It seems like I never have any change in my wallet anymore. I’m too busy dumping it all into machines everywhere I go—gas stations, grocery stores and city streets are all sprinkled with quarter-eaters, and I fall victim every time. Commercial products that consume my laundry money like parking meters and gumball machines have been around for about a century, and have one thing in common besides accepting change—their metal housings and components are both manufactured by the die casting process. Die casted products are extremely strong, temperature resistant and heavy, making them the perfect candidates for public machines that accept money. [Continue Reading Article]

In factories and manufacturing warehouses, electric hoists are all over the place. Anything too heavy to be lifted, lowered or pulled manually is usually transported by a hoist generated by an electrical motor. For those of us that don’t often find ourselves in an industrial setting, seeing or using electric hoists may seem like a rare occasion. However, these hoists are seen daily by millions of regular non-factory working people in every part of the world. If you’ve ever been to a major international airport, chances are you’ve run across an electric hoist or two. Sometimes I get the impression that every airport I’ve ever visited was under some sort of construction. It seems they are infinitely expanding, building and adding on to terminals. These projects can create confusion, crowding and all sorts of traveling complications, causing travelers major headaches and missed flights. But not to worry—more and more airports are choosing to employ electric hoists in their construction jobs, which speed up the process and take up less space. These hoists contribute to reduced transit time between terminals, and may help travelers catch their layovers. [Continue Reading Article]

Southampton, PA — Silbrade silicone hose from NewAge® Industries offers a unique combination of performance properties for fluid transfer applications. Typical uses include chemical feed, bottle filling, deionized water transfer, food handling, beverage service, viscous material handling, laboratory, resin feeds, and adhesive lines. It is also used as protective jacketing. Flexible Silbrade hose is reinforced for higher pressure applications and resistant to temperature variations. Its construction — open mesh polyester braiding incorporated within walls of silicone tubing — enables its use in pressure applications that unreinforced tubing often cannot handle. Silbrade’s construction also allows excellent bend radii and restricted space usage without impeding flow. The hose handles steady or fluctuating temperatures between –80°F and 350°F (–62°C and 176°C). [Continue Reading Article]

A couple years ago, a high-pressure vessel containing water and air was operating on a much higher psi than its design allowed. After years of too much pressure, a small leak developed. It was caught and welded shut. But a month later, the welding job, which did not adhere with safety codes, failed, causing the vessel to rupture and explode. Pieces of shrapnel metal weighing over a thousand pounds traveled at extremely high speeds up to a half-mile before landing on nearby highways and railways. A large portion of the plant was destroyed, half the state was without phone or electricity, and 3 plant workers were killed. If the contents had been flammable, there would have been an explosion too, making the accident much more devastating. Pretty intense, huh? Unfortunately, pressure vessel incidents like this happen much more than they should. [Continue Reading Article]

Freeport, IL, USA……An expanded line-up of heavy-duty, industrial bench top, ultrasonic cleaning tanks has been announced by Ultrasonic Power Corporation. The augmented offering expands the Ultrasonic Power “H-Series” from four models to 12. “H-Series” bench tops are configured with separate ultrasonic tank, made of high quality stainless steel, and a UPC 5300 series generator. Tank capacity ranges from 1.9 gallons to 52.4 gallons. Working area of tanks vary. Longest tank is 60 inches. Widest tank is 24 inches. And deepest tank is 18 inches. (See chart below.) The 12 different sizes will accommodate a wide variety of components or items to be cleaned. Any of UPC’s sales engineers would be available to assist with determining appropriate cleaning solutions and tank sizes. Ultrasonic Power also manufacturers six “SE-Series” bench top units where the generator and tank are built into a fabricated, stainless steel enclosure. [Continue Reading Article]

The full range of today’s hydraulic presses is some of the most powerful and versatile manufacturing equipment. Achieving the highest compressive force of all the power presses, these machines are crucial for the forming and molding of a wide spectrum of materials: metals, plastics and composites, rubber, wood, and laminates. From deep drawing essential parts, such as tanks and fenders, for the production of motorcycles to creating 2,640 plastic credit cards per hour, the manufacturing realm would be lost without hydraulic presses. The scrap metal processing industry also relies on shear hydraulic press force to smash discarded cars and such into compact, manageable squares of reusable material for pop cans, paper clips, etc. [Continue Reading Article]

ChangeWave’s latest corporate survey shows the U.S. economy continuing to recover, but compared to the major improvements seen last quarter the rate of recovery has slowed. The August 24-September 2 survey of 3,006 corporate respondents shows a slight improvement in third quarter sales. Signs of progress have also occurred in sales pipeline projections and in capital spending going forward. Yet while the overall picture still points towards an end to the U.S. recession, the slowing rate of improvement is a key issue that needs to be watched closely. Importantly, the current survey also shows no further easing of the U.S. credit crunch – even though we had picked up clear improvements in our previous survey. The best that can be said at present, is the credit crisis does not appear to be getting any worse. [Continue Reading Article]

The Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank said its business activity index was at 14.1 in September versus 4.2 in August. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast a reading of 8.0. "Basically it continues the process of better economic numbers," said David Katz, chief investment officer at Matrix Asset Advisors. "You're going to continue to see better data, but that's also going to be offset by some weaker-than-expected numbers." Despite the increase, new orders fell to 3.3 from 4.2 while employment fell by 1.4 points. [Continue Reading Article]

