waterjet cut gasket
One of the questions we get often especially when it comes to electrically conductive gaskets is “How can I save money on my gasket?” One of the suggestions we have is to allow bigger gaskets to be bonded from more than one piece. This is usually done through bond styles such as dove-tails, 45 degree, or 90 degree bonds.
What type of gaskets does this help on?
In this blog post, we decided to address electrically conductive bonded gaskets because they are usually the ones that customers would want to save money on.
It may be a good idea to start with why Electrically Conductive Gaskets can seem expensive:
Reasons Electrically Conductive Gaskets can seem expensive:
-These materials are filled with electrically conductive particles that are made of precious metals such as silver/aluminum or pure silver. However, more economical fillers are available such as nickel/graphite.
-Many of these materials are molded instead of calendered to thickness resulting in more labor time.
-These materials are usually high-performance fluorosilicone or silicone rubber materials that the fillers are impregnated into.
Advantages of Bonded Gaskets
There are a few advantages when it comes to bonding gaskets from multiple pieces:
1. It usually saves money by avoiding large waste from the middle of the material. This can help on big runs of parts.
2. Electrically Conductive Gaskets typically come in smaller sheet sizes because they are molded. For that reason, bonding is a necessity sometimes – however, much bigger gasket sizes can be made.
3. Certain parts of the gasket can have tape while not the entire piece must have it. Sometimes customers only want certain parts to have electrically conductive tape, bonding allows for only certain sections to have it.
However, it is good to keep in mind that bonding gaskets can also add labor cost to the part because for every bond added, more cost is added as well.
More Information
NEDC manufactures bonded gaskets into complete custom gasket shapes. For more information on bonded vs waterjet cut gasketing materials please contact sales@nedc.com.