Abstract: An apparatus and associated method for collecting debris from a tool, wherein programming instructions are stored in memory and executed by a machine tool controller, and wherein the controller is responsive to an intermittent debris collect signal in altering an operative path of the tool in order to engage the tool with a debris collecting device.

Abstract: An apparatus and associated method for collecting debris from a tool, wherein programming instructions are stored in memory and executed by a machine tool controller, and wherein the controller is responsive to an intermittent debris collect signal in altering an operative path of the tool in order to engage the tool with a debris collecting device.

Abstract: An electrical connector apparatus comprising a housing supporting a plurality of contacts in a row, each of the contacts having an initial engagement surface, the plurality of initial engagement surfaces defining a contact curvature across the row that is configured for tangentially engaging a mating connector. A method providing an electrical device that is connectable to a receptacle by a connector having a plurality of contacts defining a contact curvature; inserting the electrical device into the receptacle to tangentially engage a portion of the connector on one of either the electrical device or the receptacle with the contact curvature on the other of the electrical device or receptacle, thereby initially contactingly engaging more than one but less than all of the plurality of contacts before contactingly engaging all the plurality of contacts.

Abstract: A data storage device and head-slap detection circuit combination for determining whether a data storage device encounters a head-slap event. The data storage device includes a data transducing head with a conductive film affixed thereon adjacent a conductive surface attached to a recording surface. A continuity circuit is formed by connecting the head-slap detection circuit to the conductive surface with a first lead and to the conductive film with a second lead. The head-slap detection circuit compares a resistance between the conductive surface and the conductive film to a threshold resistance level and reports a duration of a head-slap event upon a change in resistance between the conductive surface and the conductive film exceeding the threshold resistance level. A level of impact force experienced by the combination is translated from an empirically determined head-slap boundary curve based on the duration of the head-slap event.