Product News

Continental ContiRe.Tex technology, an industry-first for the tyre market, received the prestigious Good Design Awards Winner accolade in the Engineering Design category in recognition for outstanding design and innovation. The technology uses a sustainably sourced superior material to completely replace the need for conventional polyester. Together with fibre specialist and textile manufacturer OTIZ, Continental Tyres developed a special technology to recycle PET bottles without the intermediate chemical steps previously needed, making the polyester yarn functional for the heavy mechanical demands of tyres. The Good Design Awards are the highest honour for design and innovation in the country and reward projects across eleven design disciplines covering more than 30 categories and sub-categories. The Australian Good Design Awards, the country’s oldest and most prestigious international awards, date back to 1958 in celebrating the best new products and services on Australian and international markets. Projects recognised with an Australian Good Design Award demonstrate excellence in professional design and highlight the impact a design-led approach has on business success, social and environmental outcomes. “We are pleased to share that Continental Tyres contribution…

TRUMPF has showcased a range of solutions to make sheet-metal fabrication more sustainable at this year’s European trade fairs, 33BIMU and EuroBLECH. The high-tech company aims to leverage its position as a solution provider to help customers make their factories more competitive and eco-friendlier. “Our customers have seen huge increases in the cost of production due to higher energy prices. Our technologies reduce the use of energy-intensive materials and are less power-hungry overall. By offering more sustainable and lower-carbon methods of sheet metal fabrication, we can help companies fight more effectively against climate change and slash the cost of materials and manufacturing,” says Stephan Mayer, CEO of Machine Tools at TRUMPF. The solutions TRUMPF presented at EuroBLECH include its new ‘Eco Cooler’ system that controls the temperature of laser-cutting machines using pure water instead of chemical refrigerants. This novel cooling solution uses 80% less energy than conventional systems and is 100% non-polluting. Digitalisation and automation still driving the future of the industry TRUMPF continued to expand its market-leading position as a premier supplier and user of digitally connected sheet-metal fabrication solutions. “Digitalization and automation…

ANCA Machine Tools has been servicing customers manufacturing precision cutting tools and components across a diverse range of industries around the globe, including automotive, aerospace, electronics, and medical, for nearly 50 years. Founded by Pat Boland and Pat McCluskey 48 years ago in Melbourne, ANCA Motion Tools has grown into a truly global organisation with manufacturing sites and branch offices in all the major continents. Today, ANCA Machine Tools (hereafter referred to as AMT) is a market leader in quality CNC grinding machines. AMT’s success results from its continuous development of cutting-edge technology and a focus on innovation. Continuing in that tradition, AMT launched several new machines during the past eight years, aiming to strengthen the value proposition they offer customers. Significant inclusion to their range is the FX Linear and MX Linear machines. Both machines are powered by LinX® Linear Motor (International Patent Pending) developed by ANCA Motion, a sister company of AMT. Before FX Linear and MX Linear machines, AMT had been silent observers of linear motor technology for many years. “AMT was aware of the benefits that linear motors can bring.…

Designed and created by Brisbane aerospace company Aeromech, the “drone” – known as SARGO (Search and Rescue Go) - is an unmanned surface vehicle (USV) that is set to revolutionise the way search and rescue operations are performed in life-threatening conditions. Aeromech Director and the Australian inventor of SARGO, Joe Bryant, says there’s nothing else like it on the world stage. “The difference with SARGO is that it is a USV designed specifically to be dropped from search and rescue fixed-wing aircraft to land safely on top of the ocean’s surface using a parachute. It can then be operated remotely to transport a payload of life-saving cargo to a stricken vessel or to people stranded in the water,” said Bryant, an aerospace engineer. “The overall design and capabilities of SARGO are different to anything else on the market currently deployed by Marine SAR and Coast Guard aircraft,” said Bryant. Existing products delivered by a fixed-winged aircraft must be dropped directly to a target and cannot be navigated remotely, which makes their delivery method limited and inaccurate. “That’s why SARGO…

