Many times, but I want to install a certain accessory to my home, I always have to resort to drilling, screws, or glue. But, all of these three methods can ring the aesthetics of your home. If you ever decide to remove the accessory order decoration, there will be a whole behind it or glue stuck to the paint of the walls. That isn’t exactly a great idea, especially if you are a tenant. Fortunately, suction cups are the solution for this type of problem.
However, that is not the only use of suction cups. There are hundreds of other applications in both ordinary life and many industries. They are probably everywhere around you, but most of the time you simply do not notice them.
To give vacuum cups a little bit of recognition and to help people understand just how useful they can be, I decided to write this article and talk about all those different uses and applications. Both industrially and in ordinary life.
How does it work?
Before we can delve deeper into this subject and all those different applications, I believe that we should first talk about how they work.
Well, this “device” worse quite simple, but it may be a bit difficult to explain it. Although, I will try.
When you push the elastic material, the cup onto the wall, it pushes out all of the air outside and only a small amount of air is trapped inside. When you release the device, because of that low amount of air inside, the pressure is lower while the outside of the device has much higher pressure. That higher pressure of air is constantly pushing towards the cup and trying to enter it. But, since the device has perfectly sealed that part of the wall, the air cannot get in, creating a vacuum. This constant pressure pushing against the item is what keeps it stuck.
Keep in mind, the seal against the wall is not exactly perfect. It lets a tiny amount of air all the time which will eventually end the suction effect. Although, that depends on the quality of the suction cup. Some can last for years while others will be able to last for days.
Home use
First, let us talk about the use that we are most familiar with. Of course, and talking about the home use of vacuum cups. This is something that we are all used to because most of us do have certain accessories, decorations, or any other kind of items that have this kind of “tool”.
If you are looking for such a tool in your home, I would suggest going to the bathroom. Usually, people nowadays install the shower curtain holder with vacuum cups instead of drilling into the bathroom walls. People especially avoid drilling into tiles. When you drill into a tile, it can easily shatter.
You can also see the use of such a tool in the kitchen too, usually as a towel holder or something similar.
These days, I even see such vacuum tools be used on phone cases. Yes, that’s right, on cases for phones. I do not exactly understand why, but I assume there is some kind of for it. You can stick your phone to a wall, if you needed to, or maybe on the table.
Industrial use
Now, after going through the home use of vacuum cups, it is time to talk about the more serious and more useful applications of this tool. A suction cup has a huge role in almost every industry.
Where there are factories with machines, robots, or any other kind of automated process, you will find suction cups.
They are mostly used for moving an item from one conveyor belt to another mostly because they can handle huge amounts of weight. Some can support a weight of up to 200 lbs and others a lot more than that. This is why it is so important to research the type of suction cup that you are buying before using it as suggested by suctioncups.org. You should look for a reliable company that always uses high-quality materials for these types of items.
To increase the capacity or the strength of a suction cup, many industries have an additional tool in the middle of the cup to suck out all of the air from the inside. This ensures that the vacuum inside of the cup is almost perfect. In other words, the seal is impossible to break. The suction effect will almost never fail. This is essential for industries that are handling fragile and expensive parts.
Also, when a perfect vacuum is created, the cup is able to handle a lot more weight. This is also important, especially for the automotive industry. All those machines or robots are constantly handling parts that can weigh well over 200 lbs. Thanks to the reliability of a perfect vacuum, those parts are never dropped to end up broken.
The food industry
This is another application of vacuum cups that is definitely worth mentioning. The food industry is very dependent on those suction cups.
A lot of companies in the food industry are manufacturing products for the entire world. For example, Lays is making bags of chips for dozens of countries around the world. They would not be able to keep up with that kind of demand without optimization.
However, machines and robots have a hard time handling such delicate items. A small amount of extra pressure can break all the chips inside or even open the back. This is why so many companies use a special type of vacuum cups, for this very delicate process. The vacuum grip is just enough to hold the product properly and not to break or destroy anything that is inside of the bag.
There are probably a few other uses and applications of suction cups, but I believe that with these three points I covered most of them. I hope that now you understand just exactly how important these tools are in our lives.
