Lockable Gas Spring: The Facts
For instance, are you sitting on an office chair while reading this? It’s thanks to them that you’ve been able to regulate its height and back to your maximum comfort!
How Do They Work?
The fascinating feature of a lockable gas spring is that its rod can be locked at any point in its travel – and remain there indefinitely. The tool that activates this mechanism is a plunger. If the plunger is depressed, the rod can operate as usual. When the plunger is released – and this can occur at any point in the stroke – the rod is locked in a specific position.
The release force is the force you need to apply to activate or deactivate the lock. Theoretically, the release pressure is ¼ of the extension force of the piston rod. Nevertheless, in practice it should also be taken into account the force required to break loose the seals on actuation, so when creating a lockable spring the release force must be always slightly higher. An expert company such as European Springs will be always able to determine the accurate release force that a given project requires.
Different Rods
Rods can have different characteristics once they are locked. They can be, for instance, flexible, which means they are very resistant when being pulled or pushed. They can also be rigid in tension: there is no flexibility if rods are being pulled but there is a slight flexibility if they are being pushed. Finally, they can be rigid in compression if they are a bit flexible when they are being pulled but not when they are being pushed.
Why Do We Need Lockable Gas Springs?
Think about lifting the back door of your car. If you wanted to impress your three-year-old child, you could do it with a finger. And not only that, but the door also gets locked at an specific point allowing you to load up all your shopping bags – after the Saturday visit to the shopping centre – without the nuisance of having to open it multiple times.
How is it possible that you can lift something so heavy with such a small force? And how can that heavy weight remain just where you want it? The answer here is: lockable springs. They are also essential for medicine: they allow your dentist to regulate the position of the chair you are sitting in – while you hope for a quick and painless treatment.
Benefits
Using lockable springs can bring lots of great advantages. For instance, they are perfectly safe when the apparatus is in locked position and movement cannot be tolerated. (Think about an operating table, for instance).
Another benefit is that these simple mechanisms don’t require any other special force or source of energy to be activated or to remain in their locking position. This makes lockable springs very cost-effective and also environmentally friendly.
European Springs Lockable Gas Springs
Our catalogue of lockable springs includes no less than 70 different items. Their force ranges from 200 to 1000 N. Their strokes are available from 15 to 210mm. Finally, we can provide you with a number of different release mechanisms to make sure they adapt to the specific needs of your project.
Looking for springs or pressings? We are willing to offer you nothing but the very best! Contact our expert team today and we’ll be delighted to help!