voltage of the previous thyratron. The complication arises when a Lorenz wheel contains an odd number of setting lugs. The thyratron ring controller for this requires a complete set of circuits to handle just the odd thyratron in order to get back to the biphase circuits for the rest of the ring.

The thyratrons in a ring conduct sequentially stepped round by the sprocket pulses. Each thyratron cathode is brought out to a patch panel which allows the cathode pulse to be connected to a common output line when a link is plugged into the patchboard. Thus as the ring precesses round a sequence of pulses appears on the common output line. By selecting the link positions this sequence can replicate the mechanical lugs set on the Lorenz wheel. Alongside the patch panel is a Uniselector which selects the thyratron cathode to which the ring strike pulse goes. This is the start position of the ring when sprocket pulses come in at the start of text. The common line output went to the staticiser and delta circuits.

The staticisors and delta circuits

These circuits take the raw signals from the paper tape reader and the thyratron rings, sample them on the back edge of the clock pulse and set them to standard voltages of ± 80 v. Also on these boards are circuits giving a delay of one clock pulse. This is achieved with integrator capacitors which "hold" the previous data signal for long enough for it to be sampled on the next sprocket pulse. This delayed signal is available as an output but also on the board is an adder circuit which produces the delta signal, i.e. a 'one' when current data is different from previous, and a 'zero' when current equals previous.

The shift registers

These are the same circuits used as used on the delta boards, just integrators sampled on the next sprocket pulse.

Up to 5 shift elements could be connected in cascade giving a 5 bit shift register. This is thought to be the first recorded design or use of a shift register. Some of the computational algorithms used this window on previous data to improve the cross-correlation measurement.

The logic gates

Colossus was provided with AND, OR and XOR gates which could be plugged together in any combination.

The counter and counter control circuits

The decade counter circuits were based on a pre-war design by Wynn- Williams. They used a divide by two circuit followed by a ring of five pentodes. Four decades were required for each of the five counters used and each control circuit covered four decades of counters. The inputs to the control circuits were the output from the logic gates, the sprocket pulse for strobing and the reset pulse from the master control panel. Also on the control panels were comparator circuits between the outputs of the decade counters and switches on another panel. These switches could be set to any number in the range 0 to 9999. The output of the comparator could be included in the logic calculations thus for instance suppressing printing of scores below a set value.

The span counters

These were the same design of counters and counter control circuits with switches on another panel which could be set in the range 0 to 9999. The purpose of the span counters was to be able to ignore sections of the cipher text which were corrupted, possibly due to fading radio signals. The comparator output was used to gate the sprocket pulses which went to the main counter controllers, cutting off these pulses stopped the sampling of the logic calculation and thus ignored the section of text covered by the span counters.

The relay buffer store and printer logic.

Latching relays held the ending count on the decade counters. The start positions of the thyratron rings and the count for the previous run through the text are clocked out sequentially on to the typewriter by the printer relay and uniselector logic.

Programming Colossus

Programming of the cross-correlation algorithm was achieved by a combination of telephone jack-plugs, cords and switches. The main plug panel was on the rack nearest to the paper tape reader. The direct and delta signals from the paper tape reader and the K-wheel thyratron rings were on this panel. The changeover from direct to delta could also be achieved by switches. Also on the main plug panel were the input and output sockets for the AND gates and the so called "Q" sockets which took the calculated output to the main switch panel on the next rack to the left. This very large switch panel allowed signals to be combined through further logic gates and the results switched to any of the five result counters. As an example take the simple double-delta algorithm as devised by Bill Tutte. This requires two wheels to be run simultaneously: so take K4 and K5. First the delta outputs from channel 5 of the paper tape reader is combined in an XOR gate with the delta output of the K5 thyratron ring. Then this result is XORed with the XOR output of delta channel 4 and the delta output of the K4 thyratron ring. This result is plugged to Q1 and on the switch panel Q1 is switched to counter 1. The output can be negated before being counted so that the count can represent either the number of times the double-delta calculation equals one, or the number of times it equals zero.

The end of Colossus

After VJ Day, suddenly it was all over. Eight of the ten Colossi were dismantled in Bletchley Park. Two went to Eastcote in North London and then to GCHQ at Cheltenham. These last two were dismantled in the 1960s and in 1960 all the wartime drawings of Colossus were burnt. Of course its very existence was kept secret.

The machine age comes to Fish code breaking

2010-05-15T01:17:00.000-07:00

The machine age comes to Fish code breaking

The mathematician Max Newman now came on the scene. He thought that it would be possible to automate some parts of the process for finding the settings used for each message. He approached TRE at Malvern to design an electronic machine to implement the double-delta method of finding wheel start positions which Bill Tutte had devised. The machine was built at Dollis Hill and was known as Heath Robinson after the cartoonist designer of fantastic machines.

Max Newman

The Wynn-Williams proposal.

The Logic Circuits

When Wynn-Williams was asked to produce electronic circuits to implement the double delta algorithm he chose to use a phase modulated carrier from a master oscillator at 25kc/s to perform the XOR logic.

He decided to use 0 and 180 degrees of phase to represent 0 and 1. The elegance of this is that if a "1" causes 180 degrees phase shift, then another 1 returns the phase to zero and thus this implements an XOR function (0 + 0 = 0, 1 + 1 = 0, 0 + 1 = 1, 1 + 0 = 1).

The 180 degrees phase shift was achieved via a diode bridge circuit and a balanced transformer. The biasing of the bridge, + - 10 volts, determined whether the input carrier went straight through (no phase change) of shifted 180 degrees. A triode valve amplifier was included with each bridge circuit to compensate for the losses in the bridge and to give unity gain from input to output.

The output phase at the end of a series of logic circuits was compared with the phase input to the logic circuits in a detector circuit. This gave a voltage output of nearly zero if the input and output are in anti phase or some, much larger, positive voltage if they were in phase. The output voltage from the detector was sampled by a pulse derived from the sprocket hole signal from the tape reader. The result of this sampling, either a pulse if the detector output was positive, or no pulse if the output was zero was then passed to the decade counters to accumulate a count down the whole length of the tapes.

The Decade Counters

There were four decimal decade counters in series giving a 9999 maximum count. The first stage of the decade counters consisted of a ring of ten thyratrons (gas filled thermionic triode valves). The circuit for this was designed by Wynn-Williams before the war for counting in nuclear particle experiments. A thyratron valve will strike and hold an internal arc discharge when there is a positive voltage on its anode and the grid voltage is raised towards the cathode voltage allowing current to start flowing. Once the discharge is started the grid voltage has no further influence over the anode current. Thus the thyratron "remembers" it has been struck and thus acts as a one bit store. Unfortunately the only way to stop the discharge in a thyratron is to drive the anode negative with respect to its cathode. In the decade thyratron ring the thyratron which had been struck had to prepare the next thyratron in the ring to be struck on the next input pulse, but at the same time the next thyratron struck had to cause the pervious thyratron to be extinguished. In the Wynn-Williams circuit this was achieved by coupling successive thyratron's cathodes together with a large capacitor. The thyratron ring was the fast, least significant, decimal counter. The next two counters, the tens and hundreds, used high speed relays with slow speed relays in the thousands counter. The count was displayed on a lamp panel. There were four sets of counters, each of 9999 capacity. The output from the logic circuits was switched alternately into one of two counter sets, the changeover occurring at the end of reading the data on the two tapes. Each tape were joined end to end in a continuous loop. Special holes were punched into the tapes to signify end of data and start of data. The remaining two counters sets were used to count sprocket holes. These counts allowed the calculation of Chi wheel positions for a particular score. Initially all counts had to be read off the lamp panel and written down, a great source of error. Later a special printer known as a "Gifford" printer was added. This was not a great success.

Heath Robinson

Heath Robinson consisted of three parts, the frame on which the teleprinter paper tapes were mounted and read optically, known as the Bedstead, a wide short rack containing the counters, a lamp output panel and later the Gifford printer on a front table, and a tall 19 inch rack known as the valve rack which contained the logic circuits and a jack field panel for plugging up the algorithms. The short counters rack was produced at TRE and the Bedstead and valve rack at the GPO research labs at Dollis Hill to Wynn-Williams circuit designs. The cover name for the project was "Apparatus Telegraph Transmitting", case number 11951. The Bedstead was designed by Arnold Lynch and Eric Speight. Harry Fensom and Alan Bruce worked on commissioning the system at Dollis Hill. There were difficulties in getting the ring modulator logic to work due to extra phase shifts in the circuits when more than six circuits were connected together one after the other. Allen Coombs relates this problem and tells how he went to Tommy Flowers for advice. Tommy Flowers said "change the frequency" which Allen Coombs did. It solved the problem but neither he nor Tommy Flowers knew why.
Eventually it all worked together and Heath Robinson was moved to Bletchley Park.

Heath Robinson was delivered to Bletchley Park in June 1943 and was first installed in Hut 11 which had been the original Bombe room for Turing Bombes, the machines used to break Enigma.

Harry Fensom and Alan Bruce were the two GPO maintenance engineers assigned to Heath Robinson. Two WRNS(Womens Royal Naval Service) ladies at a time were the operators and Jack Good and Donald Michie were the code breakers.

The first problem was teleprinter tape preparation. At least 2000 characters of cipher text was required, joined end to end to make a continuous loop. Then a similar length of Chi wheel patterns had to be punched up and arranged to be just one character longer than the cipher tape. This was to automatically change the relative wheel patterns by one position after each complete run through the tapes.

Then it was found that the optical readers in the Bedstead gave errors if a long stretch of adjacent holes or no holes occurred on the tapes. This meant adjustments to both texts to compensate for this.

A major problem was keeping the two tapes in synchronism at over 1000 characters per second. Originally the sprocket drive cogs were motorised but this proved impossible to sustain without tearing the tapes and a friction drive was used from the paper tape pulleys with the sprocket shaft just idling to keep synchronisation. This proved to be better but there was still a problem with tape stretching in the distance between the sprocket cogs and the optical reader aperture.

Heath Robinson worked well enough to show that Max Newman's concept was correct. Newman then went to Dollis Hill where he was put in touch with Tommy Flowers, the brilliant Post Office electronics engineer. Flowers went on to design and build Colossus to meet Max Newman's requirements for a machine to speed up the breaking of the Lorenz cipher.

The Lorenz Cipher and how Bletchley Park broke it

2010-05-14T01:10:00.000-07:00

The German Lorenz cipher system

The German Army High Command asked the Lorenz company to produce for them a high security teleprinter cipher machine to enable them to communicate by radio in complete secrecy. The Lorenz company designed a cipher machine based on the additive method for enciphering teleprinter messages invented in 1918 by Gilbert Vernam in America. Teleprinters are not based on the 26-letter alphabet and Morse code on which the Enigma depended. Teleprinters use the 32-symbol Baudot code. Note that the Baudot code output consists of five channels each of which is a stream of bits which can be represented as no-hole or hole, 0 or 1, dot or cross.

The Baudot Code

The Vernam system enciphered the message text by adding to it, character by character, a set of obscuring characters thus producing the enciphered characters which were transmitted to the intended recipient. The simplicity of Vernam's system lay in the fact that the obscuring characters were added in a rather special way (known as modulo-2 addition). Then exactly the same obscuring characters, added also by modulo-2 addition to the received enciphered characters, would cancel out the obscuring characters and leave the original message characters which could then be printed. The working of modulo-2 addition is exactly the same as the XOR operation in logic. If A is the plain-text character, and C the obscuring character, then in the table below, F is the cipher-text character. You can also see from this table that the addition of C to F brings you back to A again:
A + C = F      F + C = A
x + . = x      x + . = x
x + x = .      . + x = x
. + x = x      x + x = .
. + x = x      x + x = .
. + . = .      . + . = .Vernam proposed that the obscuring characters should be completely random and pre-punched on to paper tape to be consumed character by character in synchrony with the input message characters. Such a cipher system (a 'one-time pad system') using purely random obscuring characters is unbreakable.
The difficulty was how to ensure, in a hot war situation, that the same random character tapes were available at each end of a communications link and that they were both set to the same start position. The Lorenz company decided that it would be operationally easier to construct a machine to generate the obscuring character sequence. Because it was a machine it could not generate a completely random sequence of characters. It generated what is known as a pseudo-randomsequence. Unfortunately for the German Army it was more "pseudo" than random and that was how it was broken.

