Kemlon Manufacturing Capabilities
Kemlon is a well-established multidiscipline manufacturing company founded in 1950 and specializing in manufacturing high quality electrical connectors, sensors, probes and related components for hostile environments. We are headquartered in Pearland Texas just 4 miles south of Hobby airport on State Highway 35-South on a 30-acre campus. Our Pearland location houses 121,385 square feet of floor space with 104,424 square feet dedicated to manufacturing and 16,961 square feet of engineering and administrative space. Our Schulenburg, Texas location on I-10 was completed in October 2006 and houses another 42,329 square feet of manufacturing space in a 29.7 acre Kemlon-owned Business Park. Both facilities are modern, state of the art facilities with all manufacturing amenities. We produce numerous stock products as published in 164 pages of product catalogs for a wide range of industries including oil and gas, military, nuclear, aerospace, medical, marine, refrigeration, and communications. See www.kemlon.com. In addition, Kemlon actively solicits orders for made to order custom products in the area of sensors, probes, and related assemblies that relate to our stock products and areas of manufacturing proficiency.
We are proud of our experienced and capable technical staff that includes graduate physicists, mechanical, mineral, chemical, electrical, computer, and manufacturing engineers. Kemlon employs 14 graduate engineers with the average experience level exceeding 21 years at Kemlon. With this level of experience, we approach problems from a standpoint of engineered leadership. Our technical expertise allows our customers to rely on Kemlon for turnkey solutions to complex problems that arise in their assemblies. With a diverse and large manufacturing operation employing over 500 manufacturing personnel at three locations, we can offer extensive technical assistance with experience in cost effective manufacturing applications. We take special pride in our ability to integrate manufacturing processes and provide turn key production in-house of assemblies requiring glass to metal hermetic sealing, complex machine work, laser and electron beam welding, electronic assembly and calibration, electroplating, and molding of high performance thermoplastics and rubber compounds. The following descriptions are intended to highlight some of the processes, techniques, and procedures available to our customers:
Hermetic Sealing
We have extensive experience in forming hermetic seals utilizing glass, ceramics, glass ceramics, plastics, and rubbers. Kemlon has developed and holds several patents covering glass-to-metal sealing and hybrid glass-to-metal/thermoplastic sealing in high pressure and temperature applications. We have developed the materials, processes and equipment to create glass-to-metal seals that will withstand pressures well over 30,000 psi at 500 degrees Fahrenheit with a leakage rate as measured with a mass spectrometer helium leak detector of less than 10-8 cc/sec. Kemlon compounds specialty glasses in-house to accurately match the coefficients of thermal expansion of metal pins and housings to glass sealing compounds in the range of applicable operating temperatures. Materials such as inconel, all the stainless steels, kovar, and molybdenum are readily sealed using proven Kemlon technologies. With both batch and continuous controlled atmosphere ovens we can efficiently produce both large and small runs of product.
Plastic, EB welded, metalized brazed ceramic, and rubber can also be integrated in applications where a high pressure and temperature hydraulic seal is required of a connector or electronic housing.
Welding, Brazing and Electroplating
Four RF Induction Heating machines provide fast and repeatable brazing of mechanical joints using silver solders, copper and other alloys. Three CNC Electron Beam Welders provide highly reproducible hermetic welds of critical joints. With 4-axis and rotary capability, complex welded geometries are possible. EB welding machines are capable of welding very thin gauge material, welding of dissimilar metals, high strength deep penetrating welds, and welds requiring minimal heat effect zones. Specific weld documentation following ISO, API, ASME, and custom specifications is available. Laser welding through a fiber optic delivery of an Nd-YAG concentrated laser beam allows for precise shallow penetration welded joints of a wide range of materials. Laser welding is fast, requires no vacuum pump-down, and is highly reproducible on our 4-axis CNC stage. The majority of our products require electroplating. This is performed in-house with such elements as gold, nickel, copper, and silver.
