Zinc is a versatile metal that offers many advantages to product development and manufacturing, yet many products designers and engineers are fully aware of these benefits. Zinc die casting is an optimal choice for the right casting. Dave Magner, Vice President of Sales, and Marketing at Deco Products talks with us to understand when zinc is a good choice and how it impacts both product design as well as manufacturing and profitability.

What is Zinc Die Casting and how is it different from other types of metal casting?

Zinc die casting is very similar to other forms of metal die casting. The diecasting process, regardless of the metal, you usually have a mold that can split in half, and you shoot the metal into the two halves as they're pressed together. You let the metal solidify, and then you split the two halves apart and have to extract the part. And then from there you're going to have some excess material as the material flows through and solidifies. And we call that a runner or the gate or the overflow. And so that has to be trimmed off. And then that might be the functional part. It may be that simple, but from there, often there may be some secondary operations that one would need to do to make that part per print and per the specific specifications for the application.

The Differences Are:

Lower Melting Point

Zinc has a lower melting point than other metals like aluminum or steel. The difference in using zinc
it generally runs quicker because it does solidify quicker with the lower melting temperature. Zinc is much more tolerant for varying wall thicknesses because the zinc cools at a more constant rate, even in a thinner and a thicker wall. And so, you'll get a better surface finish with a zinc part.

Zinc is Heavy

Zinc is a heavy material and very dense material. If the weight is a parameter that that design engineer is really factoring in for fuel efficiencies and other reasons, zinc is not going to be the first choice of material. But there are times where weight and the perception of heavier material give the end user a very premium feel. So, there'll be automotive applications where the door handle will be made out of zinc, even though it weighs a little bit more. The perceived value is so much better. You'll see that in a luxury car. Same thing with windows, right? Yeah. The hardware aspect is so important where the value and the perceived value is so much higher on a zinc part, both because it feels better, and it looks better.

Zinc is More Fluid When Casting

Zinc also can fill a mold easier than other metals, so finer design features can be put into the mold both for a better look and reduce the cost of having to machine the details into the part.

Zinc is Less Abrasive

Zinc is less abrasive than aluminum or steel, this means the molds used to die cast the part have less wear and tear and last longer. In fact, a zinc die cast mold will last ten times longer that a steel mold.

Designing & Manufacturing with Zinc

When you're working with a design engineer, there are two sides of the coin that need to worry about. One is, should the part be made out of zinc or not? If zinc is the material in the diecasting process is a strong candidate, then it's a matter of looking at that design and balancing the requirements of the design, the geometry, the testing requirements, things of that nature with what's manufacturable.

This is a real collaborative effort, because sometimes designers will add a feature where we'll ask, well, can that feature be slanted? Or what we call, can we add draft to that? Because we want that part to be less blocky and have filets and be tapered in a lot of ways, what we call draft, so that the part falls out of the tool much more easily. That improves the surface finish of the part and ultimately the quality of the part from day one, but then also the tool life and the quality of that part a year later, even ten years later.

Secondary Operations with Zinc

We talk a lot about the casting process, but then there are secondary processes that are important to add functionality or make the part ready for assembly. That could include machining, adding taft holes, could be powder coating or other decorative or non-decorative corrosion protection finishes. And then just the assembly process. A lot of Deco's background is in the hardware, whether it's window, door. And you can think about the different mechanisms that one could use. Zinc on windows and doors. And when we talk about the door, the egress or ingress access system needs to be something that functions really well, is strong, but also has this great perceived value.

Dave Magner is the Director of Sales and Marketing at Deco Products.

www.decoprod.com

The Truth You Need To Know About 30 Day Collagen Supplement Challenges

There's a lot of people out there promoting 30-day collagen supplement challenges to help with joint pain and in a previous discussion we talked about the collagen rebuilding process and what was involved to help joint pain. We want to know, is it possible to see results in 30 days or is it just marketing hype?

