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How to Control Laser Cutting Dust
How well are your dust collectors keeping up? If you’ve recently upgraded your laser cutting equipment or are experiencing unexplained equipment failures, now is the time to reevaluate your dust collection system. Investing in better dust control now will pay dividends in extended equipment life and better productivity for your laser cutting machines.
Turn Up the Pressure
Take a look inside a shop that has earned a reputation for high quality fabrications in stainless, high performance aluminum alloys, heat-treated Inconel and other challenging materials that withstand extreme pressures in a wide variety of industries.
How Additive Manufacturing Extends the Life of Sensors
The sensor elements used to monitor the flow in oil and gas pipelines suffer considerable wear as a result of corrosion and abrasion, which shortens their lifetimes and necessitates costly repairs. Now direct metal deposition (DMD) can be used to increase the durability of these sensors and improve the reliability of those pipelines.
Understanding AWS Classifications
As with any part of the welding operation, greater knowledge can lead to greater welding performance. Regardless of the filler metal being used for the job – stick electrode, solid wire or flux-cored wire – understanding AWS classifications can help welding operators know the performance that they will gain from a given product and the way it is best used.
How to Make Customers Feel Valued
Most businesses do a fairly good job of “pleasing” customers, but that bar isn’t nearly high enough. Far too many believe that giving them a good deal or schmoozing them is all it takes. But customers spend their money where they feel valued, not on businesses they like or where they’re treated nicely. Here are some ways to meet the major challenge of making your customers feel valued.
The Sheet Metal MES
An integrated manufacturing execution system controls and records the transformation of raw materials into finished products. In the new world of connectivity and digitization, guest columnist Juan José Colás of Lantek explains how the MES has made production management the key factor in productivity and competitiveness for sheet metal fabricators, far beyond other traditional factors, such as the use of material, calculation of times and costs, elimination of paper, and faster transfer of information.
Maintaining TCP: How Does Your Robotic MIG Gun Neck Factor In?
To maintain weld positions and weld in the same place every time, the MIG gun neck used in a robotic welding system must stay in its expected position as an accurate tool center point (TCP) that provides consistent repeatability from part to part. A weak neck that easily bends during routine welding can lead to problems with system accuracy over time. Here are some ways to protect, setup and maintain the neck and help ensure that your system maintains optimal TCP with minimal downtime.
The Hidden Champions: Punch-Laser Combination Machines
Once seen as a machine that can do anything but nothing to completion, there are now countless applications where the versatile punch-laser combination machine easily outperforms a laser cutting machine when a second application is included.
The Chamfer that Changed the World
It all began with “Scuffgate,” a small chamfered edge that became a critical priority and evolved into a growing demand for fine finishes and feel in a world of myriad applications that only precision chamfering can deliver.
On the SPOT: How to Improve Safety When Using Power Tools and Accessories
Here are some basic rules to follow for safely operating right-angle grinders, flap discs, die grinders and cutoff wheels, or other handheld tools and accessories. That’s not all: you’ll save some time and money too.
From One Hundred Parts Down to One
By combining RF design simulation, mechanical engineering and system optimization focused on additive manufacturing, this antenna maker greatly reduces the size, weight, lead times, part count and cost, with as-good or better RF performance than conventionally manufactured systems – and creates structures that simply were not possible to produce in the past.
Tips for Successful Aluminum MIG Welding Repairs
With its low melting point, the presence of an oxide layer on its surface, prone to burn-through with a difficult-to-control weld pool, aluminum can be somewhat tricky. Here are some insights that will provide you with the best course of action to take for making a repair.
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