Save the date to attend the Milltronics open house on July 28, 2017.
Milltronics USA Inc. is holding an open house at its Waconia, Minnesota facility - 1400 Mill Lane, Waconia, Minnesota, 55387 – on July 28, 2017, to showcase new products. During the past two years, Milltronics has introduced five new series of machines, including the VM series of cost-effective vertical machining centers (VMCs), the VM-IL series of in-line performance VMCs, the VR/VM-XP series of #50 taper heavy-duty VMCs, the VK series of CNC knee mills, and the SL series of slant bed CNC lathes. Additionally, during that same period the company also introduced a new control, called the 9000 series which is touchscreen and Windows-based.
“We’ll be showing our two newest products for the first time,” says Louie Pavlakos, Milltronics general manager. “The VK4-II is a new CNC knee mill with the Milltronics MillSlide Z-axis and the SL-8-II is the first model in our new series of CNC slant bed lathes with the 9000 series control.”
New machines on display with live demos will include:
Milltronics USA designs and builds machine tools, software, and controls. The team in Waconia handles machine design, mechanical and software engineering as well as assembly, finance, sales, service, training and applications engineering. Milltronics is part of the Hurco Companies Inc. family of machine tool companies.
Food and drink will be served and all are welcome. Open house registration and more information is available online or by calling 888.999.1440.
More than 2,800 G.W. Schultz milling tools are now available on MachiningCloud.
The G.W Schultz (GWS) MachiningCloud partnership uses the convenience of cloud-based technology, which enables customers to optimize the way they gather information for their manufacturing operations by effortlessly searching for the proper cutting tool that best fits their cutting conditions without having to search through catalogs, websites, or calling tool reps.
Furthermore, GWS customers will increase productivity and achieve greater accuracy by easily downloading descriptive, usage and geometric information directly into their shop floor software, such as CAM, simulation, and tool management systems.
"MachiningCloud's ability to feed G.W. Schultz product data directly into their customers' shop software offers a tremendous benefit over paper catalogs and websites because it eliminates manual entry into the end user's software," says Pierre-Francois Tavard, senior product manager for MachiningCloud. "By utilizing cloud technology and industry standards, including ISO13399, STEP, GTC and MTConnect, MachiningCloud is capable of serving up-to-date product data to virtually any shop floor software or system."
"GW Schultz is excited to increase the efficiency for engineers to select the best tools with little searching effort. Gone are the days where your only resource for products is in a stack of books on the shelf. GW Schultz has evolved to provide all of their standard products online and happy to further support MachiningCloud's ability to help engineers around the world to search for the right tool." Adam Lafferty, director of business development at G.W. Schultz Tool.
Tefen Management Consulting and Today's Medical Developments industry survey is now open
Joint development project pairs expertise to produce low-price, lower-body assistive robotic products.
(Pictured above is the company's ARKE lower body exoskeleton, which is what the companies plan to use as the base of the new product.)
Bionik Laboratories Corp. officials announce a joint development project with Wistron Corp. Pursuant to the agreement, the two companies will partner to design, engineer, and manufacture low-price, lower-body assistive robotic technologies for mass commercial sale within the consumer home products market.
The companies plan to base the new consumer exoskeleton products off Bionik's ARKE lower body exoskeleton, currently in clinical development for use within rehabilitation environments, as well as incorporating other important intellectual property relating to Bionik's acquired or licensed assistive robotic technologies. The companies intend to target the Asian market initially, where the aging/elderly population is projected to hit 983 million by 2050, increasing the need for affordable assistive technologies during the next half century.
Wistron, which designs and manufactures technology products for global distribution with annual revenue exceeding $20 billion, will co-develop with Bionik a consumer exoskeleton product, which will be sold under the Bionik brand name and at a price point so they can be more widely available to the mass consumer market.
"Wistron is a highly significant organization within the manufacturing industry, so having an opportunity to combine our industry-leading expertise within the robotics industry with their product development resources is incredible for us," says Peter Bloch, CEO, Bionik. "Our years of experience in medical robotics has provided us with strong clinical data and technology to help us access this growing market of robotics technologies in the area of human assistance. We intend to continue to seek out additional partnerships that will allow us to bring our technology to a mass audience within the consumer products sector."
The medical robotics market is projected to be worth $12.8 billion by 2021, up from $4.9 billion in 2016, according to a recent report. This provides a significant opportunity for Bionik to partner with larger manufacturers and provide technical expertise to develop products for distribution at larger scale within a high growth market.
The industry has seen a rise of robotics and smart technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning within the medical field, but much of that innovation is within a clinical setting. As such, there exists a tremendous opportunity for disruption within the consumer space, as Bionik does not believe that there are currently options that are both viable and affordable.
Wistron is one of the world's largest original design manufacturers, and has worked with some of the world's largest companies to design and manufacture consumer technology products and bring them to market. Upon completion of the design of any new product conceived within the framework of the Agreement, Wistron would be the sole manufacturer.
"This partnership with Wistron represents a tremendous opportunity for Bionik to bring our technology to a massive consumer audience. When it comes to the commercialization of consumer tech products – design, engineering, and manufacturing – Wistron is a leader," states Michal Prywata, co-founder and COO of Bionik. "Our leading robotic technologies are already available in more than 200 facilities across the globe, but this partnership with Wistron will allow us to provide access to a much larger consumer market."
Southampton-Remedi hand uses carbon fiber sheet and Vesconite Hilube, with metals only being used on the actuators of the electric drives.
The Electronics and Computer Science Department of Southampton University, in the UK, has chosen South African-manufactured Vesconite Hilube for various parts of an innovative low-mass sensor-rich prosthetic hand.
The polymer’s lower density (compared to alloys) was an important influencing factor in the decision to use it.
“A main constraint in the design of a hand for the replacement of a lost natural hand is that its mass should be kept as low as possible,” notes primary investigator Paul Chappell.
As a result, the Southampton-Remedi hand uses carbon fiber sheet and Vesconite Hilube, with metals only being used on the actuators of the electric drives, he elaborates.
Not only does the University’s prosthetic-hand research program use Vesconite Hilube for the thumb of the hand, it has also used the polymer as the bearing material for the ends of the worm and wheel shafts at the base of the fingers and thumb.
Vesconite Hilube’s self-lubricating properties mean that the gearbox does not require additional bearings at the end of the shafts. The Southampton-Remedi hand has four motors that move the fingers and two motors that allow for flexion (movement towards the palm), and extension (movement away from the palm) as well as rotation of the thumb. The hand can grip and grasp objects securely and, when electrical power is turned off from the batteries, a stable grip should be maintained using worm-wheel gearboxes. In addition, the current generation of the hand also incorporates touch, position, slip, texture, and temperature sensors.
“Battles have resulted in hand-loss and this trauma has led to the development of artificial replacements,” Chappell says. “In the sixteenth century, Götz Von Berlichingen who was a German warrior, and Ambriose Paré, a French surgeon, made hands from metal components,” noting the early origins of prosthetic hands.
Various developments followed, including the split hook – a device that attached to the shoulders with leather straps and used the shoulder muscles to open the hand against a spring. WWI and WWII as well as current conflicts have seen advancements in the design of prosthetic hands, Chappell comments.
The Southampton-Remedi Hand has been developed over several decades and has been the subject of several PhD programs.
Southampton University has been at the forefront of some significant work on artificial limbs, and is also well known for the Southampton Hand Assessment Procedure, which assesses hand function.