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Trumpf UK to Use MM Live as Springboard to Launch into Micro Manufacturing Industry

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT

The organiser of MM Live 2010, Rapid News Communications, is pleased to announce that Trumpf UK, one of the world's leading companies in manufacturing technology, has signed up to exhibit at the forthcoming show, which takes place at the Ricoh Arena, Coventry, 19th-20th October.

Exhibiting for the first time at MM Live, Trumpf UK will take the opportunity to launch into the micro manufacturing industry its new range of ultra-short pulse lasers. Kevin Roughton, Product Manager of TruMicro Lasers at Trumpf UK commented, "We have chosen the exhibition for the UK launch of our new TruMicro Compact 5000 Series of ultra-short pulse lasers, which are ideally suited for a range of micromachining processes including cutting, structuring, ablation and drilling." The company promises that a visit to its stand could prove extremely worthwhile for anyone involved in the manufacture of small to micro-precision parts.

Duncan Wood, Managing Director of Events at Rapid News, commented, "We are delighted that Trumpf has joined the event as it further confirms the importance of MM Live and the micro manufacturing sector on a national and international level."

The start of 2010 has seen strong exhibition sales from the industry with many companies forecasting a positive outlook and continued growth for micro precision manufacturing in the year ahead. MM Live is delighted to announce that several other companies will be joining Trumpf UK in making their show debut including: Newport Spectra-Physics, Laser Trader, INEX and Applied Laser Engineering.

Other leading manufacturing companies who will be making a return in 2010 include: Rainford Precision Machines, SwissTec AG, Hitachi High Technologies, IBS Precision Engineering, Rondol, Laser Micro Machining, Microfabrica Inc., Optimax, Accumold, Micro Systems Ltd, plus many more.

MM Live is a global showcase for all aspects of the mass manufacture of small to micro precision parts, whether a company can make them to order or supply the machinery to mill, cut or mould. Exhibits cover the full spectrum of micro manufacturing techniques from laser cutting, welding, and micro machining to injection moulding, inspection & measurement, photo etching, handling and assembly.

MM Live 2010 is co-located with TCT Live, the UK's number one product development and manufacturing technology exhibition.

A full exhibitor list can be found at www.mmliveuk.com.

See 4-colour Pad (Tampo) Printing Technology at Medtec 2010

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Pad printing technology is used in a wide range of industrial and medical applications including the printing of catheters, syringes, dosage-displays, inhaler bodies and contact lenses.

Distributed throughout the UK & Ireland by Kaye-Dee Marking Solutions, the Teca-Print range of Swiss quality pad (tampo) printing machines combine "easy-to-use" operator features and offer the option of open or sealed ink pot systems. Available as pneumatic or servo driven they have the flexibility to suit a wide range of applications including the single and multi-colour printing of logos, images and text.

Equipment demonstrations on stand 1960 will include printing 4 colours onto a medical flask using the TPX 201 servo driven, sealed pot machine. The Series X2 pad printing machines are designed to the highest technical requirements and integrated into the design are a spacious work area, touch screen control and integration of all the standard peripheral devices. Teca-Print's new printing plate system saves time with the plate change-over, whilst offering operators the flexibility to easily change to plates of various sizes. The x- and z- axis positional adjustments are a standard feature with this plate system and the y- axis (horizontal pad stroke) is automatically adjustable through the touch-screen panel.

The Series X2 machines provide comfortable, easy to use features to help improve production and efficiency. Offering cost-effective pad printing, the Series X2 machines satisfy the highest requirements for print quality and can be easily integrated into an automated high speed production line.

See us on stand 1960 Medtec 2010, NEC Birmingham, 27-28th April.

New EPPM Blog Posting

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Head on over to the EPPM Blog HERE to comment on the latest posting from the editor.

If you have any suggestions for blog topics or comments on the original post please contact James Woodcock or leave a comment on the blog.

A Cool Way to Recycle

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Leading provider of extrusion, thermoforming and container printing services to the food industry, Alma Products is on track to reduce running costs by a massive 63% due to an innovative energy saving solution from industrial cooling specialist, IsoCool.

