In-Die Contact Insertion

For decades electrical switches of all sorts have relied on using silver and silver alloy contact rivets for their make and break functions. These contacts have been historically staked into a copper-based member called by many names (stationary arm, movable leaf, etc.) and were most often assembled as a secondary process. When GEMCO engineers were asked to quote parts to be made on a fourslide machine as well as the secondary process to stake the contacts into these fourslide members for a high volume requirement, they did some quick thinking and developed a system to feed the contacts into the fourslide machine, and stake them into the strip of base material before the rest of the forming is done.

The result was a fully formed fourslide component with the contact already staked in place – one for each cycle of the machine. No need for anyone to handle two components, no need for time-consuming individual hand assembly.

Sometime later, with GEMCO’s  growth into precision stamping, their engineers incorporated the same contact feeding and insertion philosophy and techniques to higher volume, higher speed production in the progressive die stampings as new products for the same customer. Since the contacts used in the stamped part were the same as those used in the fourslide part, there was less engineering time and cost needed for handling the contacts. By leveraging an already proven system, minimal changes were required to accommodate the differences in fabrication methods

In-Die insertion of contacts – just another way GEMCO works for you to reduce costs to help keep you competitive.