Keynote speakers announced

Advanced Engineering 2018, which takes place at the NEC in Birmingham this week (31 October to 1 November), has announced keynote speakers including Jaguar Land Rover, Atkins, the High Value Manufacturing Catapult, the Aerospace Technology Institute, the Department for International Trade, BARA and Siemens.

This year, the show comprises six co-located zones: Aerospace Engineering; Composites Engineering; Automotive Engineering; Performance Metals; Connected Manufacturing; and Nuclear Engineering. Each zone will have a range of speakers talking about current topics, such as big data, Industry 4.0, space, Brexit, aircraft of the future, electrification and robotics.
Alison Willis, industrial divisional director at Easyfairs, organiser of Advanced Engineering, says: “We are delighted to announce our speakers for the 10th year of the show and are excited to hear their take on the challenges and successes of the industry over the past year. Our expert speakers and industry keynotes will stimulate lively discussions with insightful presentations.”
For further information www.advancedengineeringuk.com

AMRC helps develop novel laser tracker

Engineers at the AMRC have helped develop a novel laser tracking measurement device that has the potential to be a disruptive technology in high-value manufacturing and a key capability in factories of the future.

A team at the University of Sheffield’s Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) believes Reflex Imaging’s Laser Metrology Module – LAMM for short – has the power to shake up the metrology market due to the low costs of the sensor it uses compared with more conventional metrology systems.
The sensor – which uses a laser to track a target and generate co-ordinates for that target – was originally developed for use in medical equipment. However, the AMRC saw the potential for the sensor to have multiple uses in high-value manufacturing. LAMM is still in development but the AMRC has helped Reflex Imaging develop the technology so that its functionality is suited to manufacturing applications.
This Catapult-funded collaborative project between Reflex Imaging and the AMRC’s Integrated Manufacturing Group (IMG) involved two workshops at the AMRC’s Factory 2050 to develop use cases and demonstrators for LAMM. The scope was to find application areas within the high-value manufacturing industry and help Reflex develop the sensor to suit these applications.
An initial workshop was staged to better understand LAMM and scope potential use cases. Basic demonstrator testing was also performed. A follow-up workshop was held after the development and prototyping phase focused on specific manufacturing tasks identified during the first session.
Large volume metrology technical lead for the IMG, Thomas Hodgson, oversaw the development work, and says possible applications identified for the technology include robotic tracking, fixture validation and robotic machining: “One of the uses of the trackers is for ensuring robotic drills are in the right place before drilling a hole, a task that is often performed with expensive equipment. The robot moves into position, before measurement and drilling takes place. The cost of the metrology devices that perform these measurements can be expensive, but we’ve worked with LAMM to show it can be done much cheaper.

“This technology exist already and is used widely in the aerospace industry because it allows for large scale measurements,” he adds. “For example, in order to certify a jig, you have to measure before you build anything on it because that’s how product quality is controlled. The trackers used to do this can cost anywhere up to £250,000. They are very expensive pieces of kit.
“The LAMM is novel in that the technology behind it makes it significantly cheaper than traditional laser tracking measurements.”
Reflex Imaging was set up in 2013 and is jointly owned by Peter Hart, chief executive officer, and Malcolm Humphrey, chief technical officer. Armed with their ideas and an early prototype of LAMM, the pair visited the European Portable Metrology Conference in Coventry last year to assess the market, and it is there they met representatives from the AMRC.
“As a start-up, we must use our scarce resources very efficiently, and having access to the experience, facilities and personnel of AMRC was to prove extremely valuable,” states Hart.
Those early discussions helped Hart and Humphrey identify the strongest potential applications and confidently set the focus for the company’s final hardware and software development.
“The ability to subsequently access working manufacturing cells at the AMRC and install our equipment to prove out the ideas was immensely valuable,” says Hart. “The conventional method of working with potential customers, with all their commercial pressures, would not have been as easy, nor, importantly, could we have done it in such a short time. Furthermore, in the AMRC we are working with not only today’s manufacturing challenges, but seeing manufacturing concepts for decades to come.”
Hart says that the future scope for LAMM technology is wide as it lets users achieve an order of magnitude improvement in precision over conventional systems for a given cost.

“LAMMs are designed to be simply connected together to achieve higher target coverage, higher sampling rates, higher averaging and system redundancy,” he explains. “The ability to use multiple, lower cost units opens up the potential of using laser-based metrology in applications that previously could not afford it, such as automatic calibration of robotic machine systems as standard. The factory of the future will use a scaleable network of integrated, precise, measuring devices.
“Above all the experience, information and facilities of the AMRC, one of the most valuable things coming from the project has been the strong personal confidence that AMRC individuals had in us throughout the project,” concludes Hart. “One year on at this year’s EPMC conference, our ideas have turned into a booth and products and applications, and the huge credibility that comes from the support of the AMRC.”
For further information www.reflex-imaging.com

Sodick provides 30% more speed at HLP

Halesowen-based HLP Engineering Solutions, a specialist in press tools for the automotive industry, has invested in another Sodick wire erosion machine from Sodi-Tech EDM. The large Sodick AQ750L Premium not only provides more size and time capacity, but greater precision and around 25-30% more speed than the machine it replaced.

