Machine Building

Giant worm gears weigh as much as three cars

Renold Gears has supplied one of the largest worm gear sets in the company's history to a manufacturer of steel plate. The giant screw-down worm gears have a centre distance of over 32 inches and a ratio of 36:1. The worm shaft is nearly 2m long, and together with the wheel they weigh in at a colossal 4850kg, or nearly five tonnes, the approximate weight of three average sized family cars!

20th February 2017

Herga's 6289 series foot switches used for pressing machines

13th February 2017

Eaton's CLS Sectional Mobile Valve in articulating boom mowers

Tri-Tech Manufacturing designs and builds heavy duty roadside management equipment, including boom arm mowing attachments for tractors. The company's Mow-MasterTM products are used to mow hillsides and trim overhanging tree branches, requiring heavy duty construction to withstand the stresses of use on rugged terrain.

13th February 2017

Monitor assists drone surveillance

The growth in use of drones for both commercial and personal use has been phenomenal in recent years. Increasing use of drones is leading to stringent efforts being made to make their use safe with monitoring devices playing an important part in the process.

10th February 2017

SKF supplies eight-tonne bearing for mining application

SKF has manufactured and supplied its largest ever spherical roller bearing (bore diameter 1.25m) to be used within the mining industry. The bearing was manufactured at SKF's factory in Gothenburg, Sweden.

10th February 2017

Keyence helps BIC reduce its reject rates

Keyence's XG Series vision system provides the solution to quality issues that have long plagued the complex process of razor quality inspection. BIC has been present in 160 countries on all continents for more than 60 years. The brand is one of the most recognised in the world - the BIC Cristal is the world's top-selling ballpoint pen, and the company is the leading manufacturer of stationery products in Europe, Latin America and Africa, as well as a world leader in brand-name pocket lighters. In 1975, BIC revolutionised the shaving world with its first disposable single-blade razor. Sales of its triple-blade and quadruple-blade razors are growing strongly and the company is the world's second-largest maker of disposable razors. In 2012, BIC reported net sales of 2482 million USD, of which 20 per cent was from razors.

8th February 2017

Retrofitting production line machinery with MICA

Centralised machine monitoring and process optimisation is the best way to ensure that production lines and their associated constituent part machinery operate more effectively and economically. Many machines in well-established production lines, which may be between 15 and 30 years old, can still perform their main functional tasks successfully; however, they do so much less efficiently than their modern day counterparts. For example, they don't have the same level of computing power, enough memory capacity to record and store the relevant data, or ability to communicate with their modern equivalents. In many cases, these machines also use data formats and protocols from the 80s and 90s, which are no longer used by today's PLCs and industrial PCs.

7th February 2017

FLIR thermal camera and clamp meter pass electrician's test

When self-employed electrician Gary Fisher was given the opportunity to "˜road test' a FLIR C2 thermal imaging camera and CM174 clamp meter, he saw it as a chance to see exactly how much value these advanced devices could add to his work.

6th February 2017

igus tribo-filaments take on the soapbox challenge

igus engineers have compared the abrasion resistance of 3D-printed plastic parts made of iglidur I180 and standard ABS materials. However, to make the test procedure more exciting, the engineers decided to 3D print plastic plain bearings out of each material and insert them into the wheels of a soapbox car.

3rd February 2017

BMI turns to Keyence IM Series

BMI Engineering, a UK high-volume turned-parts manufacturer, has upgraded its quality department with the addition of an IM Series image dimension measuring system from Keyence. The system has not only saved time spent using laborious shadowgraph technology, but has also negated any potential for customer disputes regarding dimension measurement.

3rd February 2017