'GREEN' EFFORTS TAKE MANY FORMS AT CUS

Offering loans to make the home more energy efficient. Summit CU, a $1.9 billion asset credit union in Madison, Wis., has partnered with Green Madison to provide residents a special loan for increasing the energy-efficiency of their home. To get the loan,Many industries can use Origin Laser engraving and laser marking machine for a huge range of applications.  the member must live in the city and have an owner-occupied or nonowner-occupied single-family home, duplex or condo of three units or less; prove the building is owned by an individual and not a trust, limited liability corporation or a business; and be up to date on property tax payments.This video shows a double layer flattening machine in manufacturing testing phase producing standing seam metal roof panels.

Also, the potential energy savings must be 15% or more at the initial assessment,The Electrox Raptor is a cost-effective cnc router system that offers all the benefits of fibre technology. and the homeowner must agree to install a mix of recommended measures to achieve that percentage. The range of loans can be $1,000 to $15,000, with low rates and flexible repayment terms, said Summit's website.

Changing workplace/staff behavior. Philadelphia-based American Heritage FCU has a dedicated "Green Team" of credit union employees and management that initiates green efforts such as providing bike racks for employees to reduce traffic pollution; offering a commuting subsidy to staff members and implementing a telecommuting program; and installing Geo-thermal heating and cooling in its new building projects, as well as participating in the Adopt-A-Highway Program and other recycling efforts.

Redwood CU, a $2 billion asset credit union in Santa Rosa, Calif., has earned a host of awards for its environmental efforts, including the Silver LEED Certification. It uses recycled paper products, including letterhead, envelopes, and restroom and kitchen supplies; prints marketing materials on econ-friendly soy-based inks and recycled paper; installs Energy Star appliances and copy/printing machines, including multi-function devices that increase scanning and double-sided printing capabilities; and uses electronic formats on many notices and correspondence.

Incorporating energy efficiency in new or remodeled credit union branches.When choosing the shape, the car led bulbs should be similar to the shape of the lamp base. When First Capital FCU opened a one-story, 4,160-square-foot building in South York, Pa., in August 2009, it incorporated sustainable strategies in its use of energy,Laser markers specifically designed for high speed laser cutting machine, laser engraving, and laser ablation. lighting, water and materials. This year it became the first retail facility in York to achieve the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) GOLD certification, established by the U.S. Green Building Council and verified by the Green Building Certification Institute.

Columbia CU, an $865 million asset credit union in Vancouver, Wash., also received a LEED GOLD certification for its Grand Central and Washougal branch buildings, the first LEED GOLD for Washington State. It purchases more than 50% of its electricity through a renewable energy program, uses compact fluorescent lighting in all its facilities, prints marketing materials on uncoated, recyclable paper with soy-based inks, and recycles at all locations, said its website.

Redwood CU's branches and facilities also use recycled business supplies and recycled or renewable construction, environmentally friendly paints and finishes, uses technology to enhance and maximize climate control and energy efficiency, uses natural light and senor-based office lighting to decrease energy use, and has water-efficient restroom facilities and landscaping practices.

Monster Machines

The “Lettuce Bot” is a four-wheeled weeding machine designed and built by Indiana-based start up Blue River Technology using a $US400,000 angel investment as well as an early grant from the National Science Foundation. It relies on an integrated camera and advanced visual algorithm suite to differentiate between two breeds of lettuce and common field weeds, then aims and injects the invasive,Many industries can use Origin Laser engraving and laser marking machine for a huge range of applications. Corrugated Metals has included this curving machine tutorial to help our visitors understand the roll forming process. nutrient-stealing little bastards with a toxic cocktail of plant fertiliser, which also feeds the produce — it’s a win, win. See, when over-applied,When choosing the shape, the car led bulbs should be similar to the shape of the lamp base. even common fertilisers like Miracle Grow can induce chemical burn on a plant’s roots, killing them and rapidly starving the rest of the plant.Kern Electronics and Lasers,is a leader in large format Laser engraver and laser engraving systems.

“Most of the technologies used in farming today have been of two types – mechanical, which permits bigger, more efficient tractors, bigger planters, and bigger harvesters; and genetics,Laser engraving, and laser marker, is the practice of using lasers to engrave or mark an object. which offers crop modification. That’s good for increasing the amount of food available,” BRT co-founder Jorge Heraud told Kidela. “However, large segments of the population don’t like it.