“We started with no premises, machines or money, and would simply cold-call to get work,” explains co-director Luke Hobbs. “A friend offered us some space in his unit and we bought a few pre-owned Sodick wire EDMs from auction. We were familiar with Sodick machines from previous employment and they are tried and tested as far as we’re concerned. We also know the guys at Sodi-Tech and the level of support they provide.”
Progress at HLP soon accelerated. After a brief stint in a rented unit the company acquired its own premises in Halesowen, with three pre-owned Sodick wire EDMs in place. However, faced with yet more demand for its services, the company recently sought to expand its capacity even further.
“Along with the size, the AQ750L Premium has introduced us to new-generation technologies such as linear drives, which compare favourably against our other machines that feature ballscrews,” says Hobbs. “It means that surface quality is enhanced and energy consumption is reduced.
“The Jumbo feeder on the AQ750L Premium means we can load large spools of wire and run some of our longer jobs unmanned, out of normal working hours, which we are insured to do,” adds Hobbs. “This is one example where the new machine has moved us on to the next level, along with precision and speed. I would estimate the new Sodick is 25-30% faster than the machine it replaced.”
For further information www.sodi-techedm.co.uk

Fanuc delivers reliability for tool manufacturer

As far as cutting tool manufacturers are considered, Lanarkshire-based Gilmour Tools has carved a niche in the local and export industry by manufacturing and supplying specialised cutters for the oil and gas, automotive, and aerospace sectors.

Producing indexable inserts and rotary tools from materials such as carbide, ceramic, PCD, PCBN and CBN, the Larkhall company also manufactures tool holders in-house.
Manufacturing bespoke solutions as opposed to ‘off-the-shelf’ product lines is how this Scottish manufacturer competes with the larger ‘economy-of-scale’ cutting tool OEMs. With all products designed to customer specifications, Gilmour Tools has an output in the region of 250,000 tools per annum, with upwards of 70% being exported. To keep pace with demand, the company has invested heavily in the latest EDM technology from Fanuc.
Commenting upon this relationship, Gary Gilmour says: “We started buying Fanuc machine tools over 20 years ago to replace creep-feed grinders, and we currently have a total of 11 Fanuc models on site. The latest arrival is the next-generation RoboCut C400-iB wire EDM machine. All of our Fanuc models run around the clock, seven days a week. The Fanuc service is second to none and the CNC is an easy-to-use universal system. This means that our staff can easily transition from one machine to the next, regardless of model or age.”
Referring to why the company has recently acquired the RoboCut C400-iB, Gilmour says: “The oil and gas market has grown dramatically, which is mostly overseas, so we knew we had to buy more machines and employ more people. Since our journey started with Fanuc, they have always been very helpful with regards to support, financing and payment plans.”
For further information www.fanuc.eu

Cut P series boosts wire EDM speeds by 20%

GF Machining Solutions has introduced its latest AgieCharmilles Cut P series of wire EDM machines. The Cut P 350/550/800/1250 models are equipped with efficient power generators and feature a robust design and build, intuitive HMIs, and several automation options for lights-out/unattended operations.

With Intelligent Power Generator (IPG) digital technology, the EDM machines deliver ultra-fine surface finishes (Ra 0.1) and can improve cutting speeds by up to 20%, says the company.
Several ‘Expert’ systems further optimise the IPG’s cutting performance, especially when undertaking demanding and challenging applications. For instance, POWER-Expert monitors and changes the power levels required to machine parts with variable heights. This system protects parts from unstable conditions at high cutting speeds. Simultaneously, the system controls spark parameters during finishing operations to provide high-quality surface finishes on variable height parts. This capability maximises part finishes and reduces the need for secondary bench work.
Regardless of workpiece height, another Expert system – WIRE-Expert – is used to control wire wear and achieve continuous geometrical accuracy from all directions.
For part profile accuracy, PROFIL-Expert automatically adapts the machining parameters and cutting path for rough and skim passes to control fine details and ensure positioning and contour accuracies of ±2 µm, while TAPER-Expert technology cuts angles from 0 to 30° (45° as an option) to maximum Z heights.
TAPER-Expert corrects shifts of the Z reference position in real time, even when the taper angle is changing. The taper angle is also held to within 10 seconds on average, providing taper accuracy and geometry reference accuracy throughout the taper cut.
Cut P machines also feature GF Machining Solutions’ collision protection technology in the X, Y, U, V and Z axes.
For further information www.gfms.com