By re-commissioning a redundant cooling tower and retrofitting a separate plate heat exchanger to an existing Montair chiller system, IsoCool have provided a service with a ROI schedule of just 15 months. Efficiency is a key performance indicator for Alma products. On realising that the current chiller system could be improved by taking advantage of low ambient conditions, they put a tender out to several specialist companies.

Steve Ellis, Operations Director at Alma Products explains why IsoCool stood above the competition: "We chose IsoCool because they had a consultative approach that took our business values, such as sustainable manufacturing, into account. Their solution effectively optimised our existing system and was therefore really cost effective in the short and long term". The retro-fitted plate heat exchanger takes water from the cooling tower (that IsoCool re-installed utilising existing pumps) to provide the cooling source during times of the year when the ambient allows partial and up to 100% direct air cooling. The lower the outside temperature, the more effective the plate heat exchanger and cooling tower become, which means reduces the load on the chillers.

Steve Ellis explained: "We used to have the chillers running all year round. Now, as soon as the temperature is below 16°C, the cooling tower and plate heat exchanger kick in and offload the compressors. Below 10°C we run on 100% free cooling so when the temperature drops, so do our running costs — it's fantastic".

ENGEL e-motion at the SCHOTTLI Technology Centre

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Swiss mould maker SCH�TLI is focusing on the precision, quality and durability of its injection moulds. The company once more fulfilled this market requirement with the acquisition of a tiebar-less, all-electric injection moulding machine for its Customer Technology Centre. SCH�TLI AG has been manufacturing high-quality injection moulds for more than fifty years. Today the programme includes moulds for the medical technology, closures and packaging sectors.

Each mould manufactured by SCH�TLI is inspected at the in-house Customer Technology Centre in order to establish the optimum injection parameters and the appropriate process controls. Five injection moulding machines with a clamping force of up to 400 tonnes are available for this purpose. Recently, an ENGEL e-motion 100 was the first tie-bar-less machine to be put into service at the SCH�TLI Technology Centre. The all-electric ENGEL e-motion machines are particularly suited to fast applications requiring top precision.

The tie-bar-less design has the advantage of providing easy access to the clamping unit and thus more room for moulds and automation. In addition, the ENGEL all- electric injection moulding machines are particularly energy-efficient. "Until recently we didn't have an all-electric machine at out Technology Centre. With the ENGEL e-motion we've enhanced our capabilities in the increasingly important test mould sector with a fast and powerful machine," says Alexander Anders, Head of Applications Technology at SCH�TLI.

Infrared Manufacturing Investments Pay Off

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Leading international heating systems specialist and manufacturer Ceramicx has won a number of new orders this month for bespoke heating systems, based upon its new machining and metal fabricating facilities. The new business at Ceramicx ranges from infrared heaters for saunas to thermoforming systems for plastics packaging production lines to equipment for constructing clean room technology to oven systems for materials coating and curing.

Managing Director Frank Wilson attributes much of this new infrared heating work to the success of Ceramicx capital investments over the past twelve months: "At Ceramicx we take great pride in the quality and superiority in our standard lines of infrared heaters, ceramic heaters, quartz heaters, and ceramic elements. However, much of what do here is to engineer bespoke solutions and systems for new customers. Each of these infrared-heating solutions needs designing and testing before full production. And because we made the investment in CAD, CAM, metal fabrications, milling and tooling, we have been able to upskill our workforce."

The new metal fabricating systems at Ceramicx not only offer failsafe accuracy, the fact that they are programmable ensures identical repeatability of the job, regardless of scale, and also allows the business to machine parts at volume with no loss of quality.

CeDo Leads the Way in Energy Efficiency

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT

CeDo, has just completed a programme of energy saving measures that are set to save the company some 10% in energy costs at its Telford manufacturing site. CeDo Telford is one of the largest film blowing operations in the UK: The company deploys a total of 43 film extrusion machines and each one has been subject to an intensive review of its energy consumption and performance. CeDo's new Group Chief Executive, David Pearce commented: "Energy-saving is a routine part of our performance now across the CeDo Group. Not only is it good for the environment we also need it for the bottom line.

