December 11, 2008

There’s little doubt that quality-control problems continue to plague China.

SolidWorks 2009 is out and looks to be the best version yet. The developer has concentrated on three areas in this release: speed, “design not software,” and quality of design.

The design is based on a spherical motor, a concept invented by Laing and it consists of a hemispheric rotor and impeller that sits on a hard, wear-resistant ceramic ball.

The Tricept 9000 made by Loxin in Spain and sold in the U.S. by Hartwig, St. Louis (hartwiginc.com), can mill, drill, route, deburr and finish, install fasteners and rivets, and even friction-stir weld with the right tool, according to the manufacturer.

Engineers at BEI Kimco Magnetics, Vista, Calif. (beikimco.com), put together an encoder equipped with a relatively large-diameter clear aperture and a motor to come up with an Integrated Motor Encoder Assembly with resolution to 0.02 arc-sec.

With the economy in the toilet, there has been a lot of hand wringing over government attitudes toward manufacturers.

Father of the PLC It’s been 40 years since the first programmable logic controller (PLC) was conceived during a hangover.

If you want a crash simulation involving plastics to yield useful results, it is important to model the material behavior appropriately.

For an engineer, clear written communication is even more important than design innovation.

Companies that use packaging are taking a hard look at corrugated boxes and finding ways to limit their use.

My anodized-titanium card case is deep blue when I hold it normal to my line of vision.

Ultrasonic sensors use sound waves above 20 kHz to measure the distance from the sensor to a specified target

Ever try to build a structure only to find the last part was just a bit too short or too long? It’s annoying if it happens with tinker toys.

Kodak’s disposable outdoor Fun Saver Sport camera case

Next time you watch a major sports event on TV, especially those in high definition, you could be seeing it through the lens of an ActionCam HD from Action- Cam.

Last month’s Pack Expo confab for packaging-equipment makers was surprising in two regards.

Engineers and silver-screen gore