A simple and versatile nanoparticle ink could help next-generation perovskite solar cells to be printed at scale and become the dominant force in commercial photovoltaics. Made from tin oxide, the ink is created with just one key step at a relatively low temperature using microwave technology, and without any need for further purification. It’s then used in solar cells to help selectively transport electrons, which is crucial to generating electricity. Prototype devices built with this method have recorded power-conversion efficiencies of 18%, which is among the best efficiencies for a planar-structured perovskite solar cell processed at low temperatures. The ink is suitable for making different types of perovskite solar cells, including with glass, and for printing onto plastic, which can be done cheaply at high volumes. This technique, called roll-to-roll coating, is similar to the way newspapers are printed. Within the ink product, the average size of each particle can be controlled to remain between just five and 10 nanometres. To put that in context, a sheet of paper is 100,000 nanometres thick, and your fingernails grow one nanometre every…

In the early years, it was only a few adopters who were willing to consider all electrics. The time it took a customer to move from a hydraulic machine to an all-electric was very long. That time has now passed and sales of all electrics continue to grow at an ever-accelerating rate. Shorter cycle times. In contrast to its hydraulic counterpart, an all-electric injection moulding machine can perform several tasks simultaneously in parallel operation. Highly dynamic Sumitomo-designed drive motors ensure fast, ultra-precise movements. Sumitomo’s switching times are in the low millisecond range due to the advanced drive technology such as frequency converters, control modules and drive motors. If there is cycle time to be saved in an injection moulding process, an all-electric injection moulding machine will find it. Time = money! Maximum performance of the direct drives improves product quality. Highly dynamic movements not only help to shorten the cycle time but…

Established in 1954 in Langenthal, Switzerland, Güdel has been family owned for three generations. Today worldwide, the company has around 1,000 employees with more than 20 locations. Güdel is a manufacturer of high-precision machine components, modules and a provider of sophisticated automation solutions. Its spectrum of products ranges from linear guideways, racks, pinions, and gearboxes right through to linear tracks and gantry robots. Güdel also assembles its products into solutions with a high degree of control intelligence that can be found in the automotive, tire, metal, rail, intra-logistics, pharmaceutical, renewable energy, wood, and aerospace industries. Characterised by its quality and modularity, Güdel products have been a part of CNC Design’s portfolio in Australia and New Zealand for more than ten years. Their linear tracks known as TrackMotion, are well known and applied as the linear track or seventh axis for industrial robots. They support all the major industrial robot manufacturers, including Fanuc, Kuka, and ABB. If you want to buy a track, you can…

SoftIron, which is soon to open the first-ever base-level computer manufacturing facility on Australian soil – proudly announces its newest flagship offering, HyperCloud – the world’s first fully turnkey, totally integrated and supported, Intelligent Cloud Fabric. Designed and manufactured from the ground up by SoftIron in its own factories, HyperCloud is a fully-integrated platform that removes the complexity of integrating the many independent hardware and software layers needed to build and run a unified private or hybrid cloud. Using pre-integrated building blocks, HyperCloud fully automates the provisioning of storage, compute, networking and infrastructure services, providing a fully functioning, multi-tenant cloud that can be deployed in as little as half a day and less than half a rack and scale almost infinitely. “When we founded SoftIron in 2012, we did it recognising that the industry’s path for manufacturing IT solutions was fundamentally broken for the requirements of the future, both in the core data centre and especially at the edge,” said Phil Straw, CEO and co-founder of SoftIron. “In essence, SoftIron has completely reinvented and modernised how data infrastructure…

Based in Bendigo, Victoria, The Edge Equine is an Australian manufacturer of equine dental products, primarily rasps for manual horse dentistry. The company also provides commercial industrial sharpening services for the central Victorian region – specialising in high-precision sharpening such as broach drills, annular cutters, saw blades, and router bits for local commercial cabinet makers, sawmills, and food processors. The company’s focus on manufacturing equine dental products stemmed from a local horse dentist’s request to sharpen his equine dental blades. Today, it is a point of differentiation as The Edge Equine has concentrated on a more traditional product while other manufacturers have moved to the electronics industry. The Edge Equine prides itself on providing prompt service, made possible with on-site manufacturing capabilities that enable them to ship products within 48 hours. The company sells directly to over 40 countries, with distributors in the US, UK, New Zealand, and South Africa. The company’s relationship with ANCA started in 2005 when they purchased a second-hand TG4. “Over the years we grew to have three TG4s on the floor,” explains Managing…

