Asco solenoid valves offer some of the most sophisticated features of all solenoid valve products of their kind. Of course, it stands to reason that the company responsible for developing and manufacturing the first commercially available solenoid valves, having weathered over a century in business, would have refined every element of its core product to perfection.
Still, Asco solenoid valves, just the same as all solenoid valves, are designed on the basis of very simple principles. Learning about the inner workings of a device of this nature can help you to better understand how the specs quoted by various manufacturers like Mac, Asco and Burkert actually translate in terms of the nature and quality of the performance of the device.
Were you to take an Asco solenoid valve to pieces, the most interesting-looking component would probably be the coil of engine wire, with its cylindrical slug or armature, designed to fit snugly inside of it, held either inside or just outside the coil's cavity. Solenoid armatures always have a spring attached, positioned so as to balance the force exerted on the slug by the coil, and so return the slug to its initial position after activation.
You see, that coil of motor wire, when charged with electric current, is able to produce a force which, depending on the direction of the (preferably DC) current, will either suck the armature into the coil's cavity, or push it out, expelling it from its starting point inside the coil.
This simple inline movement has been exploited in a million ways by engineers over the last century. Asco's been using them since 1910, when the first Asco solenoid valves went to market. Solenoids are also used to perform such functions as tripping switchboards when the voltage gets too high, or closing the pair of contacts that allow current to run from a car battery to the car's engine. They sometimes also serve as the basis for rotary movements, pushing platforms or nuts threaded onto large bolts so as to rotate when forced to move up or down.
In terms of industrial applications, well, Asco solenoid valves utilize solenoids to open and close themselves. Essentially, the solenoid is placed in such a position that it's the only thing keeping the pressure in the mid-chamber of the valve sufficiently high to hold closed the diaphragm sealing the valve's inlet from that mid-chamber.
When the 'pin', the inline solenoid armature, is sucked into its coil, that pressure is released, and the diaphragm rises under the pressure of incoming gases or fluids, allowing the fluid to run directly through the valve unimpeded. Thus all you need to do in order to open those floodgates is throw an electrical switch, which, of course, can also be automated with a timer or computer software that judges when fluids need to be released.
As mentioned above, truly world-beating companies pneumatic producing inline DC solenoid valves include Mac, Asco, Burkert and about a half dozen other companies that have been in the game for decades. The done thing in this industry is to go with the experienced players - for as hungry as the younger companies may be, there's simply nothing to match the product streamlining that decades of manufacturing, research and development have achieved.
