It’s back. Now with the manifold it sits in, the sight glass is back from the customer for rethinking, redesign and remaking. It does not happen often when something is wrong with the product, unless out of range use or handling. This time, nothing is wrong with the product, rather it needs to seal into the higher level assembly at the customer.
What we have here is a sight glass designed to hold 15,000 psi of pressure. It does that with a test manifold. But the test manifold is not what the customer has, they have their own design for their application. After several attempts to seal the sight glass into the manifold, now we are helping find a solution beyond sight glass itself. Technically, we are using a metal to metal face seal with a high durometer elastomer to fill in the leak path. It’s a mouthful, I know. This is what we work with every day. It’s never a dull moment applying engineering principles to every day life. Trying to make a good time of this. I like it.
With the higher level assembly in mind, the face seal is designed to work this time. The customer is under pressure here, we need to help. Lesson learned is when designing a component, work with the customer to understand the application, how the thing will be used and what will affect its specified performance. The result will be appreciated, time will be saved, the customer can make progress. We all like that.