Product News

The ATC recently shortlisted 38 of Australia’s most exciting technology companies for the ATC16 Business Accelerator. These semi-finalists are industry-leading innovators with the capability to become game-changers across the sectors of advanced manufacturing, energy, food & agricultural technology, mining, medical technology, cyber-security and smart cities. The Advanced Manufacturing category is being supported by AMTIL to help showcase some of the country’s most exciting manufacturing companies. Now in its sixth year, the ATC finds, mentors and develops Australia’s best technology companies with the greatest global potential. The Business Accelerator program aims to help turn good technologies into great businesses. The judging panel features the country’s leading experts in commercialisation, finance, intellectual property and technology development, from companies such as Deloitte, Bird & Bird and FB Rice. With a focus on building global success stories, the judges are looking for not only the best technologies but also the best managers and the best business plans. This year’s 146 entries have so far jointly spent $190m developing their technologies and…

The three-axis, 4m x 2m machine features an additional C-axis to enable the use of steered tooling such as variable angled knives, steered reciprocating knives for duct board and fibreglass insulation, or steered pizza cutter wheels. Powered by an AC servo-motor, it is capable of rotating up to 500rpm.To decrease production time, ART has equipped its XR Router series with a gantry-mounted covered automated ten-position tool changer, which turns variable-angle cutting, V-grooving and routing into one efficient fully automated process. Soon after purchasing his XR5000 router two-and-a-half years ago, Lintott saw the potential for expanding its use from his existing fibreglass business, based in Woodford, Queensland, to supplying CNC routed products to existing and new clients. “The machine suddenly expanded the scope of the work we could do,” he says. “Along with the potential for involving ourselves in areas we hadn’t previously…

It is sometimes surprising when you stop and consider all of the places where compressed air is used. Typically we think about manufacturing, processing and engineering applications. However, compressed air serves a very important function in numerous other industry sectors, not least the veterinary industry where it is used to manufacture oxygen. From small veterinary clinics to large animal hospitals, oxygen generation plays a key role in healing pets and animals. And, with one of the highest rates of pet ownership in the world and over 33m pets, Australia certainly has a demand for the lifesaving services they provide! The traditional method of obtaining the oxygen would be to purchase it in cylinders. However, this method is costly and comes with the added inconvenience of having to move and change heavy and dangerous oxygen cylinders. Mediquip offers the Australian veterinary industry with a highly economical, convenient, safe and compact alternative: oxygen supply plants. Powered by a compressor, an oxygen supply plant…

The steel sections of each louvre have been shaped so that they form part of a series of 3D images that can be viewed from different angles as people walk around the building. Industrial Galvanizers (IG), a member of the Galvanizers Association of Australia (GAA), was engaged to take the more than 480 individual steel sections and coat them in zinc prior to delivery to the construction site. The IG factory in suburban Campbellfield, north of the Melbourne CBD, returned each batch of the completed galvanization project to the steel fabricators, Fabmetal Specialists, with an average turnaround of 2-3 working days in plant. According to David Reilly, Sales Manager at IG, galvanization provides a long-lasting, tough, durable coating that provides complete corrosion protection both inside and out in addition to enhancing the appearance. Galvanization has…

Market conditions in Australia are changing, though at the core of it all, Australian companies are amongst the most innovative and resourceful in the world. At Applied Machinery, we began seeing signs of renewed optimism from our customers towards the back end of 2015, and it’s with this in mind that the following Top 10 will be where our customers are, and will be continuing to invest their capital. Pro-Plas CNC plasma cutting systems                                                                                                                             With the Pro-Plas series plasma cutting systems from Applied Machinery, we have managed to put together a quality CNC machine, with Hypertherm plasma source and Fastcam software for under $27,000 plus GST. With an edge finish that has to be seen to be believed for a system at this price point, in-house sheet-metal profiling just became accessible to companies where in the past it was just not financially viable. We saw record sales of these machines prior to Christmas 2015 and orders in early…

The cost-saving universal chute – which can rotate output through 160 degrees left or right – can remove completely the need to custom-manufacture individual chute types to fit the confined spaces and particular angles of individual mines. The versatile bolt-in system – comprising a complete integrated structure from head end to conveyor outlet – features a rotating outlet beneath the head that can be angled to any position required to facilitate product flow. In addition to radically reducing the labour required for manufacture and installation, the chute’s ability to be installed in a fraction of the time of custom chutes minimises downtime by keeping production moving when chutes wear out. “This is a brilliantly simple breakthrough in cost and time saving at a time when the mining industry needs it most to maintain production,” says Chute Technology partner Tom Woods, whose experience of coal chute manufacture through family company TW Woods Construction extends back more than 40…

By pioneering a PVC formulation with true “thermoplastic” 3D printing properties, specifically designed for use as a 3D printing filament feedstock, the Chemson invention broadens the options available for users of 3D printing: from cottage-industry makers and hobbyists, to advanced manufacturing. 3D Vinyl’s unique qualities remove the constraints formerly imposed on the majority of accessible 3D printing platforms. The product will enable users of these systems to move beyond rapid prototyping and develop end-use parts and products in a variety of low-run production deployments. 3D Vinyl is weatherproof, UV and solvent resistant, and is Group-1 fire retardant, capable of AS3837 compliance. It boasts low embodied energy content compared to incumbent polymer-based filaments, with a sustainable footprint requiring 50% fewer fossil fuel inputs, using natural gas rather than being derived from crude oil. It features improved rigidity, eliminating bottom layer warping and poor bed adhesion, and is excellent for generating support structures, which are easily removed. Benefits of 3D Vinyl for…

