What is a Linear Rail?
Discover what linear rails are, how they work and where they’re used. The UK automation sector is growing rapidly, with it valued at around $8.42 billion in 2021 and projected to reach $14.64 billion by 2028. As automation and precision engineering continue to expand, so does the need for reliable linear rails and linear guide […]
£17M uni investment, blue economy, engineering marvels and EV/AVs
Engineering facilities expand at Lancaster University Business Desk are reporting that Lancaster University is going all-out to expand their engineering department. There’s a fantastic new three storey £17m building on the cards, packed with cutting-edge labs and a 3D lecture theatre specially designed to deliver newly-developed teaching concepts via complex virtual imaging. The new facility will […]
What is a Bowl Feeder?
A bowl feeder, or a bowl feeding system, is an accurate and efficient tool for sorting, ordering and orienting components and delivering them into a manufacturing or packing process at a specific feed rate. Bowl Feeders are typically positioned at the start of a manufacturing process, an operator places a number of parts into a […]
Scottish manufacturing jobs, nuclear fusion, remarkable batteries and Tesla’s Chinese ambitions
Diodes saves 300 jobs at Greenock’s ex-Texas Instruments facility As reported by the Herald Scotland, the massive US firm Diodes is planning to invest £47 million to upgrade the Greenock-based semiconductor manufacturing plant it bought from Texas Instruments in 2019. The plan is to transform it into a facility to develop sophisticated microchips, and they’re taking […]
What is a Power Clamp?
A Power Clamp is a heavy-duty, pneumatic, locking clamp originally designed for the automotive industry when they moved from Manual Clamping to Pneumatic Clamping to increase production outputs through automation. Power Clamps started to replace Manual Clamps and have developed from the mid 1980’s to the point where Power Clamps are now very robust, heavy-duty, […]
Retractable Locators
Anybody involved in the manufacture of tooling will know how challenging it can be to make a retractable location unit when time, budget and space are at a premium! Making an accurate retractable location unit can be a costly and time-consuming task and the end result can be a chunky two-piece unit. Sandfield have developed […]