Group 13 - Kawasaki 1/2 in Electric Impact Wrench (12 V)

Project Management

Work Proposal

We plan on reverse engineering our product by simply using standard tools to disassemble it. Before we begin to disassemble the product, we will first analyze it to see how and where it should be taken apart.

Tools Needed

• Screwdriver (both phillips and flat head)
• Needle nose pliers
• Knife

Disassembly Time

• 30 Minutes

Specific Challenges

• Not damaging the electric portion of the product

Group Capabilities

• 1 Year of preparation in the engineering practice
• Practical, hands-on application
• AutoCAD experience
• Construction experience
• Problem Solving

Group Shortcomings

• Time Management
• Conflicting Schedules
• Little to no electrical experience

Management Proposal

In order to stay organized and manage our group properly, we will evenly distribute the work load, and meet at least once per week (with more meetings if needed). As we have in the past, our once-weekly mandatory meeting will be held on Tuesdays at 3:30 in the Bert’s dining area (1st floor Talbert). Depending on the amount of time we have for the assignment, we will break up the weeks we meet into different subjects. We plan on having at least 3 meetings between assignments, which will be scheduled as following.

• Our first meeting will be strictly informative. In this meeting we will discuss exactly what is being asked for out of the assignment, and what we have learned in lecture that relates to the topic. We will then discuss how we plan on approaching the task at hand. This discussion will involve dates and times of extra meetings as we see fit, what research will need to be done prior to the final project, and specific individual assignments that will need to be completed prior to the next meeting.

• The next meeting will involve any hands-on work that needs to be done. Having all researched our specific topics as previously assigned, we should be well informed as to how we go about our task, what it is we are trying to accomplish, and the necessary steps to achieve this task. After doing whatever hands on work necessary, we will compile and discuss the information we obtained through our individual research. We will then assign specific parts of the assignment to be done by each group member. We will then assess the time needed to accomplish these assignments, and whether we need to meet again prior to our next scheduled meeting.

• In our final meeting we will compile all of our individual assignments, forming the final assignment. We will all evaluate this final project, and make minor changes as we see fit. When the entire group is satisfied with the finished product, we will assign someone to print or upload the assignment if necessary.

Group attendance to these meetings is essential. Without everyone’s contribution, the project will lack in quality, quantity, and accuracy. For this reason it is mandatory that every group member attend every meeting, unless there is a serious, legitimate excuse. If a member is not contributing their share, or consistently not attending meetings, a note will be made on the upcoming assignment making the professors aware of the situation.

Roles

Project Manager: Jesse Dewey

• Will be in charge of the material covered in meetings, insuring deadlines are met, and assignment is submitted complete and on time.

Technical Expert: CJ Tracey

• Will be in charge of learning about the product to have a relative understanding of how it works, and disassembly of the product

Communication Liaison: Dale Kawa

• Will be in charge of contacting group members about meetings, professor communication, and overall organization of project

Hardware Manager: Amadeus Astacio

• Will be in charge of holding the product, bringing it to every meeting and ensuring it does not get lost or damaged

Assistant Technical Expert: Jacobus Leroux

• Will assist the Technical Expert in learning about and disassembling the product

Preliminary Project Review

Addressed Challenges

• After three weeks of group meetings, we found certain flaws that slowed down the project. We took immediate action to fix said flaws, and ended up with a slightly altered version of our former management plan. These changes include:

• Meeting three times a week rather than one. This allows our group to get work done without feeling rushed. It also lessens the burden of the work load on the whole group. Having more meetings makes for easier sharing of information, and thus a more complete project.
• Getting a bulk of the work done a week in advanced. This allows maximum time for formatting, proofreading, and editing the wiki page. It also lessens the stress as the deadline gets closer.

Challenges Needing Addressing

• We also noticed a flaw that still needs addressing:

• Meeting efficiency. While in a meeting, we must immediately get to work to use our time as efficiently as possible. We must ensure that everyone is participating, for maximum efficiency and accuracy of the material. This will result in a less stressful, ideally shorter meeting in which we get a significant amount of work done.