The amazing thing about Lorenz is that the code breakers in Bletchley Park never saw an actual Lorenz machine until right at the end of the war but they had been breaking the Lorenz cipher for two and a half years.

The first intercepts

The teleprinter signals being transmitted by the Germans, and enciphered using Lorenz, were first heard in early 1940 by a group of policemen on the South Coast who were listening out for possible German spy transmissions from inside the UK. Brigadier John Tiltman, one of the top code breakers in Bletchley Park, took a particular interest in these enciphered teleprinter messages. They were given the code name "Fish". The messages which (as was later found out) were enciphered using the Lorenz machine, were known as "Tunny". Tiltman knew of the Vernam system and soon identified these messages as being enciphered in the Vernam manner. Because the Vernam system depended on addition of characters, Tiltman reasoned that if the operators made a mistake and used the same Lorenz machine starts for two messages (a depth), then by adding the two cipher texts together character by character, the obscuring character sequence would disappear. He would then be left with a sequence of characters each of which represented the addition of the two characters in the original German message texts. For two completely different messages it is virtually impossible to assign the correct characters to each message. Just small sections at the start could be derived but not complete messages.

The German mistake

As the number of intercepts, now being made at Knockholt in Kent, increased a section was formed in Bletchley Park headed by Major Ralph Tester and known as the Testery. A number of Depths were intercepted but not much headway had been made into breaking the cipher until the Germans made one horrendous mistake. It was on 30 August 1941. A German operator had a long message of nearly 4,000 characters to be sent from one part of the German Army High command to another — probably Athens to Vienna. He correctly set up his Lorenz machine and then sent a twelve letter indicator, using the German names, to the operator at the receiving end. This operator then set his Lorenz machine and asked the operator at the sending end to start sending his message. After nearly 4,000 characters had been keyed in at the sending end, by hand, the operator at the receiving end sent back by radio the equivalent, in German, of "didn't get that — send it again".
They now both put their Lorenz machines back to the same start position. Absolutely forbidden, but they did it. The operator at the sending end then began to key in the message again, by hand. If he had been an automaton and used exactly the same key strokes as the first time then all the interceptors would have got would have been two identical copies of the cipher text. Input the same — machines generating the same obscuring characters — same cipher text. But being only human and being thoroughly disgusted at having to key it all again, the sending operator began to make differences in the second message compared to the first.
The message began with that well known German phrase SPRUCHNUMMER — "message number" in English. The first time the operator keyed in S P R U C H N U M M E R. The second time he keyed in S P R U C H N R and then the rest of the message text. Now NR means the same as NUMMER, so what difference did that make? It meant that immediately following the N the two texts were different. But the machines were generating the same obscuring sequence, therefore the cipher texts were different from that point on. The interceptors at Knockholt realised the possible importance of these two messages because the twelve letter indicators were the same. They were sent post-haste to John Tiltman at Bletchley Park. Tiltman applied the same additive technique to this pair as he had to previous Depths. But this time he was able to get much further with working out the actual message texts because when he tried SPRUCHNUMMER at the start he immediately spotted that the second message was nearly identical to the first. Thus the combined errors of having the machines back to the same start position and the text being re-keyed with just slight differences enabled Tiltman to recover completely both texts. The second one was about 500 characters shorter than the first where the German operator had been saving his fingers. This fact also allowed Tiltman to assign the correct message to its original cipher text. Now Tiltman could add together, character by character, the corresponding cipher and message texts revealing for the first time a long stretch of the obscuring character sequence being generated by this German cipher machine. He did not know how the machine did it, but he knew that this was what it was generating!

The dénouement

John Tiltman then gave this long stretch of obscuring characters to a young chemistry graduate, Bill Tutte, who had recently come to Bletchley Park from Cambridge. Bill Tutte started to write out the bit patterns from each of the five channels in the teleprinter form of the string of obscuring characters at various repetition periods. Remember this was BC, "Before Computers", so he had to write out vast sequences by hand.

When he wrote out the bit patterns from channel one on a repetition of 41, various patterns began to emerge which were more than random. This showed that a repetition period of 41 had some significance in the way the cipher was generated. Then over the next two months Tutte and other members of the Research section worked out the complete logical structure of the cipher machine which we now know as Lorenz:

This was a fantastic tour de force and at the beginning of 1942 the Post Office Research Labs at Dollis Hill were asked to produce an implementation of the logic worked out by Bill Tutte & Co. Frank Morrell produced a rack of uniselectors and relays which emulated the logic. It was called "Tunny". So now when the manual code breakers in the Testery had laboriously worked out the settings used for a particular message, these settings could be plugged up on Tunny and the cipher text read in.

If the code breakers had got it right, out came German. But it was taking four to six weeks to work out the settings. This meant that although they had proved that technically they could break Tunny, by the time the messages were decoded the information in them was too stale to be operationally useful.

The Enigma Machine

2010-05-13T01:03:00.000-07:00

The Enigma Machine

Invented by Arthur Scherbius in 1918 the Enigma machine is a very ingenious way of achieving seven alphabet substitutions between a text input letter and a ciphered output letter. The alphabetic substitutions are implemented via wiring inside rotors.

Enigma rotors (or wheels)

Before seeing how the Enigma machine was constructed you should see the rotors or wheels which embodied the alphabetic substitutions.

Figure 4: details of an Enigma rotor:(1) The finger notches used to turn the rotors to a start position.
(2) The alphabet RING or tyre round the circumference of the rotor (see below for an explanation of its significance).
(3) The shaft upon which the rotors turn.
(4) The catch which locks the alphabet ring to the core (5).
(5) The CORE containing the cross-wiring between contacts (6) and discs (7). It is the core which effects the essential alphabetic substitution.
(6) The spring loaded contacts to make contact with the next rotor.
(7) The discs embedded into the core to make contact with the spring-loaded contacts in the next rotor.
(8) The CARRY notch attached to the alphabet ring (see below for explanation).

These rotors were manufactured with their wirings buried inside and they could not be modified in use.
In the 1930s, the Enigma had only three different kinds of rotor, I II and III. These rotors could be assembled on the shaft in any order giving 6 (i.e. 3x2x1) possible configurations.
In 1938 the Germans added rotors IV and V to the repertoire, thus giving 60 (i.e. 5x4x3) configurations by choosing a set of three rotors from the five. Some further wheels were brought into use during the course of the war but basically the rotors remained unchanged throughout.

The Military Enigma Machines

We are now ready to see the machine actually used by the German armed forces, and to go on to the further complications introduced through the ring-setting and the plugboard or Steckerverbindung.

You can readily see three rotors in place. In operation, a current flowed from right to left then back left to right, so the reflector is at the left and the entry disc is at the right.
The entry disc is a fixed disc of 26 contacts. The keyboard contacts are connected to the right hand side. The left hand side of the entry disc has metal contact discs just like the wheel discs. A curious aspect of the Enigma design was that the keyboard was connected to the entry disc in the simple order ABCDEF... and did not take advantage of the opportunity for introducing a further scrambling.
As explained above, it is important that the rotors are interchangeable. Mechanically, this is effected as follows. When the release lever is pulled forward, the reflector slides to the left and the group of three rotors can be taken out on their shaft. Then the operator can assemble a new sequence of rotors on the shaft, and put this back into the machine.
The lamp panel shows the enciphered output letter for the keyboard key pressed. This was rather a primitive aspect of the Enigma as it relied on the operator to observe and write down the lit-up letter at each stage of encipherment and decipherment.

The plugboard

The plugboard or 'Stecker', visible on the front of the machine, was the most important addition made to the basic Enigma when turning it into a machine for military use. The operator simply inserted plugs so as to connect pairs of letters (generally 10 pairs, in wartime use) and this had the effect of hard-wiring such a swapping.Because the plugboard affected both the incoming current from the keyboard and the outgoing current to the lamps. it left unchanged the reciprocal property of the Enigma. It also meant that the military Enigma still had the property that no letter could ever be enciphered to itself. This was a very grave mistake in the design.
To see how this worked in more detail, it is best to forget the physical picture of the Enigma and concentrate on a logical diagram of how the electrical current effected substitutions:

Circuit Diagram of the Enigma with Plugboard

The keyboard was laid out as follows:
Q W E R T Z U I O
A S D F G H J K
P Y X C V B N M L
The same arrangement was used for the lamp panel and the plugboard.

In this illustration, when key W is pressed on the keyboard (5) current from the battery (4) flows to the plugboard panel socket W, but socket W has been plugged to socket X so current flows up to the entry disc (E) at point X.
The current then flows through the internal wiring in the rotors (2) to the reflector (1). Here it is turned round and flows back through the rotors in the reverse direction emerging from the entry disc at terminal H. Terminal H on the Entry disc is connected to socket H on the plugboard (6) but this socket is plugged to socket I so finally the current flows to lamp I which lights up.
Thus in this instance, the letter W is enciphered to I.
You can now also see that if the key I had been pressed, the lamp W would have lit up. This is because the path from W to I through the steckers and rotors remains the same, though with the current flowing in the opposite direction.
When the W key is pressed the connection to the W lamp is broken and the I lamp lights. If the I key is now pressed down the connection to the I lamp is broken and the W lamp lights.

The motion of the rotors

Now you will recall from our introduction that the whole point of the rotors is that they must rotate, so that every time a letter is enciphered, the machine is in a different configuration. So, when a key on the keyboard is pressed down, a mechanical linkage causes the right hand rotor to turn by 1/26 of a revolution, i.e. by one letter on the alphabet ring.This means that the next time a key is pressed, the substitution effected by the rotors is quite different.
At certain points on the rotation of the right hand rotor, the motion is 'carried' to the middle rotor, M which then moves on one letter. Carry will also occur from the middle to the left hand rotor when the carry notch engages, but obviously this will happen much less often.

The Enigma sent the current through the wires AFTER the mechanical linkage had moved the right-hand wheel and any other wheels knocked on by the carry mechanism. The principle is just the same as the 'carry' on an adding machine knocking on to tens, hundreds and thousands, but there is a subtlety in the design affecting the point at which the knocking-on occurred.
To appreciate this we must first describe the alphabet RING settings.

The ring setting

Referring again to figure 4, not that on each rotor there is a spring loaded catch (4). When this is pulled to the right the ring (or tyre) can be turned with respect to the core of the rotor. In fact the ring for each rotor can be set by the operator in any one of 26 possible settings.The effect of this is that the core which contains the wiring, is turned in relation to the letter showing in the window of the Enigma machine.
At first sight this extra complication might seem rather pointless because it did not change anything to do with the essential scrambling going on inside the system. However the indicator systems, to which we will come later, depended on describing the 'window position' of the rotor, and the ring-setting determined the relationship between the window letters and the actual scramblings. Furthermore, the carry mechanism is affected by the ring setting. The 'carry' point is in fact determined by the position of the carry notch (8) in figure 4, and the crucial point is that this notch is attached to the alphabet RING, and not to the core of the rotor.
The carry notch was arranged to be in a different position for each of the rotors I, II, III, IV, V. This turned out to be a bad cryptographic mistake; it helped first the Poles and then the British analysts at Bletchley Park to identify the right hand rotor in use.

How to Thread a Sewing Machine

2010-05-12T00:58:00.000-07:00

Threading a sewing machine can be difficult at first. Once you learn how, though, the whole process will take you only a few seconds and you'll be on your way sewing together anything you need. It does require somewhat of a good eye sight and good aim, so get your glasses if you need them to see up close.