The new SPEE3D Phaser nozzle uses compressed air or nitrogen to deposit material four times faster than the speed of sound at much higher energy. This process achieves high particle velocity to enable more deformation of particles during the deposition process. As a result, harder materials can be made including stainless steel, titanium, high-strength aluminium and nickel-based carbides. These materials are in addition to our existing various copper, aluminium bronze and aluminium materials. “The SPEE3D PHASER nozzle is revolutionary because anyone can print what’s considered ‘hardier’ materials, and without having to rely on helium to cold spray these materials like other nozzles,” said CTO Steven Camilleri. “With supply chain issues continuing to delay parts for industries such as space, defense, auto racing and maritime, the Phaser nozzle can create these parts in just minutes to withstand severe conditions, high stress, immense shock loads and abrasive environments.” SPEE3D’s cold spray metal 3D printers are the world’s fastest, most robust, deployable additive solution to manufacture full-density, solid metal parts in just…

When it comes to manufacturing industrial equipment – be it scientific instruments, factory equipment or power tools, to name just a few – a multitude of different intricate parts are needed to ensure the product functions as intended. For industrial manufacturers of such equipment, there is a clear and common need for parts, however complex they may be, to deliver the robustness, consistency, accuracy, and repeatability to uphold the performance expectations and functionality of the product faithfully. Failure to ensure this could result in malfunction, which in turn could lead to extra costs and damage to the brand’s image. But the challenge for industrial machinery manufacturers doesn’t end there; the need for such parts to also be produced both timely and cost-effectively will always be an equally inherent objective. With traditional manufacturing techniques, there is an immediate and accepted recognition that long lead times and high costs will typically be part and parcel of the process. Therefore, traditional manufacturing options often hinder industrial equipment manufacturers’ quest to streamline efficiencies across their production operations. The Stratasys’ industrial-grade SAF technology is a…

The three-pronged principle of the Multi-Master family was based on the face contact between a carbide head and tool, centring the head by use of a short taper, and securing the head in the tool body by use of a threaded connection. It was the last of these three elements that benchmarked the connection of carbide heads in assembled tools. The successful design of the thread, made of hard brittle carbide, enabled fast and simple head replacements and created the easy-to-use tool that features ISCAR's no setup time phenomenon. The threaded connection quickly found its way into various tool assembly systems with exchangeable carbide heads, now an industry standard. At first, the Multi-Master line was intended specifically for milling in the Die and Mold industry. Soon after, the automotive, aerospace, and general machinery industries adopted ISCAR's Multi-Master in their production processes. Milling remains the focus of the Multi-Master line, which now lends itself to drilling applications as well. The Multi-Master line has greatly expanded, and now covers a broad…

In an important milestone for securing access to mRNA vaccines and enhancing medical research and development in Australia, global biotech Moderna has commenced construction of its new manufacturing facility at Monash University’s Clayton campus in Melbourne’s southeast. Construction work comes less than four months after Monash was selected as the site for the new facility that was first announced in March as part of a ten-year strategic partnership between Moderna and the Federal and Victorian governments. It will be Moderna’s first manufacturing site to be built in the Southern Hemisphere and the first to be built on a university campus. The facility is expected to open in 2024, subject to regulatory approvals, and will produce up to 100 million vaccine doses each year, including vaccines for COVID-19, influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). Located within the Monash Technology Precinct, at the corner of Blackburn and Wellington Roads, the facility will join a host of world-leading research and technology facilities already established in the precinct, including CSIRO, Australian Synchrotron, Victorian Heart Hospital, and Melbourne Centre for Nanofabrication. Monash University President and Vice-Chancellor Professor Margaret…