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Engineers at Flow-Rite Controls, Byron Center, Mich., recently wanted to expand the market for battery-watering subsystems to golf carts. The engineers could design a subsystem that metered and distributed water to the various batteries, but there was a problem with assembly. They could not figure out how to install the hoses and connect up to 24 valves in 45 sec or less.
Flow-Rite engineers eventually devised a prefabricated tubing harness that would snap onto valves rapidly and reliably, and be manually installed. Unfortunately, extruders could mold valve connections onto the ends of tubing but not at regularly spaced intervals along the tubing. That’s when Flow-Rite engineers developed the servodriven system that uses a floating mandrel to install molded fittings at controlled intervals along the tubing or conduit. The resulting tubing harness, nicknamed the Snake, makes it easy for workers on the assembly line to connect it to the batteries with little or no cutting. They can also do the same job in the field.
