AIRPOT
AIRPOT
It was the early 1950’s when an ingenious industrialist by the name of Arthur Cohen invented the Airpot dashpot.
A graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and subsequent founder of the Electric Regulator Corporation in 1945, Mr. Cohen invented, manufactured and successfully marketed a line of electromechanical voltage regulators which he named Reghom.
The unique design of the regulators required a dashpot with low friction, long life, and high reliability. Since no such device was commercially available at the time, Mr. Cohen designed one himself. To meet the demanding performance requirements of the Reghom, he employed a unique combination of materials for the dashpot: graphite and glass. The design worked so well that the dashpot ultimately became a stand-alone product. By 1954 it was being marketed as the Airpot Precision Air Damping Dashpot. Airpot thus became the world’s first commercially available instrument-quality air damping device.
The earliest major uses of Airpot dashpots were in mechanical time delay switches and relays, professional motion picture equipment, and textile winders. As the years passed, radical changes in technology and the emergence of high tech equipment created scores of new applications for precision mechanical devices. The Airpot found its first high tech niche in computer tape drives, early designs of large disk drives and printers, and in professional recording equipment.
Dashpot example
In 1969, after more than four decades of success, Arthur Cohen sold Electric Regulator Corporation and founded Airpot Corporation to stay active in his retirement. From 1969 to 1975, Mr. Cohen continued to improve the Airpot design to meet the growing demands of new applications.
Then, at the still young age of 59, tragedy struck when Arthur Cohen died of a stroke. But his new company lived on in the capable hands of his wife, Ruth Cohen. At that time, the company had just 10 employees. Ruth Cohen’s focus on marketing and human resources dramatically changed Airpot’s exposure to the world and set the course for the ensuing years of growth. To the great sadness of all her employees, she succumbed to cancer in 1992, leaving the company to her two children.
In 1994, answering the requests of many customers seeking accurate force pneumatic actuation, Airpot Corp. adapted its technology to create a unique line of low friction air cylinders which we named Airpel (from Latin “pellere”, to push, drive). Ultimately, the presence of this line attracted even higher levels of contemporary technological demands and resulted in the recent creation of the Airpel’s amazingly lower friction cousins, the Airpel Plus and the ultimate in low friction, the Airpel-AB. Using air-bearing technology, this elite relative produces what can be virtually characterized as zero friction motion with zero wear.
Today, Airpot Corporation continues to be a trusted supplier to many of the world’s most prestigious original equipment manufacturers, researchers, and contract designers of custom equipment. Our focus on Accurate Force Pneumatics has led to products that can be found in designs spanning the full range of sophistication and complexity- from high tech equipment such as DNA analyzers, nanometer- precision polishing machines, and MRI-compatible medical robots, to Stirling engines, HVAC duct dampers, International Space Station exercise equipment, and even simple kitchen scales and lab animal testing mechanisms.
We are proud to have earned an international reputation for excellence, as well as a number of awards from customers and state and community organizations.
For more information on our pneumatic actuation products, contact us today! Our experienced staff will provide you with the solution your project requires.
