Blogs

Free-Flex® Pivots and traditional ball bearings both set out to accomplish the same goal: providing rotational motion in a mechanical design. However, each product has certain advantages and disadvantages that must be taken into account before deciding which mechanism would be right for your design. It is first important to know how these two mechanisms […]

Happy Halloween from the Free-Flex® Pivots team! We hope everyone gets their fair share of treats (and hopefully a few good tricks) this spooky season. When people think scary they usually think Jason and Freddie, but for engineers there is something even more terrifying: having your design capability limited by a traditional bearing. Whether it

Happy Father’s Day From Free-Flex® Pivots As we celebrate all of the great fathers in this country, we would also like to reflect on the father of precision rotational motion: The Free-Flex® Pivot 1961 – In the year that saw the first human in space, the Bendix Corporation was approached to develop an alternative to

In January of 1973, legendary director George Lucas began writing Star Wars. Now, nearly 50 years and dozens of shows, movies, and books later, the name has become synonymous with creativity and adventure. From R2-D2 to the Death Star, Star Wars shows off some of the most outlandish and interesting technological possibilities that many people

The  Frictionless Riverhawk Free-Flex® Pivot offers many advantages: infinite life, low center shift, and no friction. Yes, you read that right: no friction. Now, you may be saying to yourself “Well, that’s impossible. There is always some friction in a moving part”. Is the Free-Flex® Pivot truly as frictionless as we say? What is friction?

Precision Movement and Repeatability: Original Innovation Like most of the world’s engineering marvels, the Free-Flex Pivots design started as a question. What can we use to produce a gimbal ring with precise, repeatable motion in multiple axes at small degrees of rotation? In early 1960, Henry Troeger answered that question. Through the use of an

There are many topics and nuances associated with the Free-Flex® Pivot product line. A common topic is the phenomena of “center shift.” Centershift is a kinematic property of pivots that expresses a movement of axes off-center from each other. The body of the pivot is essentially a cylinder split in two halves which rotate relative

Riverhawk Company has an extensive history in manufacturing flexures for use in a variety of applications. Our product has been an important part of the Semiconductor manufacturing equipment market for decades. However, one of the best features of our product is its ability to be implemented in a vast catalog of products across all industries. This

Selecting a Free-Flex® Pivot for an application is not as simple as selecting other types of bearings. This tutorial attempts to explain how to select a Free-Flex® Pivot for a simple radial loading situation. For more complex loading, aerospace, or life safety applications, contact Riverhawk Engineering so we can ensure the proper margins of safety are

Measurement equipment is commonly used across all industries. Some such equipment, such as dial indicators and profilometers are readily available. As products and processes evolve, customized in-line metrology becomes paramount to maintaining quality and consistency.  Many different types of instruments function using a simple lever over a central (pivot) point. Ball bearings are a typical