We are introducing an entirely new technology to farming – advanced robotics. It is more high tech and something that very few companies are doing or are even aware of. We believe that agriculture is a perfect place for automation. There is too much labour being used in some segments of agriculture and we want to change that,” he explained.

The latest iteration of the Lettuce Bot will eventually be pulled behind a trailer through the fields at speeds up to 5km/h (though the current prototype does it at a third that speed). It relies on a trio of visual algorithms. First a navigation algorithm spots and identifies individual plants within a row. Next, the Classify algorithm discerns lettuce from common weeds with approximately 98 per cent accuracy (the system does this by comparing what it sees to a large library of pre-identified visual data — essentially the computer’s installed memories of what iceberg, romaine and dandelions look like.) Finally, it engages the Kill algorithm, which allows the machine to accurately inject the lethal load of fertiliser into a weed’s root system by estimating the needle’s subsoil depth.

But why lettuce, organic lettuce, you ask? First, California’s number one crop (yes, besides marijuana) is lettuce. However, lettuce isn’t exactly a high-value crop and margins are already tight. But they’re even tighter when you have to pay an army of laborers cash money to clear the fields by hand because you can’t utilise cheaper inorganic pesticides and they can’t use W-2s. What’s more bacterial outbreaks such as e. Coli that are traced back to organic foods are commonly caused by cross-contamination from these workers’ boots. The Lettuce Bot could drastically increase farm productivity while simultaneously removing an illegal, dangerous and questionably compensated industry.

The prototype is, of course, still under development and has to work out plenty of kinks. For example, the current system works on Iceburg lettuce and Romaine lettuce, nothing else. If one wanted the machine to weed, say, an asparagus patch, they would first need to preload the robot with huge data stores of marked visual examples of asparagus in order for it to know what to kill.

Unilux launches LED-Series 2000

Unilux has introduced its new LED-Series 2000 family of LED strobes at Labelexpo Americas 2012. The lights are said to combine the operational and environmental benefits of LED lights with the power of traditional xenon-based strobes plus a few more operational benefits.Kern Electronics and Lasers,is a leader in large format Laser engraver and laser engraving systems.

‘These are not your father’s strobe lights – or even your father’s LEDs,’ Mike Simonis, president of Unilux, said. ‘They are five times brighter than our first generation of LED strobes. This gives them the same lighting performance as our proven xenon-based lights with only 25 to 35 percent of the power consumption of our comparable Lith-O-Light strobes, and that’s where the comparisons need to be made. Our new LED-Series 2000 strobes are also smaller – about one-third the size of the traditional equivalent – and lighter than the xenon lights and have a greater flash-rate range.Corrugated Metals has included this curving machine tutorial to help our visitors understand the roll forming process. All this gives printers and converters many,When choosing the shape, the car led bulbs should be similar to the shape of the lamp base. many more options for mounting lights and adjusting flash rates to maximize inspection capability at full production speed and reduce the fatigue factor for inspection.Many industries can use Origin Laser engraving and laser marking machine for a huge range of applications. ’

The LED-Series 2000 family comes with a new product-naming convention that corresponds to the coverage area (in millimeters) 50cm (20in) from the light to the inspection area. The new LED-Series2000-500, for example, which replaces the LED 5X2, will emit 2000 lux of illumination on a 500mm width from a distance of 20 in. This is five time more light than the LED 5X2 produces. In fact at a flash duration of 35 microseconds, the LED-Series2000-500 puts out as much light as the xenon based LOL IV-20.

‘The LED-Series 2000 family gets its name from the fact that at a distance of 50 cm the lights will produce a light intensity of 2000 lux,’ said Matt Runo, chief engineer, who led the year-long R&D effort to develop the new lights. ‘While the amount of light produced is the same as the xenon lights which have been workhorse products for years, there’s a big technical difference. The lens designs for the new LED-Series 2000 strobes provide a sharper focus than the xenon lights. This benefits the user by concentrating more light on the inspection area with less spillage outside the area of interest. Getting the same output or more as a xenon-based strobe was our key objective because light output (brightness and coverage area) was a major issue with our first LED strobes.