Precision Machine Work
Kemlon operates conventional manual metal working machines including lathes and milling machines with digital readouts, turret lathes, drill presses, saws, and centerless, cylindrical, and toolpost grinders. Machined prototypes, mock-ups and pilot models are commonplace. Heat treatment of machined parts is also available and completed in house.
Automatic equipment capable of handling production from small lots of 25 or less to lots exceeding 100,000 pieces is available for customer production needs. While we specialize in small to medium size parts, we have 40 hp CNC lathes with 4-1/4 inch bar capacity, 15” chucks, and 50 inches of X-axis travel to handle larger items. Our 37 CNC turret lathes typically handle parts that are from ¾” to 10” in diameter and under 40 inches in length. With shop personnel working two shifts, we keep product on schedule at competitive prices. Larger pieces are handled by our sister company, Keystone Engineering Co., Ltd. Our common ownership and management provide for the seamless integration of very large parts and the complex electromechanical assemblies provided at Kemlon. See www.keystoneeng.com for a summary of their operations.
Our CNC milling department is 61 machines deep, 17 3-axis, 42 with rotary or 4-axis capability and 2 machines with 5-axis capability. Both vertical and horizontal machines are represented. Machines with large tables and X-axis travels to 64 inches and 40 tool automatic tool-changers allow for relatively large and complex work. Smaller, more cost effective CNC mills with as few as 10 tools and smaller travels are utilized in many applications where the parts are small and less complex. With this wide range of sizes, almost any size and shape can be efficiently manufactured.
We can perform EDM with 3 modern 4-axis Sinker-type CNC EDM. With a 16 tool automatic tool changer, a full C-axis, linear glass scales with resolutions of .0000040”, and a 64 amp generator capable of removing 1.44 cu in/hr, “J” slots, splines, internal hexes, raised keys, and other complex geometry are readily obtainable.
Extremely complex instrument quality small parts, the hallmark of our standard product line, are produced in our screw machine department. Thirty-Seven (37) Swiss-style CNC machines, 33 of which have 7-axis or 5-axis capabilities, allow for turning and milling complex parts to demanding tolerances. These intricate machines have up to 25 tools, a full C-axis spindle, indexable sub-spindles, cross drilling and milling through independently driven power tools, and allow the part to be worked from both ends. Consequently, complex parts are finished turnkey without costly additional manufacturing operations. Bar sizes to 26 mm can be accommodated with these machines. Six (6) Conventional cam-type and coil fed wire Swiss lathes produce extremely high volumes of small detailed parts where longer set-up times can be justified due to the high volume. Twenty four (28) Special CNC lathes built to Kemlon requirements utilizing an indexable spindle, turretless Kemlon tooling package, and independently driven cross-working tools provide efficient turning and milling of small parts from 1/8” to 1-1/4” diameters and lengths to 3.” Two 8-spindle screw machines provide high volumes of complicated parts up to 1” in diameter where the length to diameter ratios fall within standard turning and shaving values. Polishing and finishing equipment insure burr-free “jewelry” quality finished parts.
Seven (7) precision Swiss centerless grinders provide automatic diamond grinding of small parts to extremely close tolerances. Ceramics and very hard metal components requiring fine finishes are easily handled. In addition cylindrical and form diamond grinding of larger ceramics is also performed on lathes with special tooling packages dedicated to this task. For ceramic coil forms and other complex cylindrical geometries, a dedicated and specially built CNC grinder efficiently produces the desired shape to exacting standards.
Plastic and Rubber Molding
Injection, transfer and compression molding of a range of engineered plastics including epoxies, fluorocarbon resins, PPS, polycarbonates, polyesters, and polyurethane is routine. Kemlon pioneered injection molding of PEEK in 1981 and continues to specialize in molding both PEEK and PEK compounds. Four machines, both toggle style and fully hydraulic CNC injection, with 110 tons of clamp, injection shots to 41 ounces, and injection pressures to 42,000 psi allow for molding of the most difficult of geometries of the highest quality.
