You should switch for three critical reasons: Performance, Cost, and Weight. Let’s take each in turn.
Performance
FACT: Spring-Fast grommets provide best-in-class wire anti-chafe protection. They do this without glue because the retention force built into the design makes it stay on the edge. It has been tested to 20/20/20G in static load tests.
The metal encapsulation covers any precision stamping micro-burrs and removes the risk of abrasion. Its design means it can be removed, reformed, and repositioned easily. A godsend in tight access situations.
Cost
FACT: Spring-Fast grommets provide this best-in-class protection at half the cost of legacy “glued in” grommets!
Unconvinced? We know how you feel. Until we show them the facts, most engineers don't want to change from the 80-year-old nylon grommet. They know that nylon grommets like MS21266 cost less per strip than Spring-Fast. However, once they see the reasoning behind the recommendation, they switch.
They switch because Spring-Fast is a finished product in direct contrast to nylon grommets which need glue and an additional long and costly gluing process to ensure it stays on an edge. Using nylon is like buying a car without wheels.
In contrast, Spring-Fast is a finished product. It is ready to install immediately with mere finger pressure. It has a formed, spring stainless steel backbone, encased in a polymer coating and capped with an elastic flame retardant TPE cushion. It does not require adhesives, adhesive prep, cure time delays, or the shop time required to perform these tasks. Time is money.
Spring-Fast has been on the market for years and has proven both its performance and its ability to reduce the cost of poor quality by completely removing the multi-step, error-prone gluing step.
No costly dis-bondments, no rework, no worries. In fact, there are NO reports of any product failures since it was launched.
WEIGHT
FACT: Spring-Fast grommets provide best-in-class wire anti-chafe protection with less weight than legacy grommets!
This is at odds with some aviation engineers who worry that the Spring-Fast metal substrate will add weight.
However, the fact is that Spring-Fast is lighter once installed. This is because engineers somehow overlook that nylon grommets like MS21266 have to be glued into place to ensure they function properly. And lots of glue is used in practice.
Adhesives have density and mass and operationally, techs use Pli-O-Bond or the even heavier CB200 acrylic epoxy. The SOP for a 4-inch diameter penetration is to add a 3/16 diameter bead of adhesive around the 12.75″ circumference. This adds weight. In reality, the adhesive is applied at a far greater volume than a 3/16” bead – which of course adds even more weight.
In the DTi QA/QC process, we periodically test weigh Spring-Fast and nylon grommets with their required 3/16″ bead of Pli-O-Bond adhesive. Spring-Fast M22529/2 is 10.7% to 17.7% LIGHTER than their equivalent nylon sizes and glue. Clearly, if you want to save weight, switch to Spring-Fast.
Find out more about Spring-Fast grommet edging here
Request free samples here
Good article about grommet edging here