Our LED-Series 2000 family has raised the bar for stroboscopic inspection lighting in three critical operating areas, Runo continued. ‘First, the distribution of the LEDs’ across a large rectangular area combined with focusing provided by the lenses creates an even, consistent lighting pattern across the target area, so customers will be able to inspect an area comparable to the LOL family but with an even more uniform illumination. A second benefit is that an LED’s inherent light output is extremely stable and does not suffer from the arc wander and flash to flash variation associated with xenon-based lights. This benefits the user by reducing fatigue and increasing inspection effectiveness.

Light output is controlled by varying both the light intensity and the duration or on time of the light. The perceived light intensity seen by the user is actually a relationship between the intensity of light and the light duration,Laser engraving, and laser marker, is the practice of using lasers to engrave or mark an object.’ he said.

A longer pulse rate, say 65 microseconds, gives you more light, but the sharpness of an image frozen by the action of the strobe degrades with longer durations. A longer duration can work well for repeat patterns with larger images. But when you have something small with fine detail, then you need a shorter duration for improved clarity. With our new LEDs, you can dial down the light duration to as short as 10 microseconds and mount it close enough to the web so that you can see the fine details. The light duration of the xenon strobes can’t be controlled so they don’t have the same flexibility provided by their LED counterparts.

Lone Star College System moves forward with Energy and Manufacturing Institute facilities

The Lone Star College Energy and Manufacturing Institute got a big green light on Thursday as the Lone Star College System Board of Trustees approved funds to hire a firm for architectural design of permanent, dedicated facilities.

The Lone Star College Energy and Manufacturing Institute will be constructed as a two-level, 80,000 square-foot facility at the Lone Star College-University Park campus at State Highway 249 and Louetta Road. Currently, EMI staff members and instructors work from space at LSC-University Park and the other Lone Star Colleges.

“Our Energy and Manufacturing Institute provides hands-on, job-related training that puts people back in the workplace quickly,” said Dr. Richard Carpenter, LSCS chancellor. “This is outcome-based training – we know the oil and gas industry needs trained technical workers, and we’re helping to fill that need.

“Our students leave here with specific marketable skills,” said Dr. Carpenter.

The EMI was developed by LSCS and Lone Star Corporate College in response to the national, state and local talent gap in the oil and gas, alternative energy, and manufacturing and mechanized (automated) production industries. Customized training has been ongoing since the institute was formed in 2011.

This talent gap has been called the “big crew change” and is caused by retirement of current workers and company expansions to more worldwide locations. The problem is aggravated by the lack of in-house training programs for technical workers in many large oil and gas and related manufacturing companies, creating extreme difficulty filling technical positions.

A 2011 benchmark study by Schlumberger Business Consulting outlines an “outflow of more than 22,000 senior key petro-technical professionals (in the energy and production industries) by 2015.”

The new EMI building will allow LSCS to expand its current offerings to address those needs from local and regional employers. The building will include dedicated lab space along with a specialized high-bay instructional area designed to accommodate additional energy sector workforce training programs – from training for basic entry-level personnel to training office personnel needed in exploration and production companies.

New programs involving advanced technical and manufacturing skills such as petroleum geographic technician, petroleum field service technician and electronic assembler will complement existing programs in CNC (Computer Numerical Control) machining, welding, logistics and supervision.

Other training at EMI includes the popular engineering technology program, where students learn a combination of technical skills that prepare them to work on and with equipment integrating electronics,This machine is a combination of purlin machine and knot removing machine. mechanics, pneumatics, hydraulics and computer controls.

Aligning with Houston energy and energy-related employers to develop the right solutions based on industry-defined competencies and assessment is the key to filling current talent gaps caused by the big crew change. This customized training offered at EMI for corporations includes certification programs, and pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship training – all designed to satisfy state and national industry standards.

Local manufacturers make an economic statement at show

David Eisele says when bosses bring their machinists to the nation’s largest manufacturing trade show, it is an economic statement.

And this year, he says there are more workers visiting the company’s exhibit at the International Manufacturing Technology Show at McCormick Center.

“We’re seeing a lot more shop floor people coming in,We can produce Elevator oil buffer according to your requirements.” said Eisele, customer training and exhibits manager for Ingersoll Cutting Tools in Rockford. “That’s good. It tells us the economy is growing.”