Instructions

Step1
Raise the needle to its highest position by turning the handwheel toward you.
Step2
Raise the presser foot. This will allow the thread to easily pass through the threading points and will prevent the machine needle from becoming unthreaded when you begin to stitch.
Step3
Place a spool of thread on the spool pin located at the top of your sewing machine. If the spool pin runs horizontally, secure the spool of thread with the cap provided.
Step4
Take hold of the thread end and pass it through the designated threading points on the top of the machine casing, then down toward the tension assembly. The tension assembly is located on the left side of the machine and controls the flow of thread.
Step5
Take the thread under the tension assembly and back up through the next threading point at the top left of the machine. Make sure the thread has passed between two tension discs as well as the hook that may be attached to the left side of the tension dial.
Step6
Push the thread end through the lever at the top left of the machine, if applicable, and down through the threading points at bottom left and above the needle.
Step7
Thread the needle from the front or back of the needle. The threading direction will depend on your machine type.
Step8
Pull a few inches of thread through the eye of the needle and pull the thread to your left.
Step9
Insert a wound bobbin into the machine, if necessary, and close the throat plate. A few inches of bobbin thread should be pulled out to the right and sticking out from under the closed throat plate.
Step10
Take hold of the thread that has been threaded through the machine needle.
Step11
Rotate the hand wheel toward you until the needle disappears into the bobbin case.
Step12
Keep holding on to the thread and move the hand wheel so the needle is once again at its highest position. As the needle rises, a loop of bobbin thread will come up as well.
Step13
Pull the thread out toward your left to draw the bobbin thread loop further out of the bobbin case.
Step14
Let the top thread go and pull the bobbin thread up until the end comes up. Pull the top and bottom threads under the presser foot and to the back and right of the machine.

Get the Inside Story on Who Invented the Popcorn Machine

2010-05-10T23:42:00.001-07:00

If there's one snack that is often dubbed as an indulgence for life's blissfully idyllic moments, is defined by an unimaginable number of flavors and is blessed with an eternal appeal that's unsurpassed in every way, it just has to be popcorn. Cheddar cheese popcorn, peppermint popcorn, white chocolate or chocolate fudge popcorn, there are innumerable ways to celebrate the enduring mystique of this wonderful snack. History is no stranger to its iconic status, and neither is the world's appreciation of it.

Such is the unabashed hype and hoopla about this snack, that other equally intriguing aspects remain shrouded in a cloak of exotic mystery. Take for example, the fascinating question that teases you about your knowledge of popcorn machines, and asks, 'who invented the popcorn machine?'

Facts With That Nostalgic Echo

Popcorn gained immense popularity during the Great Depression, when street vendors made quite a killing by selling it with assistance from steam or even gas-powered popcorn poppers. It was sometime during the year 1885 that Charles Cretors caused a sensation by inventing the world's first popcorn machine.

Originally designed as a peanut roaster, Cretors simply added a contraption on top to make the machine look different. But what really catapulted C. Cretors & Co. to the rockstar league was their spectacular showing at the Columbian Exhibition in Chicago in the year 1893. It was here that the first steam driven, mobile popcorn machine popped more eyeballs that probably Madonna and Justin Timberlake together on stage.

What followed was nothing short of a revolution. With the impressive spike in the appeal of mobile machines, the movie going experience changed forever. Today, movie halls without popcorn or their redoubtable machines are like chocolates without sin or Windows without Bill Gates!

Trigger For Innovation

More innovations followed, and in 1925 home poppers made their debut, followed by the microwave popcorn by Percy L Spencer in 1945, which, in fact, provided the trigger for inventing the microwave oven.

Who invented popcorn

2010-05-10T23:38:00.000-07:00

Even with a mysterious origin, Americans' enjoyment of popcorn spans centuries

Some may wonder "who invented popcorn"? Popcorn has been a favorite snack literally for centuries. Now popcorn is an American favorite sold at movie theaters across the country as well as in gift baskets given on holidays. It is unclear who the first person to actually invent popcorn, however the oldest ears of popcorn found to date were discovered in a bat cave off west central New Mexico in 1948. The bat cave popcorn ears are gauged to be approximately 4,000 years old. That proves that Americans have literally been snacking on popcorn for centuries!

Popcorn was "invented" by other people in the world as well. It is probably safe to assume that popcorn was popular in places where corn was grown as a major food source. In 1519, Cortes saw popcorn when he invaded Mexico and first met the Aztecs. Popcorn was important to the Aztec Indians as a food source. But, they also made necklaces and decorated their headdresses with popcorn. It has been recorded that the Peruvian Indians in the 16th century were also using popcorn.

Popcorn has been very popular in America. From the 1800s until the Great Depression, street vendors would sell it using steam or gas-powered popcorn poppers. The very first commercial popcorn machine was invented by Charles Cretors in 1885 in Chicago, Illinois. There are even old fashioned poppers that'll give your popcorn the same old time flavor that first hooked our society on popcorn.

Popcorn was priced at about five or ten cents a bag during the Depression, and it was a little luxury that most families could afford. This meant that the popcorn business still did well through the Depression.

A favorite treat during the late 1800s through the early 1900s was the popcorn ball. Popcorn balls are simple to make. Many people still enjoy them today, and make them especially for the holiday season. People in the 1800s also ate flavored popcorn. Some favorite flavorings include rose, honey, molasses and sugar. Popcorn was also used to make wonderful holiday decorations like garlands that draped the Christmas tree or fireplace mantle in many Victorian households.

During WWII, popcorn became an extremely patriotic snack because sugar was rationed; Americans snacked on more popcorn than ever before. Popcorn remained a popular snack throughout the rest of the twentieth century. With such an interesting history and so many fun facts, not to mention tasty, its no wonder why this food has been apart of American society for so long.

Today, it is said that Americans eat more popcorn than any other part of the world. We eat popcorn at ballparks, state fairs, carnivals, rodeos, movie theatres, and also at home. Microwaveable popcorn is an industry all of its own – with many people eating microwave popcorn every week as their special snack. Popcorn is primarily grown in America, in states including Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska and Ohio.

A popular gift at holiday time is large cans of popcorn, with pretty decorations on them. A traditional popcorn can has three kinds of popcorn in it – cheese popcorn, caramel popcorn and butter flavored popcorn. But you can find popcorn in just about any flavor that you desire. There is white chocolate popcorn, peppermint popcorn, chocolate fudge popcorn, cheddar cheese popcorn – just to name a delicious few. If there is a flavor you can think of –surely you can find popcorn in that flavor!

Popcorn is certainly a snack that we have enjoyed for centuries and that we will continue to enjoy for many centuries to come.

When Was the Popcorn Maker Invented?

2010-05-10T23:35:00.000-07:00

Popcorn... who doesn't love hot, buttery popcorn? Everybody knows that popcorn was introduced to the first Pilgrims by friendly natives. But the making of popcorn has evolved considerably since the 1600s. First commercial popcorn machines and then home popcorn makers were invented to make the tasty treat available to everybody.

Early Popcorn Poppers

Popcorn makers were in use as early as 300 A.D. In Peru, a lost pre-Incan culture invented a piece of crockery that was designed with a hole in the top and a handle for shaking it over the fire. By the 17th century, another type of machine was used. A thin metal cylinder with a handle was filled with kernels and turned by hand, close to an open fire.

Cretors & Co.

The first commercial popcorn machine was invented by Charles C. Cretors in 1885. Cretors owned a candy shop in Decatur, Illinois. Becoming successful by inventing a steam-powered peanut roaster, he moved to Chicago to expand his business. Before long he had modified his machine to pop corn. After adding wheels and a mechanical clown, The Toasty Roasty Man, his popcorn maker was complete.

Other Commercial Popcorn Machines

Just before World War I, manufacturers Holcomb & Hoke began to market commercial popcorn makers, claiming that with the purchase of one machine, investors could make their fortunes selling popcorn. This company, however, did not last long, due to the Great Depression. Between 1920 and 1940, several other companies sprang up, manufacturing and selling popcorn-making machines to supply the world with fresh popcorn.

Home Popcorn Makers

Home popcorn makers came on the market in the 1970s. These small appliances popped the corn with a continuous flow of hot air instead of the traditional hot oil that the commercial machines used. This was a great selling point as people grew more health conscious and less pleased with the fatty commercially sold popcorn. Microwave popcorn was introduced in the 1980s.

Popcorn Today

Every year, Americans eat over 17 billion quarts of popcorn. It is served everywhere from movie theaters to hotel lobbies, and more than half of all popcorn eaten in American is made in the microwave. Popcorn truly has become a standard of American culture.

Who Invented the Popcorn Machine?

2010-05-10T23:33:00.000-07:00

Corn popped over an open flame was sold by vendors in the 1880s, but it was not popular. Charles Cretors, an inventor with a flair for sales and advertising, changed the history of popcorn with the introduction of a steam-powered popping machine.

The Peanut Roaster

Cretors, a sign painter and candy store owner, was interested in how things worked. His purchase of a steam-powered peanut roaster inspired him to design an improved roasting machine, says the Popcorn Machine Site.

Advertising

Cretors added hand-painted details to the outside of his machine, which had "striping ... in gold leaf and color." He also attracted customers with a small clown called the "Toasty Roasty" man, who cranked the peanuts, according to the Peanut King website.

The Popcorn Machine

In 1893, Cretors patented a process for popping popcorn, using a seasoning mix of lard and butter oil. Soon his popcorn was more popular than his peanuts.

Colombian Exposition

The popcorn machine was featured at the 1893 Colombian Exposition in Chicago. At first, Cretors gave it away, then started a new batch. The aroma of freshly popped corn then attracted new customers.

The Popcorn Wagon Evolves

The first popcorn machines were built on hand-pulled carts. After 1900, the carts were replaced by horse-drawn wagons.

One Used 3/4 Lewis Model 11V-FHA High Speed Wire Straightener & Cutoff Line

2010-03-29T09:23:00.000-07:00

One Used 3/4 Lewis Model 11V-FHA High Speed Wire Straightener & Cutoff Line

Specifications:

One Used 3/4 Lewis Model 11V-FHA High Speed Wire Straightener & Cutoff Line, New 1973 s/n - 101-6

3/4" diameter(90,000 psi material)
Maximum cut-off length - 6 feet
225 FPM

The "V" is for variable stroke cut-off. The variable stroke allowed the customer to cut short pieces, 3.75" long was the shortest on this machine.

Equipped with: Pneumatic feed roll pressure
: Low inertia electric trip
: Flying Shear
: Air Clutch

FOB Bridgeport, CT

Mobile Security Barriers

2010-03-27T09:18:00.000-07:00

Model No: JT-IRPBC

Factory Location: Taiwan

Sample Request: No

Target Markets: Worldwide

Description :

Forms a security barrier for national defense, protest & riot control, coastline defense against enemy army, barricades for accident sites, and blockage for road construction, or important entrances & exits, etc. A mobile barrier fence. Automatic barrier set up and retrieval. Please contact us for more information.

Specification :

New Hexagonal Wire Netting Machines (Reverse Twist)

2010-03-25T09:13:00.000-07:00

Model No: JT-HEX2M

Factory Location: Taiwan

Sample Request: No

Target Markets: Worldwide

Description :

This machine is to produce the miniature gabion mesh, or what we called hexagonal wire netting. Also known as chicken mesh, etc.

Specification :

This machine has a maximum working width of 2 Meters and it comes with one bobbin stand, one set of bobbin, and one bobbin winding unit.

how to wire a three way switch

2010-03-24T21:55:00.000-07:00

How to wire a three way switch

I don't wire enough three way switches to keep the logic straight in memory, so I made a logic diagram of several ways they can be wired and a PDF version of this diagram to print out.

