Pneumatic Die Grinder Redesign Research

[Ross_Holmes]

Hi Guys,

My Name is Ross Holmes; I am a Finalist Student at Loughborough University who grew up in Hampshire. I have grown up building classic american cars, hot rods and customs in my barn and have lurked on this forum for years picking up tips on fabrication for my various projects. I am currently studying towards a mechanical engineering degree to go into tool design and manufacture.

I am carrying out research into the redesign of pneumatic air tools. My focus is on the redesign of die grinders in both the professional garage sector and in the high end automotive enthusiasts.

I am looking to gather input from market users of the tool in question such as yourselves, and would like to ask for your participation in a very short questionnaire. This will only take a few minutes of your time (it is 10 questions), and will contribute hugely to the redesign of pneumatic tools for the future. Your input can make a huge difference.

Please find the link to the online survey here:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/6YDRGD8

Your input will be kept confidential at all times, and the survey data destroyed on completion of the project.

Your participation will enter you into a prize draw for £20.00 of amazon vouchers. Please email r.holmes-11@student.lboro.ac.uk on completion of the survey to enter. The draw will be carried out 02/12/15.

If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Regards
Ross Holmes
Wolfson School of Engineering Loughborough University

 

[cumbriasteve]

I have grown up building classic american cars, hot rods and customs in my barn and have lurked on this forum for years picking up tips on fabrication for my various projects.

Welcome and pleased the forum helped you over the years, it's a shame you never shared your projects, I am sure many members would have enjoyed viewing them.

 

[AndyStobbs]

Would've thought die grinders reached their zenith about 20 years ago. Good luck anyway.

 

[HughF]

'Do you own a pneumatic die grinder'...

'Yes'
'No'
...
'Other, please specify'

What a stupid option!

 

[Robotstar5]

'Do you own a pneumatic die grinder'...

'Yes'
'No'
...
'Other, please specify'

What a stupid option!

Could have borrowed one?

 

[HughF]

That's a smart answer...

 

[mm289]

Responded to the survey Ross, good luck with the degree and the thesis/disertation I am presuming this will contribute too - happy too help .

Cheers,

MM

 

[julianthegypsy]

Done. Good luck.

 

[Maker]

I've answered, hope I helped.

 

[Ross_Holmes]

Hi guys,

Thanks for the responses that have come in. Its really appreciated!!

I agree that die grinders haven't really improved visually in 20 years or so, however there is a ton of work surrounding reducing sound levels and vibration transmission to the user. All surrounding the improvements of the pneumatic 'motor' internally. I hope that the finding of this will allow for a safer tool for users, especially users that have prolonged contact, and the findings can be used across a large array of rotational air tools.
Every tool can be improved for a specified job in my eyes. Everyone has a draw with some home made tools in for 'that one specific job', this has to be testament.

I agree to some questions seeming 'stupid' HughF, i can only apologise for this, this is due mainly to ethical requirements we have to abide to in questionnaires for studies relating to the university.

Finally, to all those that have taken the time to reply to the questionnaire, thanks so much for your additional comments at the end, these have been extremely valuable information, and have provided some great sources of discussion.

Anyone that has filled out the questionnaire, don’t hesitate to email me for the prize draw either.

The questionnaire is still open, so anyone wishing to help, please follow the link below:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/6YDRGD8

Thanks once again.
Regards,
Ross

 

[Ross_Holmes]

Thanks again guys, the responses have been great.

Anyone else seeing this please few free to co tribute the survey is still open and there is a chance to win Amazon vouchers as per abouve.

Thanks again.

 

[Chris Stevens]

Hi guys,

Thanks for the responses that have come in. Its really appreciated!!

I agree that die grinders haven't really improved visually in 20 years or so, however there is a ton of work surrounding reducing sound levels and vibration transmission to the user. All surrounding the improvements of the pneumatic 'motor' internally. I hope that the finding of this will allow for a safer tool for users, especially users that have prolonged contact, and the findings can be used across a large array of rotational air tools.
Every tool can be improved for a specified job in my eyes. Everyone has a draw with some home made tools in for 'that one specific job', this has to be testament.

I agree to some questions seeming 'stupid' HughF, i can only apologise for this, this is due mainly to ethical requirements we have to abide to in questionnaires for studies relating to the university.

