Qsine's Manifold/Integrated Circuit Service
Qsine offers a comprehensive service for hydraulic manifold design and manufacturing.
- Superior Plumbing:
- It looks more professional than a bunch of tees or crosses.
- There are less places for leaks or weeping to occur.
- It is more compact and can be properly mounted down.
- Simpler Maintenance: In the case of integrated circuits it is very easy to do valve replacement.
- Better Space Efficiency: Junction manifolds are generally more compact than line fittings and integrated circuits are always more compact than individual line components.
- Cost Effective: The cost of the manifold is usually offset by the savings in labour; even in one-off and low quantity systems. And the professional appearance is not even comparable
- Wide application Range: Manifolds can be quickly designed and manufactured for very simple junction applications to highly complex integrated circuits.
At Qsine, we have been designing and building custom manifolds and integrated circuits since 1988. Over the years we have evolved from 2D CAD to 3D and we have custom programmed our CAD system to help us quickly layout, verify and detail our designs. In the spring of 2002, we added a modern CNC machining center so we could perform the manufacturing in-house. Bringing the manufacturing in-house and leveraging our hydraulic expertise has the following advantages:
- Comprehensive Verification & Inspection:We inspect for hydraulic logic before the part even gets tool-pathed for the machine. By understand the function of every hole in the manifold, we can verify the correctness of the part not whether it meets spec on the drawing. Some of the benefits our experience has over the average machine shop are:
- The variations in cartridge valves, industrial valves, fitting types are all common knowledge to our people, so we understand the critical aspects of the interfaces.
- We understand critical seal parameter such as:
- their locations for various interfaces.
- how to control and check dimension tolerances and surface finishes.
- how to handle the parts so seal surfaces are not damaged
- For our customer designed products, we help by:
- verifying safety, circuit logic and performance.
- ensuring machined features are possible to construct and do not nick seals when valves are installed.
- sourcing alternates for long lead, obsolete or hard to find components.
- Fast Delivery: Generally we can design and manufacture and deliver manifolds in 2-4 weeks (Depends on complexity and work load at the time of order).
Our manifold/integrated circuit service includes:
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Custom CAD...
At Qsine, we have made great efforts to become proficient with our CAD tools. We first started using CAD in 1987 and we moved from 2D to 3D CAD back in 1993. Over the years, we have expended significant time evolving and customizing our CAD system to suit our needs.
As we developed integrated circuits for our products and our customers, we wrote our own software to improve the design procedures and automate repetitive tasks in designing manifolds. As a result, a complex manifold, similar but even more complex than one that took almost 8 weeks to complete in 1991, was designed and detailed in about 3-4 days.
Relatively simple circuits, like the one shown to the right, can often be taken from schematic to detailed shop drawing within 2-3 days.
Prototype & Small Run Manufacturing...
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We manufacture manifolds from 6061-T6 aluminum (3000 psi maximum) or 65-45-12 ductile iron (5000 psi maximum). Currently, we are well equipped with SAE O-Ring Boss tools (-4 to -20) and industry pseudo-standard, common-cavity tools (all standards and a few specials from C4-2 to C16-4). Generally, prototypes can be turned around from design to finished part in 2-4 weeks. Our focus is on prototypes and small, batch manufacturing runs. It is our goal to keep the lead times short and we will not run production quantities that will occupy the machining center for more than 5 days at a time. We can refer you to a number of manufacturers that will be pleased to accommodate the larger quantities. |
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In order to offer a quick delivery, prototype, manufacturing service, we have invested heavily and are continuing to invest in tools that aid rapid setup and tool path code generation. We are currently developing our own CAM software that is tailored specifically for the manufacturing needs of hydraulic manifolds.
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Tooling...
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Custom Tools:
One tool that was developed by Qsine, in order to improve the quality of our manifold manufacturing service, is the engraving tool shown to the left. We designed and built this little engraving pencil so that it can be carried by the machining center to permanently mark port identifications, part numbers and even logos. While we were developing this tool, we modified our machining center to run an air powered version of this engraver. We developed a high-speed bearing/seal to port compressed air down the spindle to a reciprocating pencil. We also developed our own CAM software to generate the CNC tool paths to write the letters and logos in any scale and at any rotation. The compressed air feature not lets us do very detailed work with spindles |
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We have the following tools in stock for producing manifolds with a quick turn-around:
SAE O-Ring Boss:
| Standard Spot Face |
Reduced Spot Face (for socket plugs) |
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Industry Common Cavity:
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| EV: Eaton-Vickers, HF: HydraForce, PK: Parker, SD: Sauer-Danfoss | |
Sun:
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DIN Slip-In:
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Here are a few sample manifolds that were manufactured on our machining center:
