Machine Building

How the right lubrication can improve your equipment

A look at the problems caused by incorrect lubricants and poor lubrication practices, and a series of guidelines that can be followed to optimise your equipment

19th March 2012

Machine guarding - design and build or outsource?

Jeremy Procter, a Member of BSI's MCE/3 committee, former Convenor of the European Standards Committee responsible for Machine Guards (CEN TC114 WG11), and Managing Director of Procter Machine Guarding, discusses when it is best for machine builders to design and manufacture guarding themselves, and when it is better to outsource this to a specialist.

16th March 2012

Inductive and magnetostrictive linear transducers explained

Variohm Eurosensor, the exclusive UK distributor for Novotechnik, discusses the advantages offered by inductive and magnetostrictive contactless linear transducers.

27th February 2012

How cloud computing can benefit machine builders

Richard Tinsdeall, Autodesk's manufacturing sales director for Northern Europe, explains how machine builders can benefit from using computer-aided engineering tools that are hosted on the cloud.

6th February 2012

How to select the best type of bearing lubricant

Nick Dowding, the Applications Engineering Manager at The Barden Corporation, discusses how to select the correct grease, oil or solid dry film lubricant for rolling element bearings.

14th January 2012

What to do now that EN 954 has gone

Much has been made of the change from EN 954 to EN 13849. In this article, Douglas Florence, a machinery safety specialist with SafeMech, analyses what this really means for machine builders and users.

4th January 2012

Financial benefits of retrofitting open fieldbus networks

John Browett of the CC-Link Partner Association (CLPA) explains how upgrading automated manufacturing processes using open networks can provide major cost benefits, while also improving system performance.

18th December 2011

Tutorial: machine vision test charts explained

Stemmer Imaging has created a short video that explains the various graphical devices on its test chart and how they are used to assess different features of machine vision components and systems.

29th November 2011

Last chance to migrate from EN 954-1 to EN ISO 13849-1

David Collier, Business Development Manager with Pilz Automation Technology, has some advice for machine builders who are still using the safety standard EN 954-1, which ceases to be current on 31 December 2011.

24th November 2011

Cost and quality benefits of cold forming copper components

Mark Jennings, Technical Director at Dawson Shanahan, explains how different metals and production processes offer a competitive alternative to traditional machining - and can, therefore, help to combat the problem of rising material costs.

20th November 2011