FireHead Posted January 29, 2007 Report Posted January 29, 2007 Actually the hiems are made by fireball racing. Fireball sells them to other companys with the companys name on it. They put a lot of time and money into coming up with covers for the heims to keep out debree and keep in lube that would not interfer with the movement of the heim. They are also making up ball joints that are as impressive as the heim for strength. The joint is completely cnc'ed. Only down size to both is they are fairly heavy, Good for the woods and rock people, and big mx'ers. I would be suprised to see one of the new joints break. The Janssen heims are not entirely cnc machined, the bodies are still made out of a forging. Fireball doesn't exactly have much in the way of cnc equipment. I would find it hard to believe they are cnc machining much of anything. Quote
burleybanshee Posted January 29, 2007 Report Posted January 29, 2007 Firehead you are correct about the body on the heim being forged. I am talking about a new ball joint that they are working up right now. Yes they have a big hoss that is doing multiple at a time. I have watched the machine run and seen the different bodies of the ball joint that they are working on to try and get close to the same range of movement that they get in heim. There is so much time in machining that i don't know if they call sell them for a price to suppliers and then suppliers have to mark up and keep it in a price range that we can still afford to buy them. Which was a complaint in the first half of this thread, the price. If not a lot of people buy them due to price, they are not going to make them. But I would look for a new ball joint coming out soon. Quote
racer Posted February 1, 2007 Report Posted February 1, 2007 What is it about that joint that assures so much more travel? Is the body machned in such a way that it allows a greater range of motion, but in a limited area? Maybe more travel when the wheels are truned straight than at lock? Quote
FireHead Posted February 1, 2007 Report Posted February 1, 2007 What is it about that joint that assures so much more travel? Is the body machned in such a way that it allows a greater range of motion, but in a limited area? Maybe more travel when the wheels are truned straight than at lock? The heims in the pictures above don't give any more travel than a normal heim. The neato thing about them is that they are sealed so that you might not have to replace them as much. Quote
sanddragon2004 Posted February 1, 2007 Report Posted February 1, 2007 The Janssen heims are not entirely cnc machined, the bodies are still made out of a forging. Fireball doesn't exactly have much in the way of cnc equipment. I would find it hard to believe they are cnc machining much of anything. Firehead, i dont know what you are talking about them not having equipment, they have a huge facilitiy, and have just spent over 500k on new machines in the past 6 months with more on the way, Ill have to get some photos when i head up there saturday. All the caps are machined inhouse. they are also machining the heims themselfs to fit the pieces to the heim themselfs. Quote
FireHead Posted February 2, 2007 Report Posted February 2, 2007 Firehead, i dont know what you are talking about them not having equipment, they have a huge facilitiy, and have just spent over 500k on new machines in the past 6 months with more on the way, Ill have to get some photos when i head up there saturday. All the caps are machined inhouse. they are also machining the heims themselfs to fit the pieces to the heim themselfs. That last time I was at their facility they didn't have much of anything machine-wise. I think they had a knee mill with a bolt on 2-axis cnc control in it. They were shopping out all of their machined stuff from what I understood. By the way, $500k is nothing to spend on a machine. Maybe you could get used two used HAAS or Fadal mills, but that's about it. :thumbsup: Quote
racer Posted February 13, 2007 Report Posted February 13, 2007 That last time I was at their facility they didn't have much of anything machine-wise. I think they had a knee mill with a bolt on 2-axis cnc control in it. They were shopping out all of their machined stuff from what I understood. By the way, $500k is nothing to spend on a machine. Maybe you could get used two used HAAS or Fadal mills, but that's about it. :thumbsup: What, no Jet equipment? Quote
FireHead Posted February 14, 2007 Report Posted February 14, 2007 What, no Jet equipment? There is some value to be found in some of Jet's products. The air driven hand tools can can be ok. I have had bad experiences with two of their band saws however. The first was a smaller horizontal saw that could barely drive the blade without slipping. The other was a much larger horizontal caw that worked ok for about a month before it started braking all kinds of things. The shitter is that they don't make alot of their product, they just put their name on it. So, if you need parts, they quite often don't have a clue what the part is orhow to get it. In this particular case they didn't even have a manual for the saw or know how to get ahold of the Chinese (I'm guessing) company who made it. I wound up having to put together a coolant system out myself using part from McMaster and MSC. This was a $15k saw and you would think they would support some of their more expensive equipment better. Of course a comparable saw made by Marvel would be around $40k, so it all comes down to getting what tou paid for. Both saws I bought new, directly from Jet. I even knew a couple guys that work there in WA, and I still couldn't get much accomplished with them. :: Quote
BenBB Posted February 15, 2007 Report Posted February 15, 2007 What is it about that joint that assures so much more travel? Is the body machned in such a way that it allows a greater range of motion, but in a limited area? Maybe more travel when the wheels are truned straight than at lock? Same here, I'm finding it difficult to envision the heim providing a greater range of motion than a balljoint. BTW aside from the shininess, that pic looks just like a balljoint to me heh Quote
FireHead Posted February 16, 2007 Report Posted February 16, 2007 Same here, I'm finding it difficult to envision the heim providing a greater range of motion than a balljoint. BTW aside from the shininess, that pic looks just like a balljoint to me heh Like I think I said before, I talked to Janssen last month about these things when I needed to replace the upper-outers on my arms. They don't provide any more travel than their previous heims that were made by Aurora. The benefit of these joints is that they seal a bit better than the rubber booty design. I really don't know what Sanddragon2004 was talking about. After I did a little asking around, pretty much nothing he said was even kind of true. :shoothead: Quote
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