Product Archaeology

Development Profile

• This Kawasaki 841337 12v DC Impact Wrench received its copyright in 2010, and is distributed through Alltrade Tools LLC, a private company established in 1983 and based out of Long beach CA. It is produced and desgined by Kawasaki, a Japanese company that has its roots in motors, mainly motorcycles, who in the recent years branched out to include power tools and power lawn care products.
• This product was designed to be compact and reliable, for basic DIY (Do it Yourself) jobs that the average consumer would come across. Its main selling point is that it plugs into your vehicles 12v cigarette lighter, making it ideal for roadside emergencies. It’s grip was designed with a rubber coating, making sure your hold is secure and comfortable even in undesirable working conditions such as snow and rain. Since it was copyrighted in 2010, our economy was not doing so well and consumers needed affordable products they could count on for reliability and job performance.
• Since this product is sold through many online websites, it can be assed that it was distributed to a global market, in areas where the consumer can afford to purchase powertools, i.e. not poverty stricken. All of the products come with a standard 3 year limited home use warrenty designed to ensure proper product support in case of failure.

Usage Profile

• Impact Wrenches are power tools designed for speedy removal of lug nuts with minimal effort on the users behalf. Usually lug nuts are difficult to remove due to their necessary tightness, along with caked on rust and dirt. Normal removal consists on significant effort and leverage on the consumers part with a lever attached to a regular socket wrench. Impact Wrenches get rid of that by allowing for very high torque output with minimal exertion by the user, removing lug nuts in a matter of seconds with the simple pull of a trigger.
• This current impact wrench is geared towards home use, due to its relatively low torque output compared to professional grade wrenches and power source. Ours has a max torque output of 280 ft-lbs, professional grade wrenches have between 700-1200 ft-lbs. Additionally, impact wrenches are made to be plugged into a standard 120v outlet. Our product uses a variation designed, which allows it to be plugged into your cars outlet.

Energy Profile

• The Kawasaki Impact Wrench we were assigned uses a few different forms of energy, electrical, rotation, kinetic, human, and a small form of chemical energy. It starts out within the cars battery, where chemical reactions take place that allow for a discharge of electrical energy to be harnessed by the 12v outlet. Once the wrench is connected to the outlet, the electrical energy powers the motor which turns it into kinetic and rotational energy by spinning the mass at a high velocity, impacting it onto the shaft turns the socket head. The only human energy required is the strength to hold it level and squeezing the trigger.

Complexity Profile

• From opening up the case, we can observe the components on the wrench itself, and additional ones that come as separate pieces. On the wrench we can see the casing, the socket bit, the 3 way switch, and the power cord. Separate components include 2 safety fuses and 2 different socket heads. The components on the wrench don’t seem terribly complex as they are mainly for protection and grip. The most complex part on the wrench itself is probably the power cord, because it contains a removable fuses that allows for current to flow from the 12v port into the wrench. Although the 3 way switch does had hidden complexity within the wrench. It doesn’t really interact with the components on the outside, but under the casing it switches the motors gears to allow for both forward and reverse operation.
• Separate parts are very similar, with the 2 fuses having the most complexity, as they contain more components themselves. The 2 additional socket heads are solid steel , and have a different size on each end, allowing for versatility in the field.
• The only reactions from the components that we can see are the connection of the socket heads onto the bit, and the replacing of the fuses. While these aren’t that complicated, they are vital to successful and proper operation. We suspect that within the wrench there are much more complex parts and interactions taking place when operated.

Material Profile

• The impact wrench handle and body is made mostly of a heavy plastic and rubber. A rubber finger grip on the inside of the handle makes it easier to grip tightly. The socket bit on the end of the impact wrench is made out of some kind of metal, most likely steel.
• At the other end, the plug is made out of a hard plastic shell, with a metal conductor at the tip. The conductor is most likely made out of brass (a Copper and Zinc alloy). The chord is most likely made out of a copper wire, surrounded by a rubber casing.
• Without taking the impact wrench apart, we can only assume that the inside is also made out of some form of metal, plastic and rubber.