A three-way switch has four screw terminals

A green ground screw for the green or bare ground wire which is used to ground the switch to the main electrical panel.
A dark common screw for the hot wire which either comes from the main electrical panel or goes out to the fixture, depending on where the switch is in the circuit.
Two brass traveler screws for the hot wires which run from one switch to the other.

Switches interrupt only the hot wire to the light fixture

Switches never interrupt the neutral wire or the ground wire.
- The ground wire is connected to the switch to ground its metal parts for safety.
- The neutral wire is never connected to a switch.

CAUTION - the white wire may be hot

You'll note in the diagram that in some wiring schemes the white wire is used as a hot feed. This is contrary to the general rule that the white wire is grounded at the main electrical panel. So, as always in working with electric wiring, never assume a wire is dead. Turn the circuit breaker off. Test it. Test it again. Be careful.

For a PDF version of this diagram to print out download this file:

Three Way Switch Wiring Diagram - PDF version

If you want more information The Home Improvement Web has a good article with details about how to install a three way switch.

How Much Does it Cost to Wire a House?

2010-03-24T21:51:00.000-07:00

How much does it cost to wire a house these days? You need to take several things into consideration such as size, location, specification etc. This article gives you tips on what technical aspects you need to be aware of, avoid the pitfalls and get the best price to wire your house.

1) The Size Of Your House

The size of your house directly affects the cost. The cost of wire, outlets, switches etc will increase proportionally with the increase in square feet of your property. Of course other factors like whether it is single/multi storey, the layout etc will affect the price.

If it is a new house build you will also have to factor in the cost of connecting to the grid, which can be very expensive depending on location.

2) The Current System

Is the house running an older fuse-type system or a circuit breaker system? If you are unsure, ask the electrician when they are quoting what type of system it is.

3) Planning For The Future

This type of work is done rarely so make sure you plan it carefully. In addition to the standard outlets, lighting etc you may want to have external power to a garage, patio or deck. It is cheaper to have all the work done in one go rather than doing a further project later so plan for all eventualities.

If you are planning to sell the house in future, a good idea is to take photo's or video of the work being done so you can prove you had the work done to any prospective buyer.

4) Walls and Finishing

If your walls are made from solid brick there will a be more work to chase out spaces for the wires. If your walls are plasterboard, it will be much easier. Remember also you will have an additional cost to plaster/finish the walls, so factor this cost into your budget.

5) General Tips

a) Do not attempt the work yourself unless you are qualified. Electricity is potentially lethal so ensure your electrical contractor is a member of trade associations and their work is up to local safety standards. It is your family's life you are risking by cutting corners.

b) Always get 3-5 prices, and be prepared to haggle. With the current financial climate you will be able to find a great deal. A reputable firm will not ask for payment up front and give you a free estimate.

c) Get a fixed price and do not deviate from the original specification once the project is underway, this will just increase the cost.

d) Choose a timescale that suits you and the contractor. There will be a lot of disruption while the work is underway so discuss your requirements in detail and get a written agreement on what work will be carried out.

e) Get the relevant inspection certificate on completion (don't pay in full until you receive this).

f) Get recommendations from family and friends. Price is not the only consideration.

As a rule of thumb, for an average sized house, with regular fixtures and fittings, you will be looking at a cost of $2000-$5000.

This should answer the question how much does it cost to wire a house. Make sure you do some planning, find out the size of your house and what specification you need and you will able to find a suitable contractor and most importantly the best price.

Mike Donaldson has been an electrical contractor for over 30 years. Here are his recommended websites to find reliable electrical contractors and home improvement contractors.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mike_Donaldson

how to wire a light switch

2010-03-23T21:54:00.000-07:00

Wiring a Light Switch - End of Circuit

The easiest place to wire a light switch is at the end of a circuit. This does not mean that you should plan all your circuits so that your light switches are necessarily at the end. A light in the middle of a circuit really isn't that much harder.
Before beginning any electrical work, it is wise to turn off the circuit and then to test to make certain that the circuit is indeed off with a circuit testing device. Circuits generally use either 12 or 14 gauge wire. In wire gauges, the bigger number designates a smaller diameter wire. As a rule of thumb you should use 12 gauge wire for 20 amp circuits and 14 gauge wire for 15 amp switches.
When placing the switch boxes, be sure to choose an easily accessible spot near the door about hand height. If you are in doubt as to where this should be, examine the positioning of other switches in your house. If you haven't any installed yet, 45 to 48 inches from the floor should work about right. It is best to make them all about the same.
In our diagram the source of power comes through the switch box. The black wire, which is the "hot" wire leads directly to the bottom connector on the switch. The switch, of course, should be oriented so that the "on" position is up and the "off" position is down. On most switches there are two ways to connect the wire to the switch. There are two little holes in the back of the switch as well as two screws on the side. You can either push the stripped wire (About 1/2 inch of the insulation can be removed with a wire stripper or more laboriously with a utility knife.) into the hole or curve it into a hook with a pair of pliers, wrap it around the appropriate screw and then tighten the screw.
Meanwhile, you should have set up the box for the light and run a wire between the two boxes. The white wire from the source is connected to the white wire from the light. Our diagram shows a ground wire connection (usually bare or green) directly to the box. This is only necessary on a metal box. On a plastic box merely connect all of the ground wires together. Take the black (hot) wire that leads from the light and connect it to the top connector on the switch. Now twist the white wires together and use a cap or electrical tape to insulate the splice.
In the light box, connect the black and white wires to the light, this will generally be a fairly obvious process as most lights come with both black and white wires as well as a ground connection. If the light is one of the simpler ones, you can generally distinguish between the connectors, one will usually be made of wire that is silver in color, the other will be vaguely brass. The ground wire can be hooked directly to a metal box or to a connection on the light itself. Sometimes there will be a green wire.
Generally, it is wise to test your light before screwing the switch into the wall or the light into the ceiling. Test again after all the components are made secure.
If you are in any way confused by this explanation, please refer to our diagram.

New High Speed Barbed Wire Machines

2010-03-23T09:06:00.000-07:00

Description :
1. High speed barbed wire machine.
2. Brake method: pneumatic brake.
3. Operating voltage: as required by customer.

Specification :
1. Wire DIA.: 1.5 – 2.65 mm.
2. Wire tensile strength: 300 – 500 n/mm².
3. Barb pitch: 3", 3½", 4", 4½" & 5".
4. Speed: 360 R.P.M （14# ＊ 4" – approx. 33 m/min).
5. output coiled weight: max. 30 kgs /coil.
6. Wire material: galvanized, high galvanized, SUS wires.

Jiu Tai Precision Industries Co., Ltd. : Wire Drawing Machines

2010-03-21T09:03:00.000-07:00

Jiu Tai Precision Industries Co., Ltd. was established in 1983. We are a remarkable welding equipment manufacturer specializing in welding equipment and wire mesh especially for welded mesh, chain link fence and conveyor belts, which are outstanding among the counterparts. Sticking to the business concept of making the best better and pursuing perfection, we dedicate to product research and development all the time. Its excellent quality, great trustworthiness and moderate price earn us scores of praises. In addition, we acquired sanction of the mark and ISO 9001 certificate. Regarding to product QC, the company, equipped with the state-of-the-art testers, is well experienced in strict product inspection that guarantees superior product qualities and gains customer reliability. So choose our company is you best choice. Don't hesitate. Welcome to join us.

Main Products

Manufacturer of welding machines, spot welders, mesh making and fence weaving machinery, automatic chain link fence machine, high speed automatic chain link fence machine, high speed barbed wire machine, wire mesh welding machine, automatic welded mesh turning & stacking machine, welded mesh shearing machine, welded mesh recoiler, wire drawing machine, electric butt welder, hexagonal wire netting machine, hexagonal gabion mesh weaving machine, wire/ bar straightening, wire straightening & cutting machine, mobile security barrier, wire mesh, chain link fence mesh and plywood conveyance belt, and etc.

Profile: Taiwan Professional manufacturer of Wire Drawing Machines, Jiu Tai Precision Industries Co., Ltd. is a leading manufacturer of Wire Drawing Machine and many other Machines. Buyers can contact us by visiting our website or by sending request for information. There are many types of Machines on my website. For more products information, please contact us soon. On the basis of introducing all kinds of talents, in the spirit of constant innovation and improving quality, with sincerity as our shield to meet the demands of clients, our factory controls quality in the process of design, production and delivery, providing good quality Machines for every client. We will keep excellent quality, good reputation continuously.

Company Link

Kon Ho Machinery Industrial Co., Ltd.

2010-03-19T09:00:00.000-07:00

Kon Ho Machinery Industrial Co., Ltd. was established in 1977 and specialized in manufacturing wire and cable machines, and whole plant equipment, which include wire enameling machines, wire drawing machines, tin-plating machines, etc. Wire enameling belongs to the basic industry and one of the most important parts for electric motor, coil products, testing instruments, high temperature conducting wire, electronic components, medical wire, communication wire and automation. For many years of unceasing innovation, manufacturing and R&D composed of the professional and senior technical team of KON HO, the products with high praise sell to Europe and America, Middle East, South Asia, Mainland China. Kon Ho deeply believed that insisting on the management ideas ” Quality, Technology, Responsibility, Innovates” can create new opportunity and have eternal management.

Main Products

industrial ( industry) machineries and equipments supply ( supplies)- wire enameling machines, take up machinery, control ( controlling) boxes & systems, annealing ovens & stoves, tin ( tinning) plating & stoves, soldering ( solder) stoves, extruders ( extrusion) machinery, wire drawing ( draw) machines, wire drawing machines, cables machinery, coating drying ovens, vertical machines, wire winding ( wind) machines ( winders), oil resistances, anti oxidations.

Profile: Kon Ho Machinery Industrial Co., Ltd. is a professional manufacturer of Wire Drawing Machines and otherMachines. We are keeping on researching, developing, and innovating the most advanced products and services for our customers, our trained professional team and qualified products has been doing our best to reach the unchanged goal of building and remaining the nicest long-term relationship with our customers. Punctual delivery and top quality at competitive price are our guarantee. We always keep innovation, perfect quality, reasonable price and prompt delivery in mind to meet customers' needs. We also provide many kind of Wire Drawing Machine, welcome to our website to get more information!

Company Link

Ho Yin Machinery Co., Ltd.

2010-03-18T08:54:00.000-07:00

Company Introduction

Manufacturer of stainless steels and copper wire-drawing machines, straight through wire drawing machines, store type wire drawing machines and diamond type vertical take-up supplied worldwide since 1986. Certificated of ISO 9000.

Main Products

industrial machinery ( equipment) & wire processing machinery ( machines)- continuous wire lubrication and heating dehydration machinery, straight-through wire drawing machines, store type wire drawing machinery, inverted single block wire drawing machines, inverted double block wire drawing machinery, diamond type vertical take-up, vertical v-type take-up, vertical take-up, horizontal type spoolers, continuous bright annealing furnaces, ammonia decomposing furnaces, supporting facility, continuous wire solid decomposing anneal furnaces, stainless steels and copper wire drawing machinery.

( Origin : Taiwan Manufacturer & Supplier )
industrial machinery ( equipment) & Wire processing machinery ( Machines)- continuous Wire lubrication and heating dehydration machinery, straight-through Wire Drawing Machines, store type Wire Drawing machinery, inverted single block Wire Drawing Machines, inverted double block Wire Drawing machinery, diamond type vertical take-up, vertical v-type take-up, vertical take-up, horizontal type spoolers, continuous bright annealing furnaces, ammonia decomposing furnaces, supporting facility, continuous Wire solid decomposing anneal furnaces, stainless steels and copper Wire Drawingmachinery.

Company Link

Medium Wire Drawing Machines

2010-03-16T16:57:00.000-07:00

Description :
The Intermediate Wire Drawing Machine's main function is fine-drawing and let copper wire and aluminum wire become fine wire. However, inlet wire diameter is about 2.6mm to 3.2mm, after inlet wire through 9 dies to 17 dies, the finished wire diameter is 2.0mm to 0.45mm.