The measures which have been successfully modelled and implemented in Telford will now be available for use in other CeDo manufacturing sites across the world. It will be a part of my remit to assess where this work will how happen next." CeDo Telford first made an ‘energy map of its business activities and identified the main areas of energy consumption. Firstly, attention was paid to the incoming materials used in processing. Utilisation of lower energy materials enabled CeDo to reduce the corresponding processing cost. Lower energy calcium carbonate materials feature strongly in CeDo's EcoMin range of bin liners, David Brookes Technical Manager said: "Calcium carbonate has a thermal conductivity five times greater than the polyethylene CeDo displaces, similarly the calcium carbonate doesn't melt at polyethylene processing temperatures, these two factors have been found to reduce the processing energy/T of product produced by up to 10%."

Call for Papers - TCT Live 2010 Additive Manufacturing Conference

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT

This year's TCT Live conference will continue to explore the realities and the potential of additive manufacture, with a specific focus on industry sectors that lead the way in moving the technology forward.

The comprehensive theme of the TCT Live 2010 event is ‘business critical and advanced technologies for product development and manufacturing' and to this end the Conference Manager would welcome any paper submissions from parties who can present a definitive application of Additive Manufacture in the following areas:

• Business — The Advantages of Adopting Additive Manufacture • Automotive Applications of AM • Aerospace, Applications of AM • Medical or Dental Applications of AM • Jewellery Applications of AM • Sustainable Manufacturing Models of AM

Presentations should address at least one of the following aspects: the design issues, the business benefits in terms of time-to-market and financial objectives, material issues and/or part performance.

The conference will once again be held at the prestigious and centrally located Ricoh Arena, Coventry, 19¬th-20th October 2010, and anyone submitting a presentation must be available to present on either of these two days.

All submissions must be non-promotional in content and presented by companies that are utilising and/or researching the technologies for an industrial application. All submissions will be reviewed by the conference steering committee to ensure that they meet the necessary and exacting requirements of TCT.

No vendor papers will be accepted from companies that sell machines, materials or associated services. Interested parties are initially requested to submit a detailed abstract (3-400 words) of their proposed paper on or before 15th March 2010. This should include the working title, all authors/contributors and their affiliations.

Please submit abstracts to Jenna Reid via email: jenna@rapidnews.com.

Enhanced Performance Spectrum

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT

The polyphthalamide Grivory HT3 stands out among high-temperature polyamides above all due to its absorption of moisture, flame protection and its good processability. When used in the fields of electro and electronics it becomes clear: Grivory HT3 is in top shape. Among the Grivory grades — the semi-crystalline, partially-aromatic polyamides manufactured by EMS-GRIVORY — the youngest addition, Grivory HT3, is particularly evident thanks to its enhanced performance spectrum. Due to its extremely low uptake of moisture, this polyphthalamide exhibits excellent dimensional stability — a property which is of great significance when manufacturing small components with high requirements regarding dimensional accuracy. Dimensional accuracy is decisive for the production of connectors and plugs. The connecting parts must fit into each other at all times and under different climatic conditions. Whether heat or cold, dryness or high humidity — the long-term dimensional stability and a low tendency of the components to warp are compulsory requirements of the material used. Connectors are usually assembled using the reflow soldering process, which means that the problem of blistering also plays a particularly important role in the manufacture of these precision components. In addition, most manufacturers demand flame-protected polymers containing no halogens.

Colour Masterbatches on a Polyoxymethylene Basis

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT

The Gabriel-Chemie Group's new MAXITHEN POM range consists of colour masterbatches based on POM (polyoxymethylene, also known as polyacetal or polyformaldehyde). This thermoplastic is characterised by its high strength, hardness and rigidity over a wide range of temperatures. It retains its high toughness even down to -40°C and exhibits high resistance to abrasion. MAXITHEN POM colour masterbatches are used in particular for the colouring of thin-walled, highly stressed injection-moulded parts, such as gear wheels, sliding and guiding elements, parts for electronic devices, fittings, locks, handles, zip fasteners, etc. The GABRIEL-CHEMIE Group is specialised in the colouring and refining of plastics. The company was founded in 1950 and is today one of the leading masterbatch producers in Europe. The independent, privately owned group is based in Gumpoldskirchen/Austria, with production sites in Great Britain, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Russia and a joint venture in Germany.