Finally, to all those that have taken the time to reply to the questionnaire, thanks so much for your additional comments at the end, these have been extremely valuable information, and have provided some great sources of discussion.

Anyone that has filled out the questionnaire, don’t hesitate to email me for the prize draw either.

The questionnaire is still open, so anyone wishing to help, please follow the link below:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/6YDRGD8

Thanks once again.
Regards,
Ross

Surely cost of the air tool and whether you are looking at DIY or professional end users, are things which need to be carefully looked at before carrying out any sort of survey which would provide any sort useful data?

For instance I have some cheap Chinese pencil grinders, which I bought for delicate work on castings. Its impossible to compare them to a Biax pencil grinder I have, which I seem to remember runs at something like 30,000 rpm, and cost over £400 (bought new from Ebay for a lot less!).

 

[HughF]

Those are questions on the survey Chris... How much, are you a pro etc, what is important etc... As surveys go, it isn't all that bad.

 

[Chris Stevens]

Oh ok.

 

[Ross_Holmes]

Hi Chris,

Sorry for the delayed reply!!

I fully agree with what you say, there certainly is no comparison!
I am an avid snap-on fan as come from an automotive background, and I too wouldn't contemplate directly comparing my snap on tools with my Chinese versions (we all have them and they serve certain jobs great).

Regrettably, academia requires a stupid amount of time justifying and analysing the market and tooling available, this survey is very much to satisfy the early stages of gauging what the users require from a wide audience, and thus may seam rather generic and 'vague'.

Designing new tools tends to pose the challenge that the users are very knowlagable about the tool design, its features and many about the mechanics and engineering science that is associated. This means that initial verbal feedback tends to be solutions to the problem (users of tools are generally problem solvers) and not just identifying a problem. I would agree that solutions are great and I would much prefer to run with them, however to ensure you have good coverage in your concepts, you must ensure that there is nothing you have missed, that for example a feature a competitor may have picked up on. Thus there is a whole early stage process I like to follow to ensure that all aspects are collated. This does as you have picked up mean that there is some areas that may seam a little conflicting, storage or as HughF pointed out, totally stupid. I can agree on the face of it it certainly seams so, but in the long term allows for a much less bias approach, as well as ticking all the requirements for the research.

Chris I hope that has cleared up your question. The data you have supplied is more than useful, and is extremely beneficial to the research.

I would like to thank you for your time as well as everyone else that has taken the survey. The reply from here have been astonishing, I can't thank you all enough. The survey is still open, and the chance to amazon vouchers still stands, so anyone that wants to contribute to the re design of die grinders please do so:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/6YDRGD8

 

[Ross_Holmes]

If anyone is interested in some background info about me and the projects i am building (Im certainly not your stereotypical academic) please have a look at my integral feed which tends to be a photo diary of my pickup build i started back when i was 17. Everything carried out is done in my barn b

https://instagram.com/leeroy_holmes/

 

[HughF]

Awesome truck build

 

[mm289]

Sweet work Ross,

Cheers,

MM

 

[bc30se]

Hello

I was about to fill the form but..... there is one very important thing about pneumatic die grinders in opposition to electric ones, and the survey seems to be missing the spot without giving you a chance to express opinion on this very crucial difference.

We buy pneumatic ones because they are cheap, but apart from the stuff like access/price/speed and many others that you include, there is one absent - obligatory from the practical point of view.

I hate pneumatic ones for not having NM in the low rpm range, that they "pulse on the air instead of pulling consistently" I realise that the DC brush motor without an inverter is not capable of the same low rpm NM as three phase motors running on one, but anyway they are so much better, of course they are physically longer because of the electric motor but I feel it is negligible. One of the most important things for me is stable delivery of power within the whole rpm range.

Without it, the survey seems to be totally pointless, focusing rather on "visuals" than on problem solving areas. I personally don't care about anything unless you can make all of the pneumatic grinders work so that they can't be stopped in low rpm range under heavy loads especially when you grind soft materials like ali.

So the main chainge in the pneumatic ones, if anything is to be improved, is to exploit air in such a way that it doubles the NM values and not rotational speed... as well as another change should be to reduce "the pulse character" of the pneumatic drive - in other words - make it run on air like a DC one.

that's all thank you.