 Dr. Kramer explains that when a person experiences collagen loss due to osteoporosis or some other situation, that means that the cartilage has been damaged to such an extent that you're hitting the nerves that are embedded in the cartilage. And then when you start having motion, those nerves send a signal which is pain, which is telling you that there's something amiss, there's something not working quite right in your cartilage.

The Main Cause of Cartilage Loss

Number one is age. As you get older, sometimes the mechanism for rebuilding the cartilage is slower than the mechanism that is destroying naturally and if the damage is greater than the ability to repair the damage, your joint cartilage gets thinner and exposes your nerves and it becomes painful. That's a signal that your cartilage. You either have to slow down the use there and have the cartilage get caught up or you have to tell the cartilage to speed up and keep growing because you have more activity.

Why is 30 days not enough time for this to do the job right?

There are 3 main reasons why 30 days is not enough to really rebuild cartilage in a joint.

The first step is to send a signal to the joint to start rebuilding the collagen. Collagen molecules have the ability to trigger the process to start rebuilding and replacing cartilage in a joint. The damage has not only thinned the amount of cartilage but the friction of bone on bone has created a pitted surface. Step one is to fill in the pits so that the surface is smooth which may take a minimum of 30 days. Next you need to create a thick pad of collagen on your bone between 5-6 cm thick. That is your shock absorber, so you have to have a collagen sheath on both sides to absorb shock in the joint. In the third month, it has to start lubricating the pads and the joint again. So, you have two smooth surfaces with a lubricant that will take 90 days, minimum. It could take as much as 120, but you will get there.

What should a consumer look for or be aware of in selecting an effective collagen supplement?

Understand that type 1 and 3 type collagen supplements are usually made from fish or fish by products which are not a effective as type 2 collagens. We make type 2 bovine collagen supplements because it offers the best results. Any collagen that is water soluble “mix in in a glass of water” has significantly reduced the ability to trigger the molecule to trigger the rebuilding process and thus will take much longer or not at all.

How is your Bovine type 2 Collagen Different.

 Some companies take a cow hide from Brazil, stick it in acid and make it soluble and dry it. You can call it collagen, but it's been extremely reduced in effectiveness, it’s damaged collagen that you're taking in.

Collagen type two comes from another part of the animal. We use collagen from the trachea of cattle because it is strong and is a fibrous molecule, and it's flexible. It also has the ability to move back and forth, being very flexible. And that's what you want to find when you have, like, a joint. Most joints are flexible, and you'd like to see the ability that movement in the joint doesn't cause pain.

Summary

 There are many more areas we can discuss but the fact is that all the medical evidence and information is available on our website. We should also mention that are supplements are made in the United States and use only bovine collagen from slaughterhouses in the US. Our product is regulated by several agencies including the FDA to strict standards for quality. We also maintain extremely high traceability standards to know where all of our ingredients come from.

Many Thanks to Dr. Allen Kramer, President of SB-Edge Collagen Supplements

www.sb-edge.com 

How Collagen Helps with Joint Pain

43 million Americans are affected by joint pain. That's almost 16% of the population. Much of this pain is due to the result of aging and as a result, many adults are looking for ways to deal with joint pain.

Dr. Allan Kramer, PhD was born and raised on a farm in Northwest Iowa where he earned his degree in chemistry and math then attended Kansas State University where he earned his degree in Organic Chemistry. Dr. Kramer. He spent most of his life developing animal vaccines. His work also allowed for the success of the company in producing swine vaccines for the agricultural sector.  Additionally, there were projects related to Chondroitin Sulfate and hormone isolation, both of which allowed him to form Sioux Biochemical and SBEDGE a bovine collagen manufacturer.

Dr. Kramer explains that the majority of joint pain is the result of injuries or aging. Join pain affects our ability to be mobile, to walk and move around and affects the cartilage in our joints. Cartilage is a web that is formed in the joint and is flexible and durable. As time goes by, we put a lot of stress on our joints which reduces the amount of cartilage which in turn creates friction and thus pain. Arthritis is another factor that affects our joints and is an immune reaction where your body is fighting against itself by attacking your joints and the cartilage in your joints. Loss of cartilage is the main reason for pain.

