Quality9 min read
Corrective action and preventive action: a loop that actually closes
CAPA fails when it stops at the apology. The work is containment, cause, a change to the system and evidence that the failure has not returned.
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Sourcing notes for custom parts
Drawings, tooling, quality and landed cost, from the team that runs the programmes.
All guides, page 24
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Contacts9 min read
Electromechanical assemblies: contact, coil and housing integration
A relay, contactor or actuator is only as good as the interfaces between its coil, its contacts and its housing. Where the tolerance chain is set and how to test across it.
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Contacts9 min read
Coil RFQ checklist: turns, wire, bobbin, termination and test
A coil quote moves with every open variable. The pack that closes the winding, the bobbin, the termination and the test before a supplier prices the part.
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Contacts10 min read
Coil winding: layer, bank and random winding
How the winding pattern changes fill, capacitance, leakage and cost, and how to choose a pattern before the bobbin is designed.
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Contacts9 min read
Contact inspection: silver content, hardness and shear
Three checks that separate a contact which meets the drawing from one that only looks right, and how to read each result.
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Contacts9 min read
Electrical contact rivets: materials, head design and staking
How a composite rivet separates the electrical duty from the mechanical joint, and the drawing calls that decide whether it survives life test.
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Quality9 min read
In-process inspection vs final inspection
Both catch defects, but one catches them while the part can still be corrected. The choice is about where a defect becomes expensive, not about which check is more thorough.
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Lugs9 min read
Busbar-to-cable transition design
Where a busbar meets a cable, the joint decides the current path, the strain and the inspection. Four routes and the calls that keep them reliable.
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Lugs8 min read
Cable lugs for switchgear and panel builders: space, torque and inspection
The lug that works on the bench can fail in the panel. How to select for access, stud patterns, clamping and the inspection the assembly actually needs.
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Lugs9 min read
Cable lugs for transformers and UPS
Duty current is only the start. Fault withstand, terminal pads, clamp force and clearance decide the lug on a transformer or UPS connection.
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Quality9 min read
Conflict minerals and 3TG: reporting and supplier declarations
Tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold sit inside many engineered parts. Here is what buyers must ask for, what the declarations mean and how to follow a red flag up the chain.
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Lugs9 min read
Connector housing materials and flammability
UL 94, glow wire, CTI and temperature index answer four different questions. A housing that passes one can still fail the others, so the specification has to ask for all four.
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Go from reading to checking
The guides are built around the same questions as the free tools. Size a busbar, check an ISO 2768 callout, build a first article report or compare landed cost.
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