Last winter I was visiting family in Germany. The first morning of my vacation, I woke up, showered and unpacked my hair dryer. But when I went to plug it in, something odd happened. My hair dryer’s electrical plug did not fit into my Aunt’s outlet because there was a different amount of prong holes, which were round instead of flat. This is a problem that international travelers often encounter. There are many differences in the construction and type and strength of the current that electrical outlets are made to manage in cords and outlets in North America and most of Europe. The type of current differs between countries. North America uses an alternating current, which reverses direction in electric circuit at regular intervals. Europeans use a direct current, which has an unidirectional flow of electric charge. This factor necessitates a difference in the way electrical outlets, cords and plugs are constructed, which created the problem at my Aunt’s house. American cord sets generally have 2 prongs, or 3 for products with higher voltage. One prong is generally larger than the other, and they are both flat. Overseas, the amount and arrangement of prongs varies quite a bit among countries. Generally, they are all rounded and about the same size. This makes American electrical products’ cord sets incompatible with European outlets, and vice versa. [Continue Reading Article]

Those that work in a factory, warehouse, assembly line or mill know—storage racks are a necessary component to an industrial manufacturer. They keep any sized product, part or material organized and easy to find, utilizing all space and increasing efficiency among workers. An organized workspace runs smoothly and easily keeps track of stock. Storage racks are easy to assemble, adjust to the size of different items, and are able to join together. The question is—with so many differently sized parts and products to organize, what kind of storage rack is right for your business? After a quick look at the different options, the next step is choosing the right set-up system for your shelving. Pallet racks are a very popular option when storing products and materials in an industrial setting. These allow storage of large, flat structures that support packaged goods while being lifted by a forklift. The standard pallet racks have many isles between the rows of shelving, which can take up much space, but there are a couple other pallet rack alternatives to consider. If your business has a lot of inventory that shifts on a regular basis, drive-through pallet racks could be a better solution because they have a denser arrangement that uses 80% less space than standard pallet racks. Pushback racks are optimal when space is very limited. They are similar to carton flow racks, because the pallets sit on a tray that rides along a set of rails in the rack frame that are set on an incline. This rack uses gravity to save space and quicken picking time. [Continue Reading Article]

You can almost hear the grinding and crushing as you say the word pulverizer – the consonants and vowels combine to create hard sounds as you enunciate through the syllables. I enjoy deepening my voice to emphasize the harshness of the word. You try… it’s like a “grr” from the back of your throat. Now, while saying it (and making pounding motions with your fists if you really want to get into it), imagine what it would take to smash stones into powder. The bulk material handling and process industries, including mining, waste recycling, plastics, food & pharmaceuticals, rely on this kind of de-agglomeration controlled at various intensities within pulverizing machines, making materials more useful or reusable. It’s destruction with a purpose; breaking down to make better. Pulverizers take the idea of mortar and pestle to the extreme. [Continue Reading Article]

September 8th 2009, Integran Technologies Inc. today announced that it has entered into a Market Development Agreement (MDA) with Magnetic Shield Corporation (Bensenville, IL) to accelerate market penetration of Integran’s Nanovate EM coating for low frequency magnetic shielding. Integran’s Nanovate™ EM coating process achieves similar performance to specialty discrete magnetic shielding foils, but uses a process that allows a nanocrystalline metal to be applied directly to metal, polymer and composite substrates. The process flexibility enables applications where part size, and/or complexity makes the use of formed foils impractical. In addition, the Nanovate™ EM coating also eliminates additional processes such as forming, annealing and assembly. “We see tremendous promise in the Nanovate EM coating when considering the decreasing size and increasing complexity of certain part applications.”, says Mark Wickler, COO of Magnetic Shield Corporation. [Continue Reading Article]

A surprising 15% of American car owners never wash their cars; they just let the rain take care of it. Many wash their vehicles in their driveway with a hose and household cleaners. Some claim they don’t have time, others don’t want to pay for a professional cleaning. Today, there are 100,000 professional car washes in the United States. Whether you’re part of a small business or working for a large chain, owners of car wash equipment need to advertise the benefits of their company to the public. Virtually every type of car wash system used today—whether touchless, coin-operated, automated or hand-operated, has advantages that far outweigh the alternatives. Perhaps the most attractive advantage to the consumer, using professional car washes is a money-saving method of protecting an expensive investment. Washing a car twice a month can protect from environmental factors, including acid rain, salt on roads during the winter and bird droppings, all of which can cause serious damage over time. These unavoidable issues will harm the finish, age the car and significantly decrease its overall resale value—on average, about 20%. [Continue Reading Article]

The current types of water filtration systems dominating the market today—multimedia, screen or fixed barrier, disposable and membrane filters—may soon have a tough competitor. Undergoing testing at the US EPA in Cincinnati and the University of Alberta, R3F, or radial flow fluidized filter technology, is yielding very positive results. R3F filters could soon be available to manufacturers for the municipal, industrial and agricultural sectors of filtration systems. This filtration equipment uses both radial flow cartridge and non bonded media in the form of small, spherical glass beads. It is similar to microfiltration technology, but has significant cost and operational benefits. University of Alberta testing found that as they used smaller and smaller media (glass beads), the percentage of small particles were separated from the filtered water, a benefit known as selective removal, which is used to remove cysts and pathogens. The glass beads are as efficient as using sand, but more cost effective. [Continue Reading Article]