Every joint has two collagen layers. The one that both movable parts are covered with collagen and that collagen is where that interaction takes place also the fact that there's a lubricant in there. By replacing collagen, it can improve the joint’s function and ability to move and reduce pain.

Collagen needs to be stimulated. We do have the method to repair the collagen, but they need to be stimulated by another product and what we are using today is we're looking at bovine collagen. It does trigger an immune response. It starts in the gut and the gut then tells us to go to the joints and it starts the mechanism of remaking the collagen that is being lost. There are cells there that have to be stimulated. Again, we do have the method to repair the collagen, but it has to be told that it should repair it and make more.

Hear the Entire Podcast Below:

Solar Array Batteries Use a Network To Talk With The Grid!

As more and more companies look to solar energy for power many new challenges come along that need a solution for it to all work. In this case The Rock River Lumber and Grain Company had installed solar panels to help reduce energy costs. After installing their solar panels, they decided to a battery array to both store energy as well as sell power back to the utility grid but in order to do that it needed to securely connect with the utilities network.

How Twin State Got Involved

Enter Twin State Technical Services company located in Davenport, Iowa. Rock River Lumber and Grain were already a client of Twin State Technical Services providing IT and networking services. They explain the situation and Jake Thompson, a network engineer works with them to solve a series of challenges and ultimately create a network that gets them access to the internet so they can send power out over the utility grid.

 Jake Explains that the company installed the solar panel in Prophetstown, Illinois where they are headquartered. The project was one of the largest of its in Whiteside County at the time.

 They have a grain facility out in Sterling that operates as a rail terminal where they offload all their grain. They put the solar system in to offset their energy costs and get some energy for themselves. About two years after the installation Moxie and recommended installing a battery backup array we can install on your site. The solar panels can charge those batteries during operation. When the grid needs power, it can pull that energy off the batteries in a stored format pushing it out to all the local residences, businesses, to the grid.

 In order to do that, someone has to come into the network and say, hey, I want that power, and that you do that over the Internet to communicate what is needed and what is available and to track all the actions.

Challenges

The challenge s included the size of the property, which was very large, multiple buildings all around an active rail yard. The solar array was at one end, the battery was in the middle, and they had to be connected somehow to the DMark, which is where we send our Internet out to the world. The way we did that, we had to mount devices called Point to point. It basically is a wireless connection between where we want to send data to the solar panels or to the battery backups. You just mount this radio antenna up as high as you can so there's no interference, and you point it as close as you can.

We worked with one of the solar panels to look at that data, and then we had to run another point to point to the other end of the property to look at the batteries. When we can see the data the n we can get it out to the internet.

We had some firewall changes and policies that we had to put in place so that we could have security on it. No outside world could get into it, only the organization that wants to control those batteries and those were put in place as well.

Jake Thompson is a Network Engineer for Twin State Technical Services : Twin State Technical Services

Focus on Customer’s Needs & Problems and How It Helped Sells Yard Sign Stakes

Our podcast on Delighting Your Customers and how focusing on Customer’s Needs & Problems Helps Sells Yard Sign Stakes is an inspiration discussion about growing a business and surviving the COVID pandemic and supply chain disruptions.

Jon Gainer is the President and owner of Stake World a manufacturer of lawn sign stakes. Most of us would think, what difference could there be in a wire frame that you stick in the ground to hold a sign up. But Jon saw that his customers had needs and problems and how by making products that make them successful helped not only to grow is business but develop long term relationships and many repeat customers.

The podcast talks about how designs and materials were researched and developed because many of his original customers had problems and needed solutions. We also talk about not giving in to using foreign suppliers to try and keep manufacturing costs down and how by sticking to your guns helps retain current customers and win over new customers.

Many Thanks To: Jon Gainer, President and Owner: StakeWorld - https://www.stakeworld.com/