Table of Contents
Intro to Force Gauges
A Force Gauge is a great tool to add to your list of measurement equipment. If you test anything with tension or compression, you probably already have one, but are you using its full range of capabilities? Mastering your production value is not a simple task and saving money on simple things can make a big difference. A force gauge is commonly used for things a consumer may interact with, for example, a cereal box may have too much glue that some people cannot open. Another example would be to test the load capacity of a spring. The applications for force testing in compression and tension are expansive; here are some production areas that are already mastering the force gauge.
Medical and Pharmaceutical
Ever wonder what it would be like to buy a vitamin that was too hard for you to chew? Thankfully you will probably never run into this issue (unless you forget your dentures). All of your medical devices and pharmaceuticals are extensively tested for quality and usability for the ordinary person, but things like this could be a possible reality if it weren’t for force gauges. Here is a small list of applications the life science has found a force gauge useful for:
- Tablet Crushing
- Suture Strength –Sutures are the material that they stitch you up with, the “string”. “You’ll often see sutures and stitches referred to interchangeably. It’s important to note that “suture” is the name for the actual medical device used to repair the wound. The stitching is the technique used by your doctor to close the wound.” -(healthline)
- Needle Penetration Force
- Needle Break Force
- Tensile strength of tubing and wires
The Mark 10 M7 Force Gage has break detection!
The break detection function identifies when a sample has broken, clicked, slipped, or otherwise reached a peak force and then fell by a specified percentage drop. Upon detection of the break, the gauge can perform several automatic functions like recording the peak, saving the peak, and stopping a test stand’s movement. The series 7 is capable of this due to the 14,000hz/s reading it can give. Giving you the ability to measure breaks accurately.
Electronics
A portion of our lives is spent looking and interacting with machines that didn’t exist a hundred years ago. Laptops, cell phones, all the way down to microprocessors can be tested using a force gauge. How? Laptops and screens can be tested with force/compression tests. A good example is measuring the amount of force needed to register a touch on a screen or a test to see when the screen cracks making the infamous not-so-beautiful spider web. Some tests like a keycap test could be used to measure the force needed to press the button down on your keyboard; even simple wires can be tested in various ways. The M7 can be used in a variety of ways; it can be programmed to automatically save the peak reading, transmit the peak, and zero the display upon the completion of an event. Looking to get an M7 force gauge, click here!
Force tests in electronics.
- Switch force activation
- Keycap press activation
- Wire crimp pull test – testing the pull out of wires and wire strength
- Component pull-off test – a piece of a circuit/motherboard that can be plucked off
- Bend Testing
Packaging
What if you saved someone millions of dollars a year because of a blob of glue? I heard a story about the difference between a blob of glue and the shape the glue was in saving millions of dollars. The package needed to be easily opened, but not come loose in shipping and it came down to the glue that was used to seal it, a blob versus a small shape! This test turned out to find that less glue in the right shape withholds the same amount of force and is opened as easily when tension tested. This saved them millions a year compared to the blob of glue they were using before. Trying to find your next “glue” solution? Connect with us, we have an expert in force tests (no, sadly he isn’t a Jedi). Additionally, here are some ways packaging places are using force gauges:
- Opening force test
- Bottlecap pull-off test
- Burst test
- Crush test
- Adhesive strength test
- Package strength
Feature Spotlight
External trigger mode (requires a test stand)
This feature is useful when an application requires a large number of samples to be tested. For example, if a packaging factory needed to test 100 samples every week, they could configure their testing set up so that an operator would only need to press a single button to perform the test, export the data, and reset the test stand for the next test. Making your process efficient and easy to use for the operator. Get a force test stand and gauge from Mark-10 and run your operations with just the push of a button. Simply attach to the stand and start your testing. To optimize your process with a force gauge and stand, contact us!
Review
Mastering force testing doesn’t have to be rocket science, and there are many more industries on this list that we didn’t mention that are using force tests to master the quality of their products. If you are wondering if a force gauge could be beneficial to you, contact us we can see whether break testing, bend testing, pull testing, destructive testing, or any types of force tests could be a fit for you! The price of quality products is only going up and ensuring that your products are working as they should is a key ingredient to quality. Not sure where to start, call us; we are more than happy to help see if this is the right application for you.
