Abstract: A bushing has an externally threaded portion with a thread pitch P1. A collet body has an internally threaded portion with a thread pitch P2, which is smaller than P1 by a pitch differential, ?P. To assembly the bushing and collet body, the collet body is heated relative to the bushing to reduce the ?P. The threaded portions of the bushing and collet body are then threadingly engaged with each other. The temperatures of the bushing and collet body are then equalized, which tends to increase the ?P, which causes the threaded portions to bind with each other and resist relative loosening rotation. The threaded portions may additionally/alternatively be reverse tapered and/or include variable thread pitches that cause the threaded portions to further bind with each other.

Abstract: A workholding assembly for releasably holding a work piece includes a master variable-volume fluid chamber disposed between a machine and the machine's axially-movable draw bar such that the workholding assembly converts the mechanical axial force/movement of the draw bar into fluid pressure/fluid flow. The resulting fluid pressure operates a fluid-driven gripping assembly such as a radial-piston-based hydraulic collet assembly or a diaphragm-based hydraulic gripping assembly. The hydraulic collet assembly may be a quick-change assembly that enables an operator to quickly and easily change between differently sized or shaped collets.

Abstract: This invention details an easy method for creating digital hardware timing systems from a text based hardware description language (HDL). Currently, chip designers must represent timing systems as state machines. Once completed, the state machine implementation does not visually resemble the original timing system. Often, a designer will document what the timing looks like by using a comment field; dashes and underscore characters make great looking timing diagrams when a fixed width font is used. A great deal of time may be saved by implementing the timing documentation directly into a state machine programmatically. Also saved is the time required to simulate and debug the state machine implementation. Design engineers are under extreme time pressures; an optimal implementation requires an extensive amount of time. What typically is implemented is the quickest possible solution. Current HDL synthesizers are constrained by what they are given, so the most optimal solution is rarely achieved.