A helping hand from Dormer.KBiosystems from Essex, England, has been designing and building robotic solutions for a variety of biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries and academic institutions since 1992. The company has developed worldwide partnerships that have enabled them to anticipate future trends and customer requirements, ensuring their robotics remain at the cutting edge of biotechnological automation. With more than 90 per cent of all machining requirements dealt with in-house, reliability of components and speed of production is critical for KBiosystems. A key challenge for the company had been in drilling copper blocks that were to be used as heating elements. Standard drills and taps were constantly breaking, slowing down production time and resulting in an unnecessary waste of material. KBiosystems turned to Sheffield-based Dormer dormer Window set vertically in a structure that projects from a sloping roof. It often illuminates a bedroom. In the late Gothic and early Renaissance periods, elaborate masonry dormers were designed. Tools UK, part of the Sandvik Group, for help to identify the type of copper being cut and how drilling performance might be improved. Martin Pryor, sales engineer at Dormer, said: "One of our technical backup teams identified the material as pure copper, a work-hardening material which ensures absolute consistency of temperature. This is vital for pharmaceutical and laboratory testing of samples. "We then used our product selector software to identify the solid carbide carbide, any one of a group of compounds that contain carbon and one other element that is either a metal, boron, or silicon. Generally, a carbide is prepared by heating a metal, metal oxide, or metal hydride with carbon or a carbon compound. MP-X drill (R454) as the ideal tool for this material, at the same time giving optimum running conditions. Drills of two different diameters - 3.2 mm and 4.2 mm - were ordered and delivered the next day, ready for machining." Better hole quality The results were dramatic. Not only was the machine shop able to reduce the duration of batch runs from five to three days, but the MP-X drills also improved hole quality. For the first time KBiosystems felt confident leaving the CNC (Computerized Numerical Control) See numerical control. CNC - Collaborative Networked Communication machine to run unmanned while drilling the copper blocks. "As a direct result of this success," Pryor explains, "our partnership with KBiosystems has grown from strength to strength. They are now using some of Dormer's new products - such as the S140 milling cutter a fluted, sharp-edged rotary cutter for dressing surfaces, as of metal, of various shapes. See also: Milling for aluminium and the S311 milling cutter for stainless steel stainless steel: see steel. stainless steel Any of a family of alloy steels usually containing 10–30% chromium. The presence of chromium, together with low carbon content, gives remarkable resistance to corrosion and heat. - to help boost performance." Copyright 2008 www.tradearabia.com Copyright 2009 Al Hilal Publishing & Marketing Group Provided by Syndigate.info an Albawaba.com company |
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