Strip or flat springs come in many different designs, sizes and materials Beryllium Copper, Phosphor Bronze, Carbon Spring Steel and Stainless Steel and are used in many different industries: electronics, military, automotive, aircraft, space, medical, telecoms and shipping. Complex designs from prototype through to production quantities can be produced economically and on short lead times using the manufacturing processes offered by Photofab.
There are many different types of springs used in industry, Photofab have been working closely with the spring manufacturing industry for over 47 years to produce a variety of flat and formed springs. Over that period of time they have produced many different designs of strip springs using the chemical milling / photo etching process to produce a blank that can be formed using either our in house universal or customer specific form tools to produce the required formed shape.
We can supply the springs heat treated, plated and assembled giving you a finished spring from one source of supply. This helps you reduce your logistics time and therefore reduce product lead times.
Heat treatment
Heat treatment is used to change the microstructure of metals and alloys, increasing the life, hardness, ductility and resistance to temperature changes. This is particularly useful in ensuring shape is maintained once formed and is commonly used for Aluminium, Stainless Steel, Copper and Nickel.
Heat treatment techniques include annealing, case hardening, precipitation strengthening, tempering, carburizing, normalizing and quenching.
Design tolerances
You may be surprised to see the extremely fine detail we can etch into metal. In certain instances, these tolerances can even be improved! Please contact our engineers for further information.
For prototype and low volume springs the manufacturing technique of choice is Chemical Milling
To find out more about the Photo Etching Process please either contact us on 01480 226699, alternatively, why not take “The Process Tour”.
Photofab have for many years worked closely with connector manufacturers to supply high quality development metal connectors. Photofab can supply formed, heat treated and plated contacts and connectors that will represent the final fully tooled product in very short lead times.
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