Clean Room Timing Pulleys

Semiconductors are often considered the foundation of many high-tech industries. So it suffices to say that the builders of the equipment that manufactures silicon chips are the epitome of what modern high-tech industries are about. The heart of this industry is in Silicon Valley, where a number of our customers in this sector are located. High precision and stringent requirements are commonplace for their applications and require suppliers that can meet the challenges they pose.

This project highlights our work with a leading Fortune 500 Silicon Valley semiconductor equipment builder who needed custom timing belt pulleys and assemblies manufactured for a clean room application. Because of the critical nature of the equipment and the massive amount of engineering resources that go into development, this project included a tremendous amount of design critique and review. This level of complexity also means that all aspects are highly schedule-driven. Success in meeting all of these criteria requires process flexibility, robust quality control, and extensive expertise in precision machining. At American Precision Gear, our ability to provide all that and more is what brings customers from many high-tech industries to us.

The pulleys shown here represent a multi-year contract for 20 to 25 sets per month, shipped to California and across the USA, as well as Mexico, Taiwan, and Singapore. Composed of 6061 aluminum, machining requires progressive CNC programming to meet specifications and tolerances of +.0000"/-.0004". Production is completed on a number of highly advanced and automated machining systems. These include a Puma 240 dual spindle CNC lathe that is equipped with live tooling, a Koepher 173 Hobber, and Monnier Zahner CNC hob machine, both with an automatic loading-unloading. We also utilize our Fadal VMC-15xt CNC 4 axis mill and our Lorenze 454 CNC Shaper.

After machining, the pulleys go through a very complete deburring process, followed by ultrasonic cleaning. Once these steps are complete, all parts are subject to extensive quality testing and dimensional inspections, all under AGMA qualified testing procedures. The pulleys are then anodized, assembled, inventoried, and shipped with certificates of compliance.

At APG, our team specializes in this type of fast-paced development and production. The challenges faced only helped to advance our capabilities and further the level of services that we provide.

For more information on this project, or to learn more about all of our capabilities, contact us directly.

Timing Pulley Details

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