Miniature Valve with Magnum Flow!
Hargraves Technology Corporation, the leader in reliable miniature diaphragm pumps, compressors, and vacuum pumps is continuing to revolutionize the fluidic delivery control component industry. Hargraves introduces the next generation in solenoid valve technology - The Magnum 10mm Solenoid Valve Series. Magnum valves feature breakthrough engineering innovations that enable them to deliver twice the flow, reduce power consumption, and be optimized for application specific performance.
75 Magnum Valve shown with quarter for scale.
For years, Hargraves has been developing and delivering innovative pumps that exceed 20,000 hours, operate in hotter environments and produce more output in smaller packages than traditional pump technology. Hargraves observed a trend in OEM product design that moved towards smaller, lighter, and more portable equipment. This new design trend challenged component manufacturers to produce smaller, lighter components, specifically miniature solenoid valves, to fit these new products. With these smaller valves came smaller orifices and restricted throughput, effectively giving up higher performance for a smaller package. The typical 10mm solenoid valve has up to 1/6th the throughput area when compared to the pump output capacity. Due to the restrictions of these small, ineffective valve orifices, the pumps in a fluidic system have been required to overcome significantly large pressure differentials. As a pump manufacturer, Hargraves has observed that the common practice of OEM engineers to overcome this reduction in throughput has been to utilize a pump with up to 200% more capacity than necessary. Therefore even with the higher output pumps, minimal performance gains were achieved, while adding unnecessary weight, increased power consumption, increased heat, noise and size. Additionally, as OEMs develop smaller instruments with more functions, more solenoid valves are required compounding the increased heat, noise and power consumption problems.
Hargraves took a unique view of the challenges of size, efficiency and performance and came up with a single solution. They realized they needed to look at the valve design through the pump requirements and engineer a valve that was small in overall size but had a much larger orifice – The Magnum Series 10mm Solenoid Valve! Hargraves was able to take the state of the art to a higher level and developed the Magnum Series with two times the flow and lower power consumption than the closest existing 10mm solenoid valve. Hargraves accomplished this by using finite element analysis to analyze the fluid flow throughput and the flux efficiency of the magnetic field created by the solenoid. The Magnum Engineering Team overcame the significant challenge of combining the best design capabilities to maximum flow and efficiency with manufacturing processes to enable fluidic tailoring for application specific flow, resulting in a revolutionary advancement in solenoid valve technology. The Magnum Series valve has the largest orifice available in a 10mm package size allowing the highest throughput while reducing power consumption and heat generation.
The Magnum Series 10mm Solenoid Valve has been developed with three main benefits in mind – twice the flow, half the power and tailored application specific flow. In addition, the Magnum can be mounted individually, on a manifold or soldered directly to a printed circuit board, giving design engineers the most flexibility available. With a 250 million-cycle life span, the Magnum is designed to meet the needs of the most demanding applications.
Imagine saving energy, time, space and weight while increasing performance and lifespan of your fluidic system. With the Magnum Series in your product, all this and more is possible. For information on what a Magnum Series valve can do for you, click here to contact an Applications Specialist.
Magnum Valve Case Study
An Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) challenged Hargraves Technology Corp. to improve performance of their portable device, which was required to inflate and deflate a 1.5-liter chamber several times per hour. The OEM required higher flow, longer battery operation and longer device life. The OEM had requested a higher output pump with improved efficiency and longer life.
After reviewing the application, Hargraves discovered that in order to reduce device size and weight, the OEM had utilized a typical 10mm solenoid valve. This small valve, with its small, restrictive orifice, was the weak link in their fluidic circuit. What the OEM needed was not a higher output pump, but a small valve with a higher throughput. Hargraves realized this was a perfect application for their new Magnum Series 10mm solenoid valves. After fitting the device with Magnum valves and testing was complete, the results were in and they were astonishing.
With the Magnum valves, the device was able to inflate or deflate the chamber three times faster (see illustration I and II) than it could with brand “x” valves. This means the device only had to run 1/3 the time to accomplish the same workload. This reduction in operating time reduced power consumption by 2/3, increased component lifespan 300%, and increased design flexibility. By decreasing power consumption, battery requirements were effectively reduced. This gave the development engineers the flexibility to design an even lighter and more compact device.
By using Magnum Series valves the OEM was able to realize a 300% improvement in performance, battery life and component lifespan, and operating cost. Additionally, since the pressure differential through the Magnum Valve is dramatically less from their previous restricted valve (see illustration III, Hargraves provided the OEM with a more reliable pump solution.
Click here to contact Hargraves to see what a Magnum Valve can do for your application. |
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