Molded diaphragms don't leak, are friction-less, have exceptional sensitivity and negligible hysteresis. Nearly all of the suppliers they talked to would have had to build special tooling to produce their preferred design. This meant they would have charged Clippard for the mold which would have made it necessary to significantly increase the price of their product. Only one, Dia-Com Corporation, offered the desired style as part of its broad range of standard products. By purchasing the diaphragm from Dia-Com, we saved a considerable amount of money by eliminating tooling costs and also took advantage of this firm's considerable experience in adapting diaphragms to a wide range of applications.
Elastomers have a tendency to stretch out when the are exposed to a repetitive duty cycle.
To prevent this from happening, we selected a special FAO503 polyester fabric with an exceptionally tight weave of 110 threads per inch. This fabric prevents the elastomer from stretching and helps maintain the repeatability of the application. Humason reports that the manufacturer of the respirator, who had temporarily switched to a considerably more expensive regulator, was delighted when the new diaphragm-equipped version exceeded their requirements. Our customer was very happy with the pressure stability provided by the new design. They told us it is considerably more stable than the more expensive design they used in the past.