General Shop Equipment & Supplies

At GreenBiz, Mark Johnson, director of the Department of Energy's Advanced Manufacturing Office, describes the importance of manufacturing innovation to the burgeoning U.S. clean-energy industry.

Los Angeles Times reports: Factories south of the border are fueled by American goods and services—creating a silver lining for at least some workers in the U.S.

The Make & Elevate Manufacturing Leadership Series will take place September 12-14 to coincide with IMTS (International Manufacturing & Technology Show). The series offers two components: the three-day "Mastermind Forum" and a "One-Day to Elevate Workshop," both designed to help manufacturing leaders take their businesses to the next level.

Makino offers the L2 vertical machining center for high-volume, small-part manufacturing. Combining a rigid construction, compact footprint and flexible spindle design, the L2 offers a highly stable and reliable machine platform for fully unattended, around-the-clock part processing, according to the company.

F. Zimmermann GmbH has extended the working area of its proven FZ33 compact portal milling machine. The Y-axis now travels up to 4,000 mm and the Z-axis up to 1,500 mm.

It is a reminder of the race between the hare and the hedgehog: Materials are becoming stronger, tougher, more resistant. But the manufacturers of precision tools manage time and again, often in collaboration with research institutes, to also efficiently machine the most demanding materials after a relatively short time. In this interview Professor Dr.-Ing. Dirk Biermann, Director of the Institute of Machining Technology (ISF) at the Technical University of Dortmund, explains the current developments and challenges surrounding the tool.

KISTERS has announced the release 2016.1 of 3DViewStation WebViewer. By adding 2D analysis and markup functionality 3DViewStation continues its expansion to 2D market. The WebViewer version of 3DViewStation provides extremely fast viewing, advanced analysis and integration capabilities for browser based and mobile users of tablet-PCs, smartphones and notebooks.

Caster and wheel manufacturer Colson Group USA has optimized its Caster CAD 3D application for Android devices. It was formerly only available on Apple devices.

WEISS and its subsidiary WEISS North America Inc. recently completed three, turnkey TR1100, ring-style chassis systems for a leading West Coast medical parts manufacturer. Their client's diverse medical product line provides patients and caregivers safe, innovative, life-enhancing medical devices that help improve patient outcomes by minimizing bacterial ingress that can cause bloodstream infections, and preventing exposure to infectious diseases or hazardous drugs.

Clamp-Rite is expanding its value-focused line of manual toggle clamps to include new pneumatic toggle clamps. Ideal for quick clamping in repetitive production applications, these versatile clamps are fully automatic and offer hands-free operation to increase productivity and safety, according to the company.

Rectangular workpieces are automatically centered and aligned with RIGO elements. Rectangular workpieces up to a ratio 1:3 are automatically centered and aligned in all directions. Concentricity and lateral-guiding accuracy is less than 0.02mm.

The smartLine variant is a flexible, modular machine concept. "The secret of our smartLine range is its modular structure," points out Dr. Markus Stanik, managing director of Elb-Schliff. "We leverage a modular machine kit for the customized assembly of both surface grinding and complex profile grinding machines."