Specification :
1. Inlet dia. = 2.6 M/M.
2. Outlet dia. = 0.4 M/M ~ 1.6 M/M.
3. Drawing speed Max.m/max = 600 ~ 1200 M/Min.
4. No. of dies = 17 PCS.
5. Slipratio = 18 %.
6. Reduction = 17 %.
7. Drive motor = AC - DC 50 HP.
8. Take-up motor = 3 Kg (Tarque) 15 HP DC.
9. Bobbin dia. = 450 ~ 630 M/M.

Fine Wire Drawing Machine

2010-03-14T16:53:00.000-07:00

Description :
1.The Fine Wire Drawing Machine's main function is fine-drawing and let copper wire and aluminum wire become fine wire. However, inlet wire diameter is about 1.2mm to 0.8mm, after inlet wire through 18 dies to 22 dies, the finished wire diameter is 0.32mm to 0.08mm.
2. Single wire drawing type with different numbers of dies.

Specification :

Please link to our website: http://hui-chun.com/fine%20wire%20drawing%20machine.htm

1. Inlet wire dia. = 1.20 - 0.50 MM.
2. Finished wire dia. = 0.32 - 0.08 MM.
3. No. of dies = 18 PCS (-18) / 22 PCS (-22).
4. Drawing speed Max.m/min = 2200 RPM/Min (-18) / 2500 RPM/Min (-22).
5. Reduction = 16% (-18) / 15% (-22).
6. Speed reduction = Ceramic coating.
7. Spooling capacity = 20 - 40 Kgs (-18) / 20 - 80 Kgs (-22).
8. Dia. of spooler = 200 - 300 MM (-18) / 200 - 400 MM(-22).
9. Driven motor = 15 HP Induction motor (-18) / 15 HP motor(-22).
10. Driven belts = Flat belts.
11. Lock of spooler = Expending arbor type or screw tpye.
1

New High Speed Automatic Chain Link Fence Machines

2010-03-11T16:46:00.000-08:00

Description :
The high speed model of the automatic chain link fence making machine is equipment with advanced servo motor & Siemens driver. It's equipped with twin worms weaving arrangement and has a producing capacity of about 1,700 square meter per 8 hours. The chain link fence is used widely in school zones, parks, industrial areas, companies, basketball/tennis courts, on the sides of the highways, airports, and many many more.

Specification :
1. Fence height: max. 4 meters.
2. Mesh eye: 25mm ~ 90mm.
3. Wire gauge: 2.0mm ~ 4.8mm (Galv. wire).
4. Motor: 15 HP servo motor (siemens driver upon request).
5. Productivity: 1,700 meter square /8 hours (3.2mm x 2" x 2M).
6. Wire material: galvanized wire, PVC coated wire.
7. Floor space: 3.6M (W) x 6.0M (L) x 3.15M (H).
8. Voltage: as required by customer.

New Invert Vertical Type Wire Drawing Machines

2010-03-08T16:46:00.000-08:00

Model No: JT-IVD SERIE

Factory Location: Taiwan

Sample Request: No

Target Markets: Worldwide

Description :

This machine is to draw or "process" unprocessed wires from wire rod (raw material) into a nicely drawn (processed) wire bundle to be used in the manufacturing of welded mesh.

Specification :

The machine comes in two models: IVD600 and IVD800. Simply contact us for more information and we can discuss on your required specification and requirement (eg. auxiliary machines/equipments).

New Cable Machines ( Wire Equipment )

2010-02-05T16:53:00.000-08:00

Detail Information

Description :
1. High productivity and stability are ensured under continuous operation.
2. The machine is manufactured after a series of tests with all sorts of insulated material.
3. The shapes of screws depend on what kinds of insulated materials are used.
Their accuracy and durability are both very high.
4. With respect to Plastic Extruder, electrical heating and air cooling method is adopted,
the temperature is controlled automatically.
5. While operating, the speed of the machine is controlled with steplessly connected coupling method ( Other speed-control methods can be adopted, if necessary).
6. Various kinds of auxiliary equipments, e.p. Wire supply stand, capstan and take-up stand are also manufactured.

Specification :
Other Model: EX-50-24L / EX-65-24L /EX-70-24L / EX-90-24L / EX-100-22L / EX-120-22L / EX-15-22L.
1. The machine is manufactured after a series of tests with all sorts of insulated material.
2. The shapes of screws depend on what kinds of insulated materials are used.
3. Their accuracy and durability are both very high. With respect to plastic extruder. electrical heating and air cooling method is adopted.
4. The temperature is controlled automatically while operating. The speed of the machine is controlled with steplessly connected coupling method. Other speed-control methods can be adopted, if necessary.
5. Various kinds of auxiliary equipments such as wire supply stand, capstan and take-up stand are also manufactured.

New Wire Drawing Machines

2010-02-04T16:49:00.000-08:00

Detail Information

Description :
1. 5HP 6P motor for the machine body.
2. Ceramic stepped wheel, 9 steps.
3. Ceramic take-off wheel, single step.
4. Electric clutch, 6KW.
5. Electric brake, 12KW.
6. Japanese KOYO programable computer.
7. Control box, one each for front & rear.
8. Wire rowing machine, precision belt type
9. 1 / 60HP Tension Motor for the pushing-roller.
10. Stainless steel safty cover, dual layer.
11. Adjustable dis shoe.
12. Spooler of expansion type.
13. Electric parts of shinlin products.
14. Belt of German M-1000.

Specification :
1. Inlet wire dia: 0.32¢m/m-0.16¢m/m.
2. Finished wire dia: 0.12¢m/m-0.05¢m/m.
3. Number for dies: 20 pieces.
4. Speed decrease rate: 10%.
5. Spooling capacity: 20kg up to 40kg.

New Cable Machines ( Wire Equipment )

2010-02-03T16:23:00.000-08:00

Detail Information

New Cable Machines ( Wire Equipment )

2010-02-02T16:19:00.000-08:00

Detail Information

Wire Enamelling Machines ( Wire Enamelling Equipment )

2010-02-02T16:14:00.000-08:00

Detail Information

Description :
1. KON-HO KH-HE/HC type enamelling system is purposely designed to be most suited for small-quantity production or enamel coated super-fone wires. with its excellent fild-proven performance and hignificant energy saving benefit, this completly new model has now been highly praised by a group of foreseers who had made their adquate selection several years before.
2. The construction of the oven body has been properly designed for efficiently utilizing the latent heat of high temperature gas which is generated by oxidizing combustion, a induced reaction with the aid of the platinum group catalyst provided in the exhaust gas hood.The fesdh air supplied by blower, before to be fed into the enamelling oven, is heated by the high efficiency heat exchanger which is incorporated ib the hood.

Specification :
Main technical order:
1. Scale of wire radius: ￠0.70-￠1.2mm.
2. Weight of drawn wire: PT25-PT35-PT60.
3. Speed of lathe: 55m/min.
4. Device of drawn wire: single-exis moment drawn wire.
5. Number of products: 20wires /24sires.
6. Waste gas disposal: hot blast circulation high-speed use.
7. Number of painting courses: 7 times /8 times.
8. Steaming system: use of remaining way.
9. Way of painting: roller mold.
10. Total power: 130KW.
11. Wire-pulling way: no.

Products : New Cable Machines ( Wire Equipments )

2010-02-01T16:14:00.000-08:00

Detail Information

Description :
This model is designed through years of our experience and modern technology so as to ensure good performance and its high efficiency.

Specification :
1. Continuous softening and tie-plating action may be obtained simultaneously.
2. Tin-plating in tank may be made horizontally or vertically.
3. Applied in the process of tin-plating is an eye viewing die, which may be used in conjunction with tungsten steel die or diamond die.
4. Thermo-preserving system of the tinning oven and annealing oven is made after careful studies by experts.
5. Hence, uniform temperature may be obtained and power consumption is relatively low.
6. This machine is equipped with a feeding wheel whose speed may be adjusted according to requirements by a sliding speed controller.
7. Wire winder is made for horizontal operation; so it is easy to discharge the wire.
8. The wire winder uses a motor of special torque.

New Wire Drawing Machines

2010-02-01T02:19:00.000-08:00

Detail Information

Description :
1. 50HP, motor for main body, low pressure wire winding type.
2. 1HP pump for oil of wire drawing, 4P.
3. Stepped wheel of cast steel and tungsten steel, 4-stop type.
4. Take-off wheel made of tungsten single step.
5. 2HP motor for the rolling machine.
6. Spooling machine.
7. Electric brake, 60kgs/M.
8. Movable controller is to be used on the.
9. Wire sotup machine.
10. Voltage regulator, 20A, 60V.
11. Torgue motor, 2.5kw.
12. Use Japanese NSK bearing.
13. Design for stopping the machine when wire breaks.
14. The machine stops automatical when spool is fully loaded.

Specification :
1. Inlet wire finished wire dia: 3.2 ¢m/m~0.4¢m/m.
2. Wire speed: 650~1000 m/mm.
3. Number of dies: 17.
4. Spooling capacity: 100~600kg.
5. Speed decrease rate: 15%.
6. Lubrication: hydraulic.
7. Annealing wire dia: 0.4~1.6 ¢m/m.
8. Annealing wire speed: 1200 m/min maxi.
9. Annealing method: 3 phase SCR control.
10. Cooling method: water tower cooling.
11. Capacity: 50KVA.
12. Voltage: 220V-440V.

Industrial Machine

2009-12-31T08:28:00.000-08:00

Furnaces

We offer Furnaces that are mainly used for melting alloys in foundry and mini steel plants. Fabricated from quality raw material, our furnaces are durable, reliable and environment friendly. Various process like calcination, ageing, homonizing, baking, sinleing and heat treatment of metals are carried out in the furnaces. We custom design our range as required by our clients.

The types of furnaces offered by us are:

Annealing
Pit pot type
Bell type
Strand Annealing Furnaces
Enamelling ovens
Hot tinning plants
Solution treatment furnaces
Ageing furnaces
Hot Dip/Electro galvanizing plants

Galvanising Plant
We manufacture and export galvanizing plant as per various industrial standards. Our production engineers ensure that the raw material is being optimized well. Moreover, our sophisticated machines ensure that there is no wastage or spoilage.

Flattening Machines
Our flattening machines are being highly appreciated by our clients because of their high quality standards. These are being made of high graded raw material witht the help of various sophisticated machines. They are highly cost effective as they require less consumption power.

Butt Welding Machines
We offer our clients with butt welding machines at industry’s leading prices. These are being manufactured as per industrial standards which ensure their high quality and durability. Moreover, the stringent quality tests ensure that they possess high quality standards.

Wire Pointing Machines
We offer our clients with pointing machines at highly competitive prices. These are being highly appreciated by our clients in the domestic and international market. Moreover, these are stringently tested before being supplied to the clients.

Vertical Drop Coiler
We offer our clients with vertical drop coiler at highly competitive prices. These are being manufactured in our massive manufacturing unit with the help of sophisticated machine. Moreover, the use of high graded raw material procured from the reliable sources enhances their quality standards.

Continuous Coiler Machines
We manufacture a wide range of continuous coiler by using high grade raw material. Our production process conforms to various industrial standards which ensure their high quality and durability. They are offered to our client at highly competitive prices.

Horizontal Spooler Machine
The horizontal spooler machine stands tall as one of the more efficient machines available in the market. These are precision engineered as per international standards keeping in mind the client’s requirements. Our user friendly machines are highly cost effective and have immaculate accuracy.

Nail Machines
The nail machine we offer is being highly appreciated by our clients. Manufactured as per various industrial standards, these stand tall when it comes to performance and efficiency. We perform various stringent quality tests before supplying them to the clients.

