The Essentials of Tool Balancing May 25, 2020 Balanced toolholding assemblies, with even weight distribution, operate better. Unbalanced assemblies may experience vibration and shorter tool life, which are amplified by high machining speeds.
Heavy-duty robotic welding cells can be a great first step May 21, 2020 Like many technologies in manufacturing and fabrication today, welding operations have evolved to be more automated, flexible, adaptive, and “smarter” for improved throughput, safety and deposition accuracy.
March 2020 U.S. Cutting Tool Orders Up 1% from February May 18, 2020 March 2020 U.S. cutting tool consumption totaled $189.8 million, according to the U.S. Cutting Tool Institute (USCTI) and AMT – The Association For Manufacturing Technology.
Fastems Launches Digital Manufacturing Solutions to Teach Automation to Students and Employees February 4, 2020 Fastems LLC has launched three new products to enable educational institutions and manufacturing enterprises to benefit from its advanced Digital Manufacturing (DM) solutions for factory automation. In addition to functioning as a classroom teaching and learning tool, DM enables companies to do training and testing before ramp-up and simulation during production.
Innovations in Workholding April 14, 2020 Not long ago, the mention of workholding might call to mind the traditional vise or three-jaw chuck. The integral nature of proper fixturing to successful machining has forever changed that paradigm and made workholding as critical to the manufacturing process as any of the machines or systems of which it is a part.
How Bright is the Future of Automation? April 17, 2020 In the 1955 short story “Autofac,” Philip K. Dick envisioned a world dominated by self-replicating robots that work incessantly, eventually depleting the planet’s resources.
Intelligent Toolholder Controls Cutting in Real Time April 15, 2020 Vibrations, chatter marks, and tool failure are all problems that can be prevented with intelligent monitoring and feedback systems.
Tooling Technology Past, Present and Future April 14, 2020 The history of cutting tools goes back a ways—a long, long way. Our prehistoric ancestors were pretty good at making stone tools, and the technology has improved from there. I saw how much on a February visit to the Deutsches Museum in Munich, which has an exhibit on the history of machining.
Tips for Choosing a CNC March 26, 2020 Like most of the digital architecture of manufacturing, computer numerical controllers (CNCs) have advanced rapidly in recent years, producing far more processing speed and implementing advanced algorithms, while at the same time offering simpler, more intuitive user interfaces.
Hey, Job Shops: Time to Automate! March 25, 2020 Robots and job shops have not typically been talked about together. After all, everyone knows that automation is only suitable for high-volume production, and the typical mom-and-pop operation is anything but—its schedule filled with orders for high-mix, low-volume, and often highly complex work.