I wanted to give you all a little update on some things around our company. As most of you know, I returned last week from a service call in Sarisota,FL. I was working on a Lucas Horizontal Boring Mill that used to be at STADCO in L.A. It has a GE 1050MC control and is now owned by Mustang Vacuum. They will use it to make their vacuum chambers. Their end product allows quick aluminum plating of plastic auto headlight lenses for customers around the world. Another use is plating auto wheels. They can apparently chrome plate an auto wheel in about 90 seconds! Dry! They've been selling to places like California where the toxic chemicals used on conventional plating is a problem.
Our retrofit schedule is very tight again. We are currently finishing up putting a used OTA on a LeBlond Regal at R.E. Atkinson. This project was completely installed and powered up by Andy and Basem while I was in Florida. The control came off of a nearly identical machine that was scrapped by R.A. Industries last year.
We are creating a Hydraulic Test Stand control for Circor in Corona. Jeff is finishing up the design after a slight setback last week. It turns out that the new line of low cost PLC's from AB is not quite ready for prime time. We'll revert to the Automation Direct/Koyo unit again.
Jeff is also rewriting PLC code for a gun drill for Alarin Hinge in Commerce. This new, custom machine had PLC code written by a "non motion control" guy and needs extensive rework. Jeff has much of the work done and needs to work on the HMI now.
Also, we just started a new lathe retrofit project at Circor in Sylmar. This will be a FS0iT-D control and a new spindle drive on a large Boehringer/VDF lathe.
Some of you remember Brian Crawford, who used to be a partner at Norotos. He is alive and well, living in Flagstaff. I've been there a couple of times to work on his machines and we keep in touch. Some of you may know that he is an experienced motorcycle "Trials" rider and competed well into his 70's. Now, it seems, he has a new project. You can read about it here: http://horndesigns-brian.tumblr.com/
Monday, September 5, 2011
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