Talk:Pneumatic cylinder

Work needed. Made a start
There is a lot of work needed on this article. I have made a start to trying to structure, wikify and tidy the article. Will need to modify some of the wikifications to align with the existing terminology on Wikipedia. A good place for information as it's function and fundamental theory are similar is hydraulic cylinder. However, they are not identical so it is important not to just blindly copy and paste stuff unless you know it is correct and understand what it means.-*- u:Chazz/contact/t: 22:27, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

"Actuator" term
In pneumatics I have always understood the term "actuator" to mean switch (i.e. an item that actuates another item) and always called a pneumatic "switch" an actuator. What's more, this is consistent with the definition from dictionary.com which is: "1. a person or thing that actuates. 2. a servomechanism that supplies and transmits a measured amount of energy for the operation of another mechanism or system.". Now, although pneumatic systems (including those with pneumatic cylinders as their end effector) can be used to turn on (or "actuate") other devices, not all do. A significant proportion, if not most, pneumatic devices just provide a force to perform a direct task (like move a car). However, in this article and Wikipedia's article on pneumatics it would appear that this term is taken to mean "pneumatic device". This usage of the term is inconsistent with the above. Anyone got ideas? -*- u:Chazz/contact/t: 22:27, 6 April 2007 (UTC)


 * In the pneumatic industry, there are pneumatic cylinders, and then there are grippers, escapement mechanisms, rotary cylinders, and multi-motion devices that are clearly not cylinders, but do actuate when appropriate signals are recieved, based on the system that they are part of. Thus, these items are generally referred to as Actuators. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.132.87.2 (talk) 16:34, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

what about the cylinder length
In calculating the force cylinder length both in forward & return stork is not at all consider. is there any variation due to the length. if yes please reply the same with formula top www.G.Mugunthan@tvsmotor.co.in —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.101.98.215 (talk) 11:49, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

In theory length of cylinder makes no difference. However, i suppose as length increases, frictional force opposing piston movement may vary. However, I don't think this has a significant effect and as far as I am aware isn't considered in industrial application. -*- u:Chazz/contact/t: 20:46, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Cylinder length is not a factor in terms of the air pressure required to move a load. However, it may be a factor in terms of volume of air required to move the piston along the length of the barrel. Consequently, extended strokes may be a concern in applications where the compressed air source is not readily rechargeable, eg, an air tank as opposed to an air compressor.George Vasell (talk) 15:54, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Recent changes
I added some material about rodless cylinders, because they are lesser known to many people, as it seems to me. In particular, the type that has a slot along the full length of the cylinder strikes me as being quite clever, and, surprisingly, it works quite well. (The editing was not fun btw! Had a real struggle; first time I'd created in-line refs. That red warning message said I needed " ", and I thought I'd had enough sleep! Went half nuts trying to figure out where that tag belonged. Even created an edit conflict with myself (scary thing to do, for the inexperienced). Was afraid I'd lose most of the later, academic part of the text.)

Anyhow, I tried to find a descriptive image (for the band type, at least) via Google images, and seemed to be headed for oblivion in that route, so I cited some commercial catalog illustrations, which, unfortunately, are likely to have URLs that will not last. ("Volatile URL"...) (So, a TinyURL with a preview is still a blacklist item?)

Calling the whole mechanism — cylinder, piston, piston rod, etc. a "piston" is more commonplace than some might think. Even Popular Science, which (imho) ought to know better, misused the term at least once. This misusage might well have something to do with the popularity of the Detroit Pistons ball team. However, it was not so easy to find an example by Google searching. Nevertheless, in my experience, it's distressingly common.

The last sentence in "Fail Safe" (or similar) is awfully obscure. (Please fix?) I copy-edited "i/p" and "o/p" to become "input" and "output", because those usages are not common in the USA; nevertheless, I like them, a lot; they are concise, and I'm an Anglophile (as well as being half English).

Please note: The article's title has a few extra space codes; ordinary mortals can't fix such (and shouldn't be able to).

I won't be surprised if some of my edits to this article are changed or even deleted, or else give rise to warnings.

Regards, Nikevich (talk) 21:54, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Missing cylinder type?
Maybe I haven't looked hard enough but are we missing a type of pneumatic cylinder that doesn't have input or output ports? I'm referring to the ones used to hold up the trunk lid of your car or other heavy objects. No springs inside, just a highly compressed gas that forces the piston out to counter the weight of item being lifted. If we do have an article on these things it should be mentioned here too.--Hooperbloob (talk) 19:41, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Strange Sentence in Article
It may be a simple lack of understanding on my part, but the last sentence in the "Fail safe mechanisms" section seems wrong. It seems like it is a combination of two or more thoughts into one jumbled structure.

"Due to the leakage of air from input or output reduces the pressure and so the desired output."

I would suggest either, "Due to the leakage of compressed air within the system the desired output is reduced." or, "The leakage of compressed air from input and/or output sources reduces the overall pressure within the system. This loss of compression reduces the potential energy stored in the system and causes a reduction in the desired output of the cylinder."

Joshua Harden (talk) 14:18, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Merging hydraulic/pneumatic cylinder, linear actuator
I am proposing a merger between linear actuator, hydraulic cylinder, and pneumatic cylinder, though what form exactly, that needs to be worked out. Please discuss this on the Linear actuator talk page.

It looks like these engineering articles are being developed along the specific lines of knowledge that people have developed within their particular field of study, rather than as an encompassing view that includes similar aspects across all fields.

It's very unclear to me why we need two huge separate articles for hydraulic cylinders and pneumatic cylinders, when the biggest difference between them can be described as "this one's filled with liquid" and "this one's filled with gas".

Otherwise, they're basically identical in many other respects: single acting, double acting, reverse acting, single acting spring return, welded, tie rod. And then there's the topics that apply to all linear actuators including electric/screw actuators, like side loading.

It seems both the hydraulic and pneumatic articles should be slimmed down considerably and the duplicate content moved somewhere else, possibly to the linear actuator article, or maybe to a new more generic term that just covers cylinders such as an article or subsection in the linear actuator article called "Cylinder linear actuators".

Please discuss this on the Linear actuator talk page. -- DMahalko (talk) 18:41, 2 March 2015 (UTC)