The shortage of skilled workers is expected to grow, but customers are always looking for intelligent solutions to produce faster, more efficiently and more accurately. Where once long programming times and high expertise were necessary, today one click is all it takes. This is where the RAS XLT Bend comes into a world of its own. Now available in Australia from Sheetmetal Machinery Australia, the RAS XLT Bend is an impressively flexible UpDown folding machine, with 4,060mm x 2.5mm or 3,200mm x 3mm mild steel capacity. Along with innovative mechanical components, the CNC’s One-Click Programming is certain to be a production highlight. The folding beam is a revolutionary new design that has been proven to reduce deflection by 20x over the bend line, without the need for adjustment. Bent parts no longer need to be flipped, as the folding beam is capable of automatically avoiding prebent flanges. Even the folding beam pendulum, critical for changing the folding beam direction, is driven…

Remote Visual Inspection (RVI) of materials, components and structures allows engineers and technicians the ability to inspect internal surfaces and other features of an engine, motor or machinery. Videoscopes are used to carry out inspections without causing damage to delicate parts of an aircraft. Olympus — a world-leading manufacturer of optical, electronic and precision engineering products — has been at the forefront of videoscope development for many decades. A videoscope is an inspection instrument that consists of a small camera mounted on a length of cable. The camera can be controlled remotely by an operator while it is inserted in the cavity to be inspected. Modern videoscopes incorporate powerful LED light sources that are delivered through the tip of the probe, as well as motors to move the lens tip assembly. According to Sean Fogarty, Senior Sales Specialist at Olympus in Queensland, the greatest advances and improvements for…

Cemented carbide is a hard material used extensively in cutting tools intended for machining. Within an industrial context, references to carbide or tungsten carbide usually refer to this cemented composite. Carbide cutters deliver many advantages. In the vast majority of cases, they provide a better surface finish on the machined part, and allow faster machining compared with high-speed steel (HSS) cutters. In addition, carbide tools can withstand higher temperatures at the cutter/workpiece interface than standard HSS tools, which is the principal reason for their faster machining capability. Carbide usually provides superior performance for the cutting of tough materials such as high-alloyed steel or stainless steel, as well as in situations where other cutting tools would wear away faster, such as when performing high-quantity, extended production runs. Industries began using cemented carbide for cutting metals in the 1930s. Since that time carbide has become by far the most popular material for production of cutting tools. While some tools that feature relatively small sizes are wholly produced from carbide, others use carbide in the cutting area only. Originally the…

Based in Malibu, California, HRL is a corporate research & development laboratory owned by The Boeing Company and General Motors, specialising in research into sensors and materials, information and systems sciences, applied electromagnetics and microelectronics. HRL’s Senior Chemical Engineer Zak Eckel and Senior Chemist Dr Chaoyin Zhou invented a resin formulation that can be 3D printed into parts of virtually any shape and size. The printed resin can then be fired, converting it into a high-strength, fully dense ceramic. The resulting material can withstand ultra-high temperatures in excess of 1,700 degrees Celsius and exhibits strength 10 times higher than similar materials. Ceramics are much more difficult to process than polymers or metals because they cannot be cast or machined easily. Traditionally ceramic parts are consolidated from powders by sintering, which introduces porosity and limits both achievable shapes and final strength. “With our new 3D printing process we can take full advantage of the many desirable properties of this silicon…

For Porsche a perfect season has come to an end: it took the overall victory at the 24 Hours in Le Mans, the Manufacturers’ World Championship title in the penultimate round in Shanghai, and was crowned the Drivers’ World Champions. Its success is the result of long-standing experience, and above all, the continuous development of the Porsche 919 Hybrid. While the team co-operates with numerous suppliers, its technology partnership with DMG MORI has had a long, lasting influence on internal production as well. To produce components for cars more quickly and more flexibly, Porsche has built its own ultra-modern component production capability, with a DMU 65 monoBLOCK and a CTX beta 800 from DMG MORI as its machine basis, complemented by the DMG MORI process chain. “Short response times and flexibility are deciding factors for success in motorsports”, says Frank Jahn, who is responsible for the team’s component production. For this reason, in-house production was also set up, the project presented enormous challenges: “We had to invest here with…

The Monash Centre for Atomically Thin Materials (MCATM), a joint initiative between Monash’s Science and Engineering faculties, is an international hub for research in novel atomically thin materials such as graphene. The multidisciplinary centre brings together world-leading expertise from across Monash with national and international partners and industry. With state-of-the-art facilities and technology, it offers a platform for researchers to gain a deeper understanding of how atomically thin materials integrate with each other or with other materials, to achieve engineering solutions and realise new applications to meet the needs of the Australian manufacturing industry. What is graphene? Graphene is a plane of carbon just one atom thick arranged in a hexagonal lattice reminiscent of a honeycomb. Graphene is the basic constituent of graphite, which consists of graphene…