User Interaction Profile

• The user interaction consists of 2 steps. Setup and Operation. Setup includes plugging it into your car outlet, switching it to forward or reverse, and selecting the proper socket head size. Operation is physically connecting it to the lug nut, squeezing the trigger, and removing the nut.
• The design of this wrench is very intuitive; by just looking at it you can get a good feel as to how it operates. The switching of the socket heads is a simple push on pull off mechanism. And plugging it in and pulling the trigger is easily deduced as well. The most complicated procedure was changing a fuse, but by simple inspection of the plug head I was able to unscrew it and change the fuse rather quickly with minimal effort.
• This product is designed to be easy to use, simple and effective. The whole selling point is that it can be kept in your trunk, and by simply plugging it into your vehicles cigarette lighter you can have a quick and easy removal of your tire. The only thing that I can currently see that may be an issue is that the cable is only 11 ft long, which if you’re driving a larger vehicle, may not reach the rear wheels. This is something that would have to be assessed in a real world test with various vehicles.
• The only regular maintenance required is the periodic changing of a blown fuse. It is very easy to change, simply unscrew the plug head and switch them out. Screw it back on and your good to go. I imagine that this is a rare occurrence though, as it is designed for roadside emergencies. Even if it gets heavily used outside of emergency situations, that being periodic brake and tire work, it isn’t necessary to remove a tire often enough to blow a fuse. The spares are more of a precaution than actual maintenance.

Product Alternative Profile

• Hand Wrench
  • Advantages

1. Simple to use
2. Somewhat versatile

• Disadvantages

1. Can be extremely labor intensive
2. Time consuming
3. Not much torque for amount of work put in

• Socket Wrench
  • Advantages

1. Simple to use
2. Versatile
3. Less time consuming than a wrench

• Disadvantages

1. Can be labor intensive
2. Not much torque for amount of work put in

• These alternatives really don’t compare. An impact wrench has an unfathomable torque in comparison, is equally as versatile, and takes mere seconds to finish the job. Impact wrenches are made to save time and effort by taking out the physically intensive part of a wrench. In essence, there is little comparison.
• A cheap hand wrench set generally costs between $30-$60. A cheap socket wrench set averages between $40-$70. A cheap impact wrench set generally costs between $60-$70. The differences in cost are relatively small, with significant change in performance.

Product Dissection

Introduction

• We began dissection by taking the housing/plastic casing off the entire wrench. This was done by using a Phillips head screwdriver to remove all 9 screws from the outside. Inside it revealed that there was indeed a large motor, a forward/reverse switch, power indicator light, electrical assembly, a large anvil and hammer assembly. By handling the motor, we discovered the motor is detachable from the anvil, which is in turn detachable from the hammer. It all slides together, so to separate the 3 main parts no tools are needed. From here we can see that on the hammer is a small ball bearing allowing for smooth movement, and a further spring system, which causes the “impact” to the shaft. This spring subsystem is the heart of the impact wrench, and while it is a relatively simple design and assembly, it allows for very high torque output on the shaft with little effort on behalf of the user.

• There are 4 main pieces, or systems that work together. The motor, the anvil assembly, the hammer assembly, and the electrical assembly.

Assemblies

Hammer Assembly

• This assembly is primarily composed of a solid block of steel with a spring subsystem. It is first removed from the motor shaft by simply sliding if off the motor shaft. This was the most difficult to disassembled, mainly because of the torque required to remove screws by the user. There is a slide/spring mechanism that can be disassembled by taking out 2 black Phillips head screws. These screws however are rather difficult to remove. We needed a drill with a Phillips head bit to remove them. Once that is done, the entire Slide/spring mechanism simply comes off the hammer.

Anvil Assembly

• The anvil is a relatively simple design consisting of the shaft which slides into the hammer. When the hammer spins around, it hits the anvil with a short impact, when the resisting force is too much, the spring system retracts, which allows it to rotate once again for the next impact. There is little disassembly needed, as it all slides apart and there are no tools needed.

