1 The new P4 rescue tool from Power Hawk Technologies, Inc. debuted at FDIC International 2016. It is a fully self-contained standalone cutter/spreader rescue tool that uses Electronic Direct Drive (EDD) technology and a lithium ion battery for power and strength and eliminates hydraulics. (Photos
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Posted: Aug 1, 2016
By Raul A. Angulo
One of the best things about FDIC International 2016 was meeting new firefighters and vendors who help support the mission of the fire service with new tools and equipment.
There are so many great tools on the market that this year my mission was to walk the show floor to see what tools would stop me in my tracks. The newly unveiled P4 Rescue System by Power Hawk® was one of these tools.
The P4 is a fully self-contained battery-powered, interchangeable spreader, cutter, and combination rescue tool without hydraulics. Don’t let “battery-powered” fool you. We’re not talking about the Energizer bunny here or your battery-powered screw gun on the garage workbench that seems to lose it charge when you need it most. The Power Hawk P4 incorporates Electronic Direct Drive™ (EDD) technology by RESQTEC®-a worldwide manufacturer and provider of rescue extrication tools and aircraft recovery equipment-and uses a lithium ion battery as the direct power source to the motor, the gearing system, then directly to the output cutting and spreading force without hydraulic fluids, combustible fuel engines, pumps, hoses, valves, or seals. The actuation gearing system used to deliver the spreading and cutting forces is the muscle behind the tool. This gear system, which performs the functions of both a hinge and torque amplifier, has been transferred and applied to the P4’s design, allowing for a lightweight tool with high-output force.
International Partnership
Power Hawk Technologies, Inc., in Rockaway, New Jersey, manufactures and provides a variety of rescue systems and tools for fire and emergency services, law enforcement, the military, and explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) and is no stranger to aviation or battery-powered rescue tools. In fact, there is a company lineage that goes all the way back to Wilbur and Orville Wright, who made history with the first powered air flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in 1903. In 1929, they partnered up with another aviation pioneer, Glenn H. Curtiss, and formed the Curtiss-Wright Corporation. It went on to become one of the largest aircraft and engine manufacturing companies in the world. In the decades to follow, Curtiss-Wright transformed some of its core propeller gear and motor technologies into lightweight, high-force, actuating systems.
In the early 1990s, William R. Hickerson, a Curtiss-Wright Flight Systems employee from the Fairfield, New Jersey, facility (who also happened to be a volunteer firefighter), invented the idea to use the Curtiss-Wright Power Hinge™ gear actuator to create a portable battery-powered rescue tool that eliminated hydraulics completely. In 1994, the 12-VDC-powered Power Hawk P-16 Rescue System was introduced at FDIC in Cincinnati, Ohio. Ten years later, the same employees who invented, developed, and managed the Power Hawk Rescue System product line purchased the business from Curtiss-Wright and formed a new company, Power Hawk Technologies, Inc.
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1 The new P4 rescue tool from Power Hawk Technologies, Inc. debuted at FDIC International 2016. It is a fully self-contained standalone cutter/spreader rescue tool that uses Electronic Direct Drive (EDD) technology and a lithium ion battery for power and strength and eliminates hydraulics. (Photos
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Posted: Aug 1, 2016
How many times in a week, a month, a year, or a career do our lives and the lives of those we serve rely on good cribbing, shoring, and stabilization materials and practices?
I’m an older dog, but I personally can answer that question with a single word: many. Regardless of whether you use wood cribbing or shoring lumber a lot or only occasionally, how much do you really know about the wood you bet your life, your crew’s lives, and your patient’s life on?
Allow me to offer a basic checklist of questions for you and your department to consider about the wood you choose or use for your cribbing and other stabilization needs:
- What kind of wood is your cribbing made from?
- What loads is your wood cribbing rated for?
- How old is your cribbing?
- How long have you had it in service?
- When was the last time you inspected your cribbing or lumber, and what do you inspect for?
Fact: Most of us don’t have enough compartment space (on our apparatus) to carry all of the cribbing and lumber that we may require.
Fact: Many departments have implemented agreements with local lumber yards or home improvement stores to quickly provide them with emergency cribbing or shoring lumber day or night.
Fact: Wood cribbing placed under load force will make tell-tale noises before it catastrophically fails.
Let’s look at some of the checklist questions, and why I pose them.
What Kind of Wood?
Where in this country you work will often determine the type of wood that is available for your cribbing and shoring. In the East and Midwest, we find lots of cribbing made from oak. West of the Mississippi, I find lots of pine and fir being used, as oak typically is not available. Even though oak is a far denser wood than pine and fir, and most often thought of as a better wood for cribbing, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) engineers disagree because hardwoods like oak are denser, provide fewer warning signs, and catastrophically fail much faster than softwoods do.
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| 1 What kind of wood is your cribbing made from? The region of the country in which you work will often determine the type of wood that is available for your cribbing and shoring. (Photos by author.) |
What’s It Rated for?