Another good sign: The manufacturing trade show was expected to attract 90,000 during its six-day run, which ends Saturday, 8,000 more than a year ago.

Wednesday, Ingersoll Cutting Tools was trying to attract some of them to a 6,000-square-foot exhibit with The Gold Rush Girls dance team and a string quartet. Both groups performed in front of a giant screen showing the company’s tools shaping metal.Coast Products manufactures Led flashlight, headlamps and lantern products. The company spent $30,000 to rent space at the show.Leading the industry in professional tile roof machine and safety equipment.

“We want to draw people into the booth, to raise awareness,” said Eisele. “This is the Super Bowl of manufacturing.”

IMTS covers acres of convention floor space, where companies show off the machinery and accessories that factory owners need to make goods. It’s like a giant shopping mall where everything is for sale, but impulse buyers few.Quite a bit ago I was able to get my first vacuum Forming machine up and running,

Most exhibitors come to collect business cards or do smart phone scans of the QR codes printed on lanyard tags.

Jeff Frazier, a product manager for Hennig, said the booth was generating 60 to 70 leads a day, many of them involving company decision makers. Rockford-based Hennig makes products that protect machine tools and the people who operate them.

“These are quality leads,” he said. “Companies aren’t just sending people here to browse.”

But after the show is when the sales work starts, as leads are distributed. “We’re going to hunt down these people and see what they want,” said Brian Porter, who sells lubricants and other products from Chemtool in Rockton to customers in Iowa, Nebraska and Missouri.

Tim Helle, president of Bourne and Koch in Rockford, said a long-term customer in the petroleum industry needed a gear hobbing machine. Now.

Instead of waiting months for an order to be filled, the customer bought the $265,000 machine brought to the show as a display.

Ingersoll Milling Machines also makes niche machines,Global leader in impact energy management systems and advanced roll forming machinery. but the Rockford company’s booth was spartan. Many of its products are custom-made — and gargantuan, too expensive to haul to Chicago for six days.

Besides, company spokeswoman Clarissa Hennings said the power supply at the trade show couldn’t deliver enough electricity to run one.

Instead, the company brought a piece shaped on its machines, a complex 2.5-ton vacuum chamber used to make computer chips. It had a glass top and would make a killer coffee table, Hennings suggested. Perhaps for someome willing to put it on a slab of cement and build a house around it.

Ingersoll Milling Machine President Tino Oldani said his company is well known in the industry, its custom machines more like a finely cut filet mignon than hamburger.

Could 10W Haswell Chip Turn Intel's Tablet Fortunes Around?

Somewhat buried in all of the sexy ultrabook news here at the Intel Developer Forum (voice! gesture! touch!) on Tuesday was the revelation that the chip giant has managed to pull the power draw of a future family of Core processors down to just 10 watts.

Those chips, part of the fourth-generation of Core chips code-named Haswell that are due out in 2013, will be aimed at future convertible ultrabooks that serve as laptops and tablets. Theoretically, that will mean far thinner convertible designs using Intel chips that run longer unplugged, begin to approach Apple's iPad in size and weight, and don't run hot when sitting on a user's lap.

The current generation of Core chips for ultrabooks run at 17 watts and two other batches of future Haswell parts will draw 15 watts and 35 watts, respectively.

"These could change the ballgame for Intel," said Jack Gold, principal analyst for J.This machine is a combination of tile roof machine and knot removing machine. Gold Associates. "The fundamental difference with other Core processors,Specializing in the production Cut to length line, leveling machine, cold roof panel machine and other products. just a few watts, doesn't sound like such a big deal, but when you can get a third less power, maybe even half, that fundamentally changes how you build a machine. Cutting half of the power in the CPU is huge."

To put the low power draw of the future Haswell chip further into perspective, consider that Intel released a single-core, 10W Atom chip as recently as January 2010. And the future Haswell products are not Atom parts but rather built on the Core architecture, the same chip design Intel uses for its most powerful client processors, meaning these low-power ultrabook parts are likely to have some or all of the additional performance-boosting technologies built into Intel's flagship client processor line,This machine is a combination of tile roof machine and knot removing machine. Gold said.Coast Products manufactures Led flashlight, headlamps and lantern products.