Rubber molding is achieved through conventional transfer, compression, and proprietary vacuum molding processes. Kemlon maintains Banbury and calendaring rubber-mixing equipment to compound a wide range of specialty rubbers for specific critical environments. The use of modern CNC Banbury mixers provides for consistent mixing of high performance rubber compounds with extremely reproducible performance characteristics. Among the rubbers we regularly mold are HSN, carboxylated, neoprene, nitrile, polyurethane, the fluoroelastomers, and the numerous Kemlon “KN” proprietary elastomers. Highly acclaimed KN-130 has become the standard for high temperature boots in down-hole oilfield service. For more information request our rubber compound list.
All molds, both plastic and rubber, are designed and built in-house utilizing modern 4-axis CNC EDM and CNC Machining Centers. This in-house capability provides our customers a speedy turnaround from drawing to finished part. Our use of “family molds” and in-house sub-bases greatly reduces set-up charges for the vast majority of components we mold.
Electronic Assembly and Calibration
Electronic instrumentation is assembled, soldered, tested, tuned, and calibrated in-house. Our soldering personnel are trained and certified to IPC-A-610 and WHMA-A-620 and are capable of achieving reliable soldering results in the most difficult assemblies. Quartz crystals, electrical connectors, integrated circuits, strain gages, molded coils, thermocouples, RTDs and other components are wired, soldered and assembled into electronic pressure housing produced in the machine shop. This allows us to manufacture finished assemblies of down-hole gauges, pads, pressure transducers and similar instrumentation on a turnkey basis. Equipment including oscilloscopes, function generators, digital multimeters, dead-weight testers, power supplies, RF network analyzers, frequency counters, frequency generators, curve tracers, and calibrated ovens are employed to ensure accurate electrical responses are generated under field conditions. Procedures utilizing EB welded diaphragms vacuum filled with pressure-transmitting oil for temperature compensation, nitrogen filling electronics assemblies, epoxy potting, microscopic inspection, and mass spectrometer helium leak testing are other routine measures performed in this area.
Quality Control
We have 17 experienced, trained, and dedicated quality personnel verifying all aspects of production. Our quality program is operated in accordance with MIL-I-45208 and other more demanding standards where applicable. Incoming, first part, in process, and final inspections are made with properly calibrated instruments, gauges and tools. Optical comparators, coordinate measuring machines, mass spectrometer helium leak detectors, micrometers, calipers, x-ray fluorescent spectrometers, beta back scanners, digital high potential gigaohm meters, environmental chambers, thread and pin gauges, tensile testers, digital microscopes with cameras, network analyzers with frequencies up to 20 GHz, dilatometers, Rockwell hardness testers and other measuring devices are utilized to verify product quality. Our quality department is supervised by a registered profession engineer (P.E.) and we have personnel certified by ASNT for liquid penetrant testing to ACCP Level II.
We have 4 high pressure, high temperature autoclaves that are operated daily to qualify, test, and prove electromechanical down-hole devices at simulated well conditions. Our largest vessel is capable of 35,000 psi and 500 F simultaneously. The maximum part size that can be accommodated in these autoclaves is 4.5” in diameter by 42” in length. Calibrated pressure transducers and thermocouples provide instantaneous signals to a dedicated PC for recording real time history of pressure and temperature inside the vessel during the test.
Engineering Capability
Our team of engineers and CAD drafting personnel can design finished electro-mechanical assemblies meeting specific performance guidelines. We currently employ AutoCAD 2-D drafting, SolidWorks 3-D modeling, and Ansys Finite Element Analysis (FEA) where needed. This capability, along with the diverse manufacturing capability, make Kemlon especially well suited to applications requiring single vendor responsibility for complex technical electromechanical assemblies requiring integrated manufacturing process. All inquiries are handled confidentially and expeditiously.