Materials and Fastening

As a global industrial distributor and service provider for fasteners, Optimas Solutions always looks to supply genuine, high performance parts to support the manufacturing requirements of its customers. As a part of this philosophy, Optimas holds Research Engineer and Manufacturing (REMINC) TRILOBULAR and REMFORM components manufacturing licences for its Barton manufacturing facility in the UK and its Wood Dale location in the US.

A new water soluble ultra fine pitch Solderpaste, which significantly reduces defects for system-in-package manufacturers has been released by Heraeus Electronics. The spatter-free type 7 (2~11um) solder paste for fine pitch applications is a high-performing paste which enables manufacturers to greatly reduce defects such as solder balling and solder beading.

EMKA 1200 program aluminium windows provide visibility, mounting space and protection when used in conjunction with electrical enclosures or cabinets where instrumentation, push buttons or other control equipment requires secondary visibility, mounting or protection. They may be used as a window or primary door.

At the recent IMM furniture fair in Cologne, Germany, a group of 15 prospective wood technicians from the Gsechs University of Applied Sciences in Hamburg presented a very elegant wine storage series, called Dolio. Made from teak/oak, cork and slate veneer, each of the designs integrate self-lubricating and maintenance-free plain bearing components from igus.

igus has been developing the family of smart plastics with improved ‘isense’ sensors and monitoring modules since the launch back in 2016. These add intelligence to energy chains, cables, linear guides and slewing ring bearings, and measure, among other things, wear status and alert the user early enough to plan repair or replacement.

If you look back, 3D printing has come a long way since 1980 when its first patent was filed by Dr Hideo Kodama of the Nagoya Municipal Industrial Research Institute. At a time when many were still marvelling at owning paper printers, Dr Kodama described a photopolymer rapid prototyping system that would involve exposing UV light to a vat of photopolymer material, hardening it into plastic.

An innovative new bearing, called drylin W Exchange, has been introduced from igus, for its drylin W linear system, where the liner can be replaced directly on the rail quickly and easily without dismantling the system. By using a practical assembly tool, you can push the old liner out of the housing, clip the new one onto the shaft and push it into the housing for a flush fit. Simple, yet clever, maintenance that saves engineers time and money, while maximising machine up-time.

Extending its range of chainflex cables, igus has introduced cables that are optimised for fast, short strokes with minimum bend radius factor of 5xd. In addition to the flexible conductor structure, the chainflex CFSOFT uses highly abrasion-resistant, soft jacket materials. This guarantees a long service life in energy chains, even in the smallest of spaces.

Based in Edinburgh, Shot Scope Technologies designs and manufactures innovative wearable technology which helps both professional and amateur golfers to improve their game. A keen golfer with a background in electronics design, CEO David Hunter set up the company in 2014 to develop the golf wearable, which collects and analyses over 100 key statistics from each round played, identifying shots, club used and GPS information. The data can then be easily uploaded to any smartphone or tablet (via an app) or computer.

  To improve the long term operational productivity of its annealing line, Tsubakimoto has helped a steel mill in the Netherlands by replacing lifting chains that failed frequently with ones that have proven to have a working life of 10-15 years or even longer.