Sometimes, I do despair.

I’ve just read a glowing article about how some cast iron mixers – not surprisingly – failed in a food waste application at a biogas plant.

The article then gives a rosy description about how these failing cast iron mixers have been replaced by………….another brand of cast iron mixers!

I despair of course because I don’t think you have to be a certified, professional engineer to know that with food waste’s typical low pH, stainless steel mixers should be used – not cast iron!

What a waste of time and what a waste of money to address the same low pH problem with more cast iron that is doomed to fail – yet the article isn’t shy of telling the reader just how wonderful and fluffy this all is for the environment. In a short space of time, they no doubt won’t be showing us the pictures of the failed mixers on their merry way to the scrapheap.

JJ Churchill, precision engineering specialists, completed their annual Placement Programme in July after a year of post-pandemic recovery and business growth. The programme began several years ago and has brought in four students to bring fresh ideas into the business.

The company provides a positive work experience for many locals and placement students by applying best practice to their task and duties. A main goal for the company is to continue their sustainable growth by continuing the annual placement programme and building their future workforce and enabling the individual to develop professionally and personally to improve their employment opportunities.

Leading Singapore technology partner InnovEng (S) Pte Ltd has agreed a new partnership with UK-based Riventa, whose testing and monitoring expertise is designed to maximise the reliability of assets such as turbines, blowers and pumps.

InnovEng (S) Pte Ltd, specialists in water and wastewater technologies, equipment and piping installation, , as well as electrical and instrumentation for the water industry, will seek to introduce Riventa’s capability in minimizing whole life cycle costs and energy consumption.

The UK Government has announced official plans to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030. From then on, new hybrids or electric cars will be the only types of vehicles allowed to be manufactured – and after 2035, only pure electric vehicles can be sold. This legislation was introduced to support the reduction of fossil fuel consumption and transition to a net zero society. Billions of pounds are being invested in electric vehicle charge points across England as well as for grants to help people afford to install charge points on their private property.

Partial discharge identified as the cause of communication blackout between air traffic control and pilots

The Fluke™ ii910 has helped to identify the root cause of communication interference between the air traffic control and pilots at Rotterdam The Hague Airport.  The Precision Acoustic Imager was used by leading European electricity transmission system operator, TenneT, to quickly and easily identify a partial discharge issue which was causing a 10-20 second communication blackout between ground staff and pilots.

In January 2021, the Dutch Radio Communications Agency informed TenneT that interference coming from one of the substations it managed and maintained was causing a communication problem between air traffic control and pilots on all incoming flights from the UK. TenneT immediately undertook further investigations to identify the potential root-causes of the interference. 

BCN3D has acquired AstroPrint, a 3D printing software company known for its sophisticated cloud solutions that allow users to manage printers with ease and efficiency. Both companies entered into an acquisition agreement last April and completed the transaction in July. This investment provides BCN3D with the opportunity to not only release a new cloud platform, but to also have an experienced software team dedicated to the future development of BCN3D’s 3D printing solutions.

Founded in San Diego, California in 2013, AstroPrint is one of the most well established cloud software platforms with more than 200.000 registered users in 130 different countries, 60% of which being based in the US and with an average of 2.000 printers connected simultaneously. BCN3D will maintain AstroPrint as an independent platform and will continue to develop new functionalities for its user base.

Following this first acquisition, BCN3D will continue to explore inorganic growth opportunities to develop its long-term vision of providing high-grade solutions that enable innovators to create the future. The integration of AstroPrint’s technology in the BCN3D Cloud will undoubtedly bear benefits for both its clients and the development of Industry 4.0 in the near future and beyond. BCN3D will utilize the entire software engineering team of AstroPrint for future developments to create brand new products never seen before in the 3D printing industry. The fusion of these two software teams will be spearheaded by Co-founder and CTO Daniel Arroyo, who will also now take up his role as Chief Software Officer of BCN3D.

“We see this as a new chapter in our quest for offering the absolute best possible solution to clients across both hardware and software. We are certain that this acquisition of a company with such expertise in this field will serve to boost our BCN3D printing profile to its full potential, and that the merging of our teams will undoubtedly entail countless benefits.” - Xavier Martínez Faneca, CEO of BCN3D.

“Our collaboration with BCN3D brings us the challenge and pleasure of developing more advanced solutions for BCN3D clients. We are super excited to pair our software