The analyst said it was his guess that the chips would be dual-core.

Intel didn't name a release date for Haswell but talk at IDF suggested that the 10W chips are coming sometime in the first half of 2013, with some gossip that the plan was to roll them out in the first quarter. Gold said he expected Intel would have convertible ultrabooks running the parts to show at the Consumer Electronics Show in January.

Moorhead also suggested that with these new chips, Intel might be able to enable convertible ultrabooks with profiles as thin as 12 millimeters —not terribly far off from the original iPad's 10mm profile.

"Thinner convertibles will be much more comfortable as they will be almost as thin as a tablet, but they'll also have the added utility of a keyboard and trackpad," Moorhead said. Such devices could be ideal for users in the market for a single,Tabletop Vacuum roll forming machine and other robot products. all-in-one mobile computing device rather than a tablet that servers as a companion to a laptop, he added.

George Moate gets series production of one-pass Tillerstar underway

The George Moate Tillerstar bed maker and stone/clod separator is a genuinely new idea for a farm implement,This is an unique design of flattening machine for flattening of circular plate. it’s a unique implement that offers a new way to prepare ground for potatoes, salads and root crops grown in beds.

“The Tillerstar’s one pass approach can save a grower thousands of pounds in capital expenditure and the running costs associated with fuel and labour,” says managing director Richard Pratt. “It will also reduce a grower’s carbon footprint.”

The Tillerstar is now in production for the 2013 season at the new Norfolk base of George Moate Ltd following an engineering appraisal that resulted in a number of refinements to the original design. The most obvious difference is a simplified but more powerful hydraulic drive arrangement for the flexible finger separation rollers – instead of using one motor per roller, each Sauer-Danfoss motor drives two rollers through a compact gearbox.

“We’ve also added a choice of motor sizes to suit different soil types and increase output, which is now typically 10 acres per bed per day,” notes Richard Pratt. “A smaller motor will run faster at a given pressure, which suits light soils with stone, while a larger motor generating more torque will be better on heavier soils; a pressure testing port on the valve block helps set up the machine.This is an unique design of flattening machine for flattening of circular plate.”

The Tillerstar is designed to replace the conventional approach to bed preparation,Laser markers specifically designed for high speed laser marking machine, laser engraving, and laser ablation. which often involves separate passes with a bed-maker to set up ridges, a bed tiller to cultivate heavier soils and a trailed separator to remove stone and/or clod from the seedbed.

All three implements can be replaced by the Tillerstar, which is capable of working directly into stubble, using a PTO-driven blade rotor to cultivate the soil and four star rollers to separate stone and clod. Spacers on the easy-change shafts determine the size of material separated by the rollers and the hydraulic drive allows on-the-move speed adjustment for fine-tuning.

In work, the bladed rotor cultivates with an upward cutting action that throws soil and stones backwards on to the flexible-finger star rollers positioned close behind. Loose soil passes between the rollers but any large stones or clods are conveyed forwards and dropped into the void behind the rotor.

An attractive feature of this mechanism is the way the separated material is deposited beneath the full width of the bed rather than concentrated in a windrow as with conventional de-stoning.Fluid Industries manufacture and sell curving machine.

“This means routine cultivation will bring the evenly-distributed material back into the upper soil profile to help drainage for subsequent crops,” points out Lesley Pratt, commercial director of George Moate Ltd. “Growers say the lack of windrowed stone would be welcomed by cereal growers who let land for potato production.”

“We’ve also created a number of adjustable forming hoods that leave full-width beds for planting onion sets, carrots, leeks, beetroot and similar crops,” points out Richard Pratt.Laser Cut Studio is a brand new cnc router company and new way of thinking. “There are also applicator mounting kits for fertiliser and chemical treatments.”

A single-bed model needs at least 110hp at the pto but is equipped with a multi-speed gearbox rated at 240hp, while the twin-bed version, which needs 170hp minimum, has a 330hp gearbox to make use of higher horsepower tractors.

Hydraulic folding is standard on the twin-bed machine and also on the largest Tillerstar – the triple-bed, which needs at least 250hp; it comes with a choice of 330hp or 360hp gearboxes. Auto reset safety clutches are fitted throughout for maximum protection with minimum downtime.