Electrical Assembly

• The electrical assembly is a small black box with red, green and blue wires coming out of it that is not meant to be disassembled due to the fact that it is so small, and there is really nothing to be gained by taking it apart. The parts inside aren’t meant to be replaced. It is just a subsystem of the trigger, which simply moves a slide that reverses the polarity of the magnets. There is a small tab that you can press down with your fingernails to open it up. Inside there is a spring that pulls the switch back and forth to select forward or reverse. No tools needed

Motor Assembly

• The motor assembly is slightly more difficult to take apart. Using a set of pliers, we removed 2 nuts from the steel housing, and twisted the lid off to reveal the inside of the motor canister. A very small socket wrench could be used as well, but for us a set of small pliers was sufficient. Attached to the walls of the canister are 2 magnets, which are activated by electrical current. There is a shaft, surrounded by copper wires and a series of smaller magnets, also activated by electrical current through 2 bushings. When plugged in, there are opposite fields between the magnets on the housing, and the magnets on the core, which causes the core to rotate at high speeds.

Sub-Assemblies

Fuse Box

• This is connected to the electrical assembly by signals, energy, and physically.
• Electrical Energy is connected to the motor to activate magnets and by a signal, which is the user input when the trigger is pulled, completing the circuit.
• Connected physically by wires.
• This subsystem is connected in order to transfer electrical energy to the motor from the cars 12v outlet. Without it, there is no energy transfer.

Spring Assembly

• The Spring assembly is connected by energy, and physically to the hammer assembly.
• It is physically touching the hammer assembly, and is only connected by the transfer of mechanical energy, including rotational and kinetic.
• This subsystem is connected to the hammer assembly in order to transfer rotational energy, to the shaft in order to turn the lug nut. Without this subsystem, the hammer simply spins around inside without turning the shaft.

Direction Switch

• The direction switch is connected to the motor by energy, and physically by wires,
• Electrical energy goes through the wires to the motor, activating magnets.
• This switch is connected to the motor in order to select which way the metal core rotates. This allows the wrench to both remove and attach lug nuts for increased versatility.

• All of these subsystems are placed in order to meet the confines of the plastic housing, and by the energy flow. It starts at the plug and handle, and flows through the body and out to the shaft. The only requirement is that the output shaft be on the exterior of the wrench. Other than that it seems that the subsystems and main systems were placed in the path in which they interact.

GSEE Factors

• Globally, the only influence is that it has been adapted to run on a car 12v port, but the overall wrench design itself is pretty much universal. The subsystems are all globally universal as well, put together based on practicality.
• The Societal factors that went into this design came down to ergonomics, safety, and lifestyle. The wrench is designed to be used in emergency situations, so picture an elderly person/young lady on the highway who needs to replace a flat tire, but doesn’t have the strength required to remove the lugnuts. This wrench had to be designed so that people of all sizes and strengths can use it effectively. In regards to safety it includes 2 extra fuses so that if one blows, you can still change a tire and get back to a safe situation and minimize your time spent dangerously on the side of the road. The final Societal factor is lifestyle, which seems rather obvious but really is the main idea behind the uniqueness of this product. It is designed for the lifestyle of the average car owner. It really has no value to someone who does not own a car.
• Economically, this product is designed to be an inexpensive, reliable tool for a unfortunate situation. There is not much complexity to the design so it has less parts and subsystems that can break, and is made mostly of solid steel. The only predictable breakage is a blown fuse, and they provide you with backups. For a relatively cheap price it provides a reliable solution.
• Environmentally it is designed to have a long life cycle, with lots of recyclable steel parts if one takes the time to separate them. Its carbon footprint is negligible as it runs off of 12v electricity power from your cars battery. The most harmful component of it is the plastic housing and wire insulation, as those are petroleum based and harm the environment in both formation and decomposition. Other than that it is made of earth metals that are easily recyclable and have little to no effect in formation or decomposition.