Although I’ve never seen a load or pounds-per-square inch (psi) rating stamped into wood cribbing, I understand that a typical #1 Grade yellow pine or fir, 4 Ã 4, for example, is rated at roughly 6,000 psi for a single point of contact. Even if all pieces of wood cribbing had load rating stamps on them, so what? Let’s be real-when lives hang in the balance (especially our own), are we going to look at each and every piece of cribbing to make sure it is all the same type of wood and all the same age before we do the complex calculations to figure out if the type of stack that we build will hold the weight? I’ve seen and memorized the FEMA and Army Corps of Engineers charts on weight capacities for wood stack cribbing. I’ve also seen the results when crib stacks catastrophically fail in dire
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- Article rating: No rating
Posted: Aug 1, 2016
How many times in a week, a month, a year, or a career do our lives and the lives of those we serve rely on good cribbing, shoring, and stabilization materials and practices?
I’m an older dog, but I personally can answer that question with a single word: many. Regardless of whether you use wood cribbing or shoring lumber a lot or only occasionally, how much do you really know about the wood you bet your life, your crew’s lives, and your patient’s life on?
Allow me to offer a basic checklist of questions for you and your department to consider about the wood you choose or use for your cribbing and other stabilization needs:
- What kind of wood is your cribbing made from?
- What loads is your wood cribbing rated for?
- How old is your cribbing?
- How long have you had it in service?
- When was the last time you inspected your cribbing or lumber, and what do you inspect for?
Fact: Most of us don’t have enough compartment space (on our apparatus) to carry all of the cribbing and lumber that we may require.
Fact: Many departments have implemented agreements with local lumber yards or home improvement stores to quickly provide them with emergency cribbing or shoring lumber day or night.
Fact: Wood cribbing placed under load force will make tell-tale noises before it catastrophically fails.
Let’s look at some of the checklist questions, and why I pose them.
What Kind of Wood?
Where in this country you work will often determine the type of wood that is available for your cribbing and shoring. In the East and Midwest, we find lots of cribbing made from oak. West of the Mississippi, I find lots of pine and fir being used, as oak typically is not available. Even though oak is a far denser wood than pine and fir, and most often thought of as a better wood for cribbing, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) engineers disagree because hardwoods like oak are denser, provide fewer warning signs, and catastrophically fail much faster than softwoods do.
|
| 1 What kind of wood is your cribbing made from? The region of the country in which you work will often determine the type of wood that is available for your cribbing and shoring. (Photos by author.) |
What’s It Rated for?
Although I’ve never seen a load or pounds-per-square inch (psi) rating stamped into wood cribbing, I understand that a typical #1 Grade yellow pine or fir, 4 Ã 4, for example, is rated at roughly 6,000 psi for a single point of contact. Even if all pieces of wood cribbing had load rating stamps on them, so what? Let’s be real-when lives hang in the balance (especially our own), are we going to look at each and every piece of cribbing to make sure it is all the same type of wood and all the same age before we do the complex calculations to figure out if the type of stack that we build will hold the weight? I’ve seen and memorized the FEMA and Army Corps of Engineers charts on weight capacities for wood stack cribbing. I’ve also seen the results when crib stacks catastrophically fail in dire
Read more
- 461
- Article rating: No rating
Posted: Aug 1, 2016
How many times in a week, a month, a year, or a career do our lives and the lives of those we serve rely on good cribbing, shoring, and stabilization materials and practices?
I’m an older dog, but I personally can answer that question with a single word: many. Regardless of whether you use wood cribbing or shoring lumber a lot or only occasionally, how much do you really know about the wood you bet your life, your crew’s lives, and your patient’s life on?
Allow me to offer a basic checklist of questions for you and your department to consider about the wood you choose or use for your cribbing and other stabilization needs:
- What kind of wood is your cribbing made from?
- What loads is your wood cribbing rated for?
- How old is your cribbing?
- How long have you had it in service?
- When was the last time you inspected your cribbing or lumber, and what do you inspect for?
Fact: Most of us don’t have enough compartment space (on our apparatus) to carry all of the cribbing and lumber that we may require.
Fact: Many departments have implemented agreements with local lumber yards or home improvement stores to quickly provide them with emergency cribbing or shoring lumber day or night.
Fact: Wood cribbing placed under load force will make tell-tale noises before it catastrophically fails.
Let’s look at some of the checklist questions, and why I pose them.
What Kind of Wood?
Where in this country you work will often determine the type of wood that is available for your cribbing and shoring. In the East and Midwest, we find lots of cribbing made from oak. West of the Mississippi, I find lots of pine and fir being used, as oak typically is not available. Even though oak is a far denser wood than pine and fir, and most often thought of as a better wood for cribbing, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) engineers disagree because hardwoods like oak are denser, provide fewer warning signs, and catastrophically fail much faster than softwoods do.
|
| 1 What kind of wood is your cribbing made from? The region of the country in which you work will often determine the type of wood that is available for your cribbing and shoring. (Photos by author.) |
What’s It Rated for?
Although I’ve never seen a load or pounds-per-square inch (psi) rating stamped into wood cribbing, I understand that a typical #1 Grade yellow pine or fir, 4 Ã 4, for example, is rated at roughly 6,000 psi for a single point of contact. Even if all pieces of wood cribbing had load rating stamps on them, so what? Let’s be real-when lives hang in the balance (especially our own), are we going to look at each and every piece of cribbing to make sure it is all the same type of wood and all the same age before we do the complex calculations to figure out if the type of stack that we build will hold the weight? I’ve seen and memorized the FEMA and Army Corps of Engineers charts on weight capacities for wood stack cribbing. I’ve also seen the results when crib stacks catastrophically fail in dire
Read more
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