Wet Wire Drawing Machines (Rod Break Down)

2009-12-30T08:19:00.000-08:00

Wet Wire Drawing Machines (Ro

d Break Down)

Our wet wire drawing machines are widely in demand because of their durability and cost effectiveness. Our highly qualified team works as per various industrial standards keeping in mind the client’s requirements. Moreover, our stringent quality tests ensure their efficient and long lasting usage.

Dry Wire Drawing Machines

Our dry wire drawing machines are being supplied to various companies in the domestic and international markets. Manufactured as per various industrial standards, we use high graded raw material procured from reliable sources. Moreover, these wire machines are tested on various parameters before being supplied to the clients.

Wet Wire Drawing Machines

Our wet wire drawing machines are being highly appreciated by our clients because of their high quality and durability. Our highly efficient team works in close proximity with the clients to fulfill their requirements with utmost precision. Moreover, these are only supplied to the clients where they are passed through various stringent quality tests.

Tubular Stranding Machines

We offer our clients with high quality tubular stranding machines at highly competitive prices. We use high graded raw material along with various sophisticated machines in the production process. Moreover, our stringent quality tests ensure that the machines have high quality and durability.

Micro Wire Butt Welding Machines

2009-12-29T08:12:00.000-08:00

We offer a complete range of Micro Wire Butt Welding Machines that are suitable to weld mild steel, high carbon steel, copper, aluminium wires etc. These welding machines weld wires in a range of 0.3 - 2.5 mm. We design Micro Wire Butt Welding Machines in Portable Models, Trolley Stand, Spring Loaded Clamping Devices, Foot Pedal Release or other Custom Designing.

Wire Strippers

The least expensive and simplest device for producing heavy weight bundles is the riding stripper. These are mounted on the finishing block of the wire drawing machines and will carry any where from 1,000 to 3,000 lbs. of wire depending upon type size of wire and block diameter. When the stripper is full, it is removed from the Wire Drawing Machines and collapsed over the center of a wire carrier on to which the wire drops. The Stripper is then reinserted into the finishing block and the cycle repeated. Figure illustrates such a stripper without wire.

Wire Rope Hoists

Our range of Wire Rope Hoists comprises of equipment in several working specifications and constructions. We offer hoists with mounted stationary, manual trolleys, powered trolleys, geared trolleys etc. The capacities of both the standard and customized hoists range in several tons.

Features:

Long lift models
High Speeds
Various suspension combinations
Spark resistant
Low headroom
Available in larger custom designs

Killing Roller Sets

TEXT WILL BE UPDATED SOON

Specialized Die Boxes

We offer the complete range of specialized die boxes, which are used for different types of Wire Drawing Machines. Using the best available raw materials, we manufacture die boxes that provide efficient and durable usage. We offer standard as well as custom designed die boxes.

Rotating Die Boxes

Motorized Soap Applicator Die Box

Rotating Die Box For Skinpass Dies

Rotating Die Boxes

OurRotating Die Boxes are meant for improved performance, die life and wire quality. We offer the complete range of rotating die boxes, which cover a wide range of sizes and applications. Our rotating die boxes are available for both single and pressure dies.

Wire Size Range : 16mm to 0.6mm
Die Case Sizes : 43x28/53x35/70x40

Even Die Wear
Even Product Concentricity & Finish
Lower Drawing Temperatures
Better Lubrication on Wire
Increased Drawing Speeds

Motorized Soap Applicator Die Box

We offer a range of robust Motorized Soap Applicator Die Box that are used in Wire Drawing Industry for lubricant enhancement and labour reduction. All the die boxes are manufactured from premium quality raw materials that offer outstanding efficiency and durability. We offer die-boxes in customized specifications too.

Wire Size Range :	16mm to 0.6mm
Model :	AMS-1/AMS2/AMS3
Die Case Sizes :	43x28 / 53x35 / 70x40
Benefits of :	Better Lubrication
Soap Applicators :	Very Long Die Life
	Better Product finish
	Lower drawing temperatures
	Increased drawing speeds
	Almost zero lubrication failure

Rotating Die Box For Skinpass Dies

We offer a range of Rotating Die Boxes without Water Cooling for skin pass dies that have improved wire drawing efficiency and die life. Available in several sizes, our range efficiently meets the entire wire drawing requirements. We also offer customized Rotating Die Boxes for skin pass dies.

The Advantages:

Longer die life
Absolute concentric wires
Less wire breaks
Improved lubrication
Least maintenance down time
Faster line speeds
Less wire scratches

Butt Welding Machines

2009-12-28T08:10:00.000-08:00

The distinguished characteristics of our Butt Welding Machines include accurate welding pressure and a stronger welding strength. high quality of transformer primary and secondary materials provide long and trouble free service life.

Features:

High speed ensures higher level of performance
Several steps for different size ranges
Option to have integrated burr grinder to reduce time cycle.
Available in various specifications of voltage, circuit currents, wire size etc.

Wire Pointing Machines

2009-12-27T08:06:00.000-08:00

Wire Pointing Machines are suitable for pointing different types of materials like Mild Steel, High Carbon Steel, Aluminium, Copper, etc. The pointing rolls are made of High carbon alloy steel materials hardened tempered and ground finished. Both hand driven as well as power driven. The machine is mounted on 4 wheels, thereby making it mobile and useful to serve several drawing machines. The machine is of a Swiveling Type with 12mm-0.8mm thickness of wires.

Wire Straightening Machines & Cutting Machines

2009-12-26T08:03:00.000-08:00

We offer the complete line of Wire Straightening Machine & Wire Cutting Machines that are used to cut various types of wires. Machines are available to Cut Ferrous Metal, Non-Ferrous Metal, Alloys, Fiber Optic, Heavy-Duty Twisted Wire, Ribbon Cabling, Tubing etc. Apart from industry Standards, we also manufacture custom designed Wire Straightening & Cutting Machines.

Features:

Available For Electric Welding Rods, Cloth Hanger Wire, Electrical Parts Etc.
Computer-Controlled Or Programmed Machines.
Any Length Of Wire Can Be Cut.
Straightening Function By Several Straightening Blocks.
Automatic Cutting Gauge To Ensure Requisite Length.
Machines With Automatic Or Semi-automatic Operations.

Standard Accessories:

Electric Motor And Switch.
Automatic Cutting Gauge.
Straightening Bushes And Cutting Knife.

Optional Accessories:

Longer Automatic Cutting Gauge.
Additional Straightening Bushes.
Cutting Knives.

Wire Flattening Mill

2009-12-25T07:54:00.000-08:00

We offer complete range of Wire Flattening Mills for both Ferrous and Non-Ferrous Wires. Though most features of our mills are standard, we can produce entire line as per the exact production requirements of the customers. Besides this, we also offer the complete line of accessories that are used with Wire Flattening Mills.

Features:

Mills Available in Single Stand, Two-Stand and Three-Stand Tandem.
More Stands Can Also Be Added In Conjunction Turk Heads, Draw Blocks Etc.
Custom Designed Tandem Line
Can Handle Inlet Diameters Up To Thousand of an Inch.
Variable Speed

Drum Pack Coilers

2009-12-24T07:52:00.000-08:00

With the advent of robotic welding and high speed automated MIG Welding machines the need for wire in larger packaging evolved. Problem faced with larger packs on spools was to utilize a complicated system of motorized payoffs synchronized with the welding system to supply the wire in the required form and speed.

Hence Drum Pack or Pail Pack was developed internationally to provide wire in cardboard drums with an inner core. The machine used is called a Pale Packer / Drum Pack Coiler / No Twist Coiler.

The difference in between coiler used for packaging of MIG wire and any other wire is that the wire does not have any preset diametric cast and is called pre-straightened wire.

Features of the Machine are :

Max line Speed upto 25 Mtrs/Sec.
Feeding Through Driven Pay Off Din 1000 / 800 / 630.
Allows Wire To Be Feed At Relatively High Speed Without Entanglement And Continuously.
Pre - Straightened Wire Hence Very Low Back Tension For The Pay Off.
No Driven Pay Off Is Required By The Customer.
Different Drum Sizes For 200kgs To 1000kgs Wire Weight.
Lower Packaging Cost Than Winding On Plastic Spools.
Lower Maintenance Cost For End User.

ALVIN TOM Portable Drafting Machine and Board

Leonardo's Dream Machines

Dead Block Coilers

2009-12-23T07:50:00.000-08:00

We provide Dead Block Coilers for HC, MS, SS and non ferrous wires, ranging from 1mm-8mm. To achieve higher productivity high drawing speed is not the only requirement, but uninterrupted production run of the machine is more useful. As a longer production run at a given size is better for the lower operator fatigue also it provides higher coil weights useful in further processes.

Machine Capstan Range : 300mm to 760mm
Wire range : 6mm to 0.9mm for all metals and alloys.

Vertical Drop Coilers

2009-12-22T07:48:00.000-08:00

The application of Vertical Drop Coiler Covers Coiling of low and high carbon steel and stainless steel wires, bare or coated, following heat treatment, surface treatment, galvanising or coating lines. The wire coiled is collected on formers (Stems/Spiders/Baskets), in to drums, or collected in catch weight coils.

Assomac's Vertical Drop Coilers are designed and manufactured to meet the most rigorous demand of the Wire Industry. Each machine is designed with a combination of standard sub assemblies and customized components to match the varied demands of its customers and to deliver the most advanced technical quality with competitive prices.

Largest installed base in the country and long experience in indegenious evolution of these machines make ASSOMAC the best qualified supplier of such equipment. Assomac produces the most sophisticated and sturdy Coilers offering reliability and efficiency in operation for customers worldwide.

A wide range Block diameters is available like 300/400/450/500/600/760/900mm covering wire range from 0.6mm to 8 mm. It is also possible to supply coilers with two sizes of blocks.

Rotating Flat Drum Type Or Double Flanged Type With Single Or Double Pressure Rollers or V-Groove Type Drum Blocks.
Hardened And Ground Block Drums for Low Wearand Tear.
Individually Driven Blocks or Group Driven Blocks, Speed Variable Through Frequency Control A.C. Drivers.
Variable Speed Through Frequency Inverter Not Only For Individual Speed Setting But Also For Their Behavior In Start Up and
For General Safety Reasons During Threading Operations.
Wires Are Guided By Set Of Creel Pulleys; Individual Pulleys, Killing Rollers And Pressure Rollers Are Fitted On Each Block
Depending On The Material Being Coiled.
Pattern Laying Option Will Individually or Group Driven Turntables.
Pneumatic Activated Wire Holding Forks For Easy Removal Of Filled Coil Through Independent Trolleys At Each Coiler.
Benefits In The Form Of Uninterrupted, Non-stop Production, Larger Coil Weight Proper Cast And Helix, Smooth Pay Off For
subsequent operation.
Optional Length Measurement System With Preset Counter, Buzzer & Indication Light.
Machine Speeds available in the range of 20 to 120 DV.

Galvanized Wire Plant (Hot Dip / Electro)

2009-12-21T07:45:00.000-08:00

ssomac group provides its customers the most modern, cost effective, efficient and fast operating lines for hot dip galvanized wire plant. We provide equipment right from drawing lines flattening mills, complete galvanizing lines with vertical drop coilers, horizontal side winder take ups or strip take ups.

By excellence in design, engineering, manufacturing and service we are able to offer most relevant technology for Galvanizing of High Carbon and Low Carbon Steel Wires.

Assomac has become the pioneers in supply of turnkey projects for the wire industry; we will maintain this position trough reliable equipment and service to ourcustomer's world wide.

The plant consists of the following :

Pay Off Stands: Revolving Turn Tables with brake tensioners for wire formers and spools, overhead Coil Opener type Payoff, Pintal Type Pay Off for Spools and Basket Type Pay Off for Coils.
Open Hearth Furnace or Lead Bath Furnace with electric heating or Natural gas/LDO/FO combustion systems with top cover and recuparator for energy conservation.
Online Fumeless Pickling System with water curtains to prevent any acid fumes form exiting the pickling system. The wires travel straight with lower tension and react with invigorated acid traveling against the wire, followed by triple stage water wash system.
Intermediate wiping system in between chambers to prevent excessive carry over of fluids from one chamber to another.
Vertical Gland / Seal Less Pumps for zero down time as no seal change over and routine maintence required.
Stainless steel 316 fabricated Flux Tank with flue gas heating and temperature control system for energy efficiency and coating consistency. Option of Dipping type or straight path type with flux pumping system.
Flux Dryer before the entry to the galvanizing bath hot plate assembly is provided for quick drying of flux which has heating through flue gases of the zinc bath furnace as rising energy costs has made conservation a prime criterion in today's plants.
Zinc Bath furnace consisting of Structural Steel Frame. Which is completely lined using several layers of ceramic refractory. Best quality refractories ensure reliability and durability.
Zinc Tank made out of low carbon low silicon steel plate with side bended at 90 degree welded with specialized electrodes and duly ultrasonic tested for any internal cracks. Options for Light/medium and heavy coating available.
Finally wire is coiled on finishing Take ups where ASSOMAC offers several options depending on the industry use and coil weight requirements right from 25Kg. to 1000Kgs. Horizontal side windertake ups, Vertical dropcoiler with or without pattern lay and strip take ups in our manufacturing programe.

Cold Ribbed Wire Plant

2009-12-20T07:46:00.000-08:00

Assomac offers high speed integrated Cold Ribbed Wire Plant for high-speed continuous drawing and ribbing of mild steel low carbon wire rods used for construction bars & mesh welding.

ASSOMAC entrusted by its honored customers with the responsibility of providing a modern high speed, simple to operate, low cost and low down time machine had to go to the drawing board and come up with several offerings to suit customer needs. The line basically consists of double Skeen Type Tilting Pay Off hydradically operated with entanglement sensing arrangement, for high sped non stop high speed wire rod pay off, inline descaler in horizontal and vertical plane with motorised brushing arrangement, double deck drawing cum ribbing machine with two speed gear box with lower deck for sizing and upper deck for ribbing Jine consist of imported ribbing cassette having option for different ribbing patterns, cheese type spooler with hydraulically operated traverse, spool clamping, spool lifting and spool shifting for fast and easy loading un loading of spools Also Pointing Machine, Butt-Welding Machine, variable speed A.C.Vector Frequency Drive Control Panel and Operator Control Station are part of the complete plant.

Plant Features and Options

Die / Die Less Concept
Hydraulic Tiltable Dual Head Pay Off for Continuos Easy Feeding of Wire Rod Coils by Overhead Crane Qrfork Lift.
Hydraulic Tiltable Neck Type Overhead Pulley for Faster Stinging Operation and Easy Operator Reach.
Dual Plane Adjustable Roller Type Descaler with Hardened Wear Resistant Rollers with High Service Life with Inline Motorized Brushing Unit for Absolute Scale Free Rod Surface.
Motorized Lube Box for Better Lubricant Coating Before Pre-Drawing.
Double Deck Chromium Carbide Matrix Coated Capstans Internally Watercooled for Long Service Life.
Suitable Operator Safety Features Built-in the System like Guards, Wire Brake Sensors, Emergency Locks, Etc.
Pneumatic Clamping, Shifting, Lifting and Setting of Spools for Faster Working Atthe Spooler.
Traverse with Heavy Duty Hydraulic Cylinders with Hardened Guide Rods .
Complete Plant Controlled by One Operator from the Control Desk Having Well Programmed Production Process.

Rod Breakdown Machine

2009-12-19T07:44:00.000-08:00

We offer a wide range of Rod Breakdown Machines, which are highly effective in drawing and coiling aluminum and copper wires. Our machines are available in single or multi-cone options that are designed to fulfill varied requirements of the user. In addition, there are ring type drawing capstans for convenience and low maintenance of the machine. Besides this, all the transmission gears and bearings are enforced with lubricants. We also offer customized designing and developing Rod Breakdown Machines as per the client's requirements.

Option available to have hardened & ground gear drive or to have timing belt drive arrangement for better efficiency , lower maintenance, reduce sound level and zero vibration.

Specifications:

Designed for multi-die and multi-block operation
Can work with spooling machine & coiler
Power efficient
Save floor space
AC & DC drives

Wet Wire Drawing Machine

2009-12-18T07:43:00.000-08:00

We offer state-of-the-art Wet Wire Drawing Machine to draw intermediate wires & fine wires from ferrous metals, Non Ferrous Metals and Metal Alloys. Suitable for high-speed drawing, all the machines consist of swivel Die Holders, Cone Rings, Lubricant Cooling System and adjustable exit Die Holders.

Available in different Capstan Diameters and Spool Sizes, these machines have multi-spindle and multi-die contribution, which suit best with oil based lubricants. We also provide complete accessories and spares parts as well as custom designing to meet clients' needs.

Features:

Mild Steel, Carbon Steel, Stainless Steel, Copper, Aluminum and Alloys
Power Saving High Speed Timing Belts Transmission
Highly Efficient Alloy Steel Hardened
High Service Life due to Tungsten Carbide Cones
Options like Submerged Lubrication or Splash Lubrication
Cones Shaft Assemblies with Easily Removable Bolts
Dancer System for Synchronization of Wire Collection
Re-Circulation of Lubricant through Fluid Pump

OTO Type Wire Drawing Machine

2009-12-17T07:39:00.000-08:00

Assomac offers wide range of high speed state of the art study. O.T.O./ B.B. Type Wire Drawing Machines. The construction of the machine is such that it can withstand rugged workshop conditions of Wire Drawing Plant and can guarantee the performance and accuracy with least maintenance. These O.T.O./B.B. Type Dry Wire Drawing Machine have wide field applications in Stainless Steel, High Carbon Steel, Alloy Steel, Mild Steel, Copper Wire Drawing. The wire is drawn through a die which is fitted in independant Die Box and is accumulated on the Block, and later being taken through the OTO Pulley to the next Die. BB Block is Twist Free Type Machine with Free Bobbin Block for accumulation and transfer to next block and is better for higher speed & better finish materials.

SALIENT FEATURES :

760/650/610/560/450/350/300mm Single / Multi Speed, Non-Slip, Block Type, Continuous Dry Wire Drawing Machines.
Continues Type in Line Machine for Large Cross Sectional Reduction Inlet size up to 12mm. Wire Rods
Combination with 'B.B.' Type Machines for High Speed Applications. AC fixed speed with Speed Change Gear Box or variable speed A C / D C Drive is offered
Heavy Duty Worm and Worm Wheel type Fabricated Gear Boxes with Standard Greaves (RADICON) & NAW Gears.
Combinations of Heli-Worm or Bevel Helical Gear Reduction if required. Dry/Wet Lubricant Type Die Boxes with Optional Rotating Die and Motorized Soap Applicators
Die Chamber with Forced Water Cooling Indirectly or Directly.
Optional Pneumatic/Electro Magnetic, Brakes on Machines
Operator Consol provided on Independent Block or Common Floor Standing type Control Desk
Inching with Foot Operated Pedal Switch Reverse/Forward.
Graded Cast Iron Drums with Chrome Carbide Hard Matrix at Drawing Portion. 1 Forced Water Cooled Drums for Longer Drum Life and Cooler Drawn Wire.
Additionally Air Cooled Drums with specially Designed Uniform Cooling Air Jackets Wire Unloading Trough Stripper Blocks, Dead Block Coiler or Spooler.

Accessories

Wire Pull-in-Dog
Wire Pointing Machine
Wire Stripper
Pay off Stand/Coil Binders
Wire Rope Hoist
Straightening & Indenting Rollers
Wire Butt Welders

BB Type Wire Drawing Machine

Application : For Drawing Stainless Steel / High Carbon Wire
Twist free with High Torsion Values Specially for Spring Grades.
Capstan : 560 / 460 / 400 / 350 / 300mm
Inlet : 5.5mm to 1.6mm
Finish : 4.0mm to 0.6mm
Speed : 5 to 15 meters /sec.
Drive : State of the Art A.C Frequency Converter Variable Speed Control

SLM Dancer Control

2009-12-17T07:38:00.000-08:00

This type of Straight Line Wire Drawing Machine has the drums in vertical axis without any incline the wire transfer happens through two fixed pulleys and on moving pulley mounted on a dancing arm. This dancing arm is either spring loaded or pneumatic loaded with sensor to provide

There is a constant length of wire on the drum and the wire from drawing drum is transferred to the next die through the fixed pulleys and the dancer pulley in the inclined plane.

This machine is particularly suitable for Wires below 4 mm diameter and necessarily required for wire sizes below1.5mm. Other features, fitments, optional attachments remain same as offered along with Straight Line Sensor Control Type Machine.

SLM	DANCER CONTROL			SENSOR CONTROL
DRAWING M/C MODEL	ASL-300	ASL-400	ASL-450	ASL-500	ASL-560	ASL-610	ASL-750
BLOCK SIZE	300	400	450	500	560	610	750
Max. INLET WIRE ROD (C=0.80%)	2.6	3.5	4	4.5	5.5	6.5	10
(C=0.12%)	3	4	4.5	5	6.5	8	14
Min. OUTLET WIRE	0.5	0.6	0.8	1.2	1.4	1.6	2
Max. SPEED (mtr./sec)	25	25	25	25	20	18	12
Max. POWER (kw)	15	18.5	22	30	40	45	75

Dry Wire Drawing Machine

2009-12-16T07:29:00.000-08:00

Straight Line Wire Drawing Machine

SLM Sensor Arm

Straight Line Wire Drawing Machines were developed for straight or deflection free drawing of wire to provide better drawability lower frictional contact and lower operator interference.

Theoretically there is no limit as far as the wire material or wire diameter is concerned to be drawn on these machines. ASSOMAC has pioneered to indigenously develop the Straght-Line Wire Drawing Machine Technology in India. Presently the range available is capstan diameter 900mm, 750mm, 600mm, 550mm, 500mm, 460mm, 400mm and 300mm for inlet wire diameter 16mm down to 0.5mm. Line speeds upto 22 Mtrs / Sec.

These heavy Straiht Line Wire Drawing Machines provide remarkable drawing performance for Low, Medium and High Carbon Steel Wire, Stainless Steel Wire and special Alloy Steel Wire and Non-Ferrous Alloy Steel Wire.

This machine has a sensor roller between the drum and the next die such that the wire passes in contact with this roller. These rollers have sensors to detect the position of the arm and maintain tension on the wire by regulating speed of the drums. The drums of this machine are inclined to the vertical axis to effect fill on the drums. Principally this machine is best suited for thick wires.

Features of Straight Line Wire Drawing Machine:

Machines are built on modular structure, in combination of Blocks and do not require any special foundation.
Better productivity due to higher drawing speeds due to twist-free operation.
Easy operation and faster threading.
High pressure Narrow gap, internal water cooling for high efficiency cooling of wire.
High degree of reliability - low downtime due to lower no of wear parts.
Much better finish wire quality due to a gentler handling of the wire during the drawing process (less wire deviations, low torsion etc.) as well as an optimized wire cooling.
Pneumatic high speed brake system.
Better environmental conditions due to increased dust protection.
Greater flexibility and lower current consumption due to modern AC drive technology and efficient power transmission system.
PLC based control with profibus digital communication and fault diagnostic system.

Optional Fitment:

Stripper Block
Rotating Die Boxes
Motorized Soap Applicator Die Boxes
Die less drawing trough Rolling Cassette
Laser wire diameter measurement system
Dust Suction System

Heavy Fabrication and Machinery Job Work

2009-12-14T02:26:00.000-08:00

We, at Vivek Enterprises, are committed towards providing excellence in our heavy fabrication and machinery job works. Our years of experience allow us to offer a wide variety of custom precision wires to our manufacturing clients. Our strength comes from our engineers and workers who develop precision wire forms for a large variety of applications.

Features
Corrosion resistant
Superior strength
Easy fabrication
Low maintenance
Low thermal conductivity
High load capacity
Resistant to chipping and cracking

Vivek Enterprises is capable of undertaking Heavy Fabrication and Machinery Job Work of upto 1.50- 4.5meter length.

We can take up turning jobs of 2.5 meters 0 x 600 mm. and of 1.5 meters x 4.5 meters. We are well known in the industry for our quality and time bound-working style.

Features
Capability:	As per the buyer's specifications
Place of origin:	India

Wire Galvanizing Plant (G.I. Plant)

2009-12-13T02:24:00.000-08:00

The Wire Galvanizing Plant is suitable for making nets and networks for winding, baling, hanging, hauling or as overhead wires. Our products have good pliability along with an excellent tensile strength. They are break resistance and have anti-corrosion qualities inherent in them. The wires are coated with a thick layer of pure zinc. One can be sure that our products quality will not change and no flaking off of zinc coating will happen even after long and repeated uses. The wires have a bright finish with an even and attractive zinc coating.

Features

Line to 40 line Cold Dip/Hot Dip Galvanizing

Feeding - Continuous Annealing/Pre Annealed Wire

Fumeless Pickling/Conventional Pickling

Horizontal Take-up/Vertical Drop Coiler

Customized Coil Weight (15 Kg. to 500 Kg.)

Size Range: 6mm to 1.6mm / l.4mm to 0.8mm / 0.7mm to 0.2mm

Features
Capability:	As per the buyer's specification
Place of origin:	India

MIG Wire Plant

2009-12-12T02:22:00.000-08:00

Vivek Enterprises offers a high speed integrated Copper Coating line for high-speed continuous drawing and inline copper coating of MIG welding quality low carbon steel wires. Its honored customers entrust Vivek Enterprises with the responsibility of providing a modem high production machine. Thus, the drawing board has developed a high speed, simple to operate, low cost and low down time machine to suit its customer’s needs. The line basically consists of payoff with entanglement sensing arrangement, 11 Die five spindle wet drawing machine, Stainless Steel or FRP/PP Copper Coating tank with rotating finishing die, triple deck BB- block for skin pass with killing arrangement and Spooler for plastic spools or cheese spools. Also pointing-cum-threading machine, butt-welding machine, control panel and control desk are a part of the complete plant. The Drawing, Copper Coating and Spooling Line for Welding wire, work on only one vertical plane, with no torsion of the wire. It has an independent pulling capstan, after the treatment tank along with a variable drive.

Machine Input/Output
Maximum Speed: 10 meter/second
Maximum Production Per Day: 2500 Kgs. (Size: 1.0mm)
Feeding Size: 2.5mm or 2.0mm
Finish Size: 1.6mm to 0.8mm
EB Machine Combination: Dry Blocks / Wet Wire Drawing Machine

Plant Features and Options

Wet Drawing Concept

High Speed Belt Drive for sound less efficient Transmission of power or Helical Gear Drive in Wet Drawing Machine.

Tungsten Carbide Drawing Cones for long service period or Carbon Steel Drawing Cones for economy.

Copper coating tank made out of Stainless Steel or Fiber Reinforced Plastic and Poly Propylene material with five/six chambers with the required heating arrangements.

Cast Nylon and Graded synthetic pulleys for corrosion resistance in coppering tank.

Adjustable Killing Rollers nine each in Vertical and Horizontal planes for proper Cast and Helix both at BB Block and spooler.

Wire accumulation at BB- Block for continued working when spooler stops.

Pneumatic clamping of spools and wire for faster working at the spooler.

Traverse with fine Variable Pitch adjustment using A.C. Variable Drive or variable Using traverse.

Complete plant controlled by one man using the control desk having variable speed drives.

Technical Data

Inlet Wire Dia : 2.4-2.0mm
Finish Wire Dia : 1.6/1.2/0.8/0.6mm
No. Of Dies : 1 Dry + 11 Wet + 1Skin Rotating Die
Line Speed : 8-12 Mts./Sec
Power Requirement : 7.5HP at Pre Drawing Block
50HP at Wet Drawing
15 HP at BB Block
5 HP at Spooler
Brakes : Pneumatic Disk or Electromagnetic Drum type
Drive : Imported Toothed Belts & Pulleys, Plain and V-belts.
Controls : P.L.C. Controlled or Synchronized A.C. Variable Frequency Drives Panel, with operator console.

Features
Capability:	As per the buyer's specifications
Place of origin:	India

Wire Straightening and Cutting Machines

2009-12-11T02:20:00.001-08:00

Wire Straightening and Cutting Machines are widely used to extend wires from a roll or coil in order to cut them. For straightening the wires, wire straightners are used that extend the wires and straighten them as required for the desired purpose. These machines are offered with extensive features requiring diverse applications. Some machines are configured for straightening and cutting all kinds of cold drawing wires and other nonferrous metal wires. They may cut the wire automatically in the required dimension and thereafter, work continuously.

These machines are available with various features such as different diameter size wires for straightening, different cutting lengths and standard multi-power motor both for straightening and cutting of wires. These machines are available in automatic versions for convenience, ease and to increase productivity. These automatic machines are particularly used for drawl wires and are particularly fit to straighten mild steel wires.

Features

These machines are available with various features such as different diameter size wires for straightening, different cutting lengths and standard multi-power motor both for straightening and cutting of wires.

These Machines are designed for straightening and cutting any kind of metal wire/bar or non - metal wire/bar such as, steel bar for construction, welding rods, netting - wire, fan netting hanger, refrigerator netting, shopping basket, shoes rack, book stand, domestic fowls cage, record stand and the other kinds of steel wire etc.

These machines are easy to operate. Moreover, it rotates smoothly and noiselessly, precise in its measure and strong in its structure.

During the operation, the shifting of a cutter cooperatively ceaselessly continues the feeding of wire/bar and the cutting action.

Our machines are known for their high speed and high precision. They are designed in such a way so as to give out a high output, high precision and a fast changeover.

Features
Capability:	As per the buyer's specifications
Place of origin:	India

Wire Drawing Machinery

2009-12-11T02:11:00.000-08:00

The Wire Drawing Machinery is of two types, namely the Dry Wire Drawing Machine and the Wet Wire Drawing Machine. We manufacture multi spindle and multi dies as 13 die, 17die and 21die machines with spoolers or with vertical drum attachments for coiling the finished wire sizes at a fixed speed or variable speed with A.C. drives and D.C. drives.

Features

High efficiency circulation pumps for lubricating the dies.

Hardened and helical teeth ground gears submerged in lubrication oil.

High Carbon high chromium/tungsten carbide made cone rings as per customer's choice.

Final Speeds: 400 to 800 meters/minute.

All rotating parts dynamic balanced.

Variable A.C. drives and D.C. drives (Optional)

Material Drawn: Stainless Steel Wire, Mild Steel Wire, Galvanised Wire, Nichrome Wire, Copper & Aluminium Wire

Main body with base, drawing drum and drawing die box of close grain Cast Iron

Water-cooling arrangement provided inside the Drawing Drum and the Die Box Phosphorous bronze gears with high carbon axle steel worms

Suitable for making Nail Wire from 8 mm or 6 mm input rods up to 2 mm

Also suitable for making Wire used to make Barbed Wire, Wire Mesh, etc.

Wet / Slip type Fine Wire Drawing Machine also available - Details on request

Wire Pointing Machines
This machine is suitable for pointing different types of materials like Mild Steel, High Carbon Steel, Aluminium, Copper, etc. The pointing rolls are made of EN-31 material and are ground finished. They are driven by power as well as by hand. The machine is mounted on 4 wheels, thereby making it mobile and useful to serve several drawing machines. The machine is of a swiveling type with12mm-0.8mm thickness of wires.

Descaling Attachments
This attachment is designed in such a way so that it is suitable to fit with the first block of the wire drawing machines in order to remove the scales from the inlet wire rod.

Die Polishing Machine is also supplied with 1HP/3 Phase Electric Motors.

Features
Capability:	As per the buyer's specifications
Place of origin:	India

Wet Wire Drawing Machine

2009-12-11T02:03:00.000-08:00

Multi Spindle and multi dies as 13 die,
17die, 21die machines with spooler or
with vertical drum attachment for
coiling the finish wire sizes at a fix
speed or variable speed with A.C.
drives and D.C. drives.

Features:
High efficiency circulation pump for lubricating the dies.
Hardened and helical teeth ground gears submerged in lubrication oil.
High Carbon high chromium/tungsten carbide made cone rings as per customer's choice.
Final Speeds: 400 to 800 meters/minute.
All rotating parts dynamic balanced.
Variable A.C. drives and D.C. drives (Optional)

Material Drawn: Stainless Steel Wire, Mild Steel Wire, Galvanised Wire, Nichrome Wire, Copper & Aluminium Wire

Wire Galvanizing Plant

10 line to 40 line Cold Dip/Hot Dip Galvanising
Feeding - Continuos Annealing/Pre Annealed Wire
Fumeless Pickling/Conventional Pickling
Horizontal Takeup/Vertical Drop Coiler
Customised Coil Weight (15 Kg. to 500 Kg.)
Size Range: 6mm to 1.6mm / 1.4mm to 0.8mm / 0.7mm to 0.2mm

Wire Drawing Machine (BB.Block Type)

Input Size : 4.0mm to 2.7mm
Finish Size : 1.2mm to 0.8mm
Final Speeds : 400 to 700 meters/minute

MIG Wire Plant

Drawing, Copper Coating and Spooling Line for Welding wire, working on only one vertical plane, with no torsion of the wire. Independent pulling capstan, after the treatment tank with variable drive.
Maximum Speed: 10 Meter/second
Maximum Production Per Day: 2500 Kgs. (Size: 1.0mm)
Feeding Size: 2.5mm to 2.0mm
Finish Size: 1.6mm to 0.8mm
Machine Combination: Dry Blocks / Wet Wire Drawing Machine

8 Blocker Binding Wire Machine

Input Size: 2.6mm to 2mm
Finish Size: 1mm to 0.8mm
Speeds: 300 meters to 425 meters per minute
Feeding Material: Mild Steel Annealed Wire
Production Per Day: 2400 Kgs. (Size: 0.9mm)

Wire Annealing Furnaces

Material Handling Equipments
Electric Operated Wire Rope Hoists
E.O.T. Cranes

WET WIRE DRAWING MACHINES

2009-12-07T16:52:00.000-08:00

Wet wire drawing machines are suitable to draw low, high carbon and stainless steel wire. For certain applications like CO2 welding wire and steel cord wire for automotive tires special machines types have been developed.
The machines are generally designed and built to draw intermediate size wire from about Max 3.5 mm to 2.0mm to a finish size of 1.2mm - 0.6mm. and are generally of the so called wet slip type.
There are 2 basic wet slip machine types.
A)
The machine where the elongation is compensated for by increasing the draw race rpm via the transmission gear ratios. These machines are generally designed to accommodate anywhere from 6-19 dies.
B)
The cone type machine where the the elongation is compensated for by increasing the draw race diameters sequentially, are generally designed to accommodate anywhere from 12 dies to in some cases as many as 32 dies. This is done by using different machines executions with 2 or 4 or 6 and exceptionally 8 couples of drawing cones each with 5-6 draw races per shaft.
Both machine types as an inherent result of the design have fixed elongation ratio between each die. As a result the die sizes has to be selected so that the area reduction through each die is slightly higher then the theoretical area reduction that would match the fixed elongation. This way the draw race for the second die will pull through more wire than is called for by the 3rd and subsequent drawraces and as a result the wire will constantly slip on the draw races. The slip factor is normally 1-3 %. While the finish diameter can be determined and adjusted by varying the inlet diameter and the reduction taken through the inlet die plus the number of draw races used the slip factor can to a degree also be used to fine tune a draft serie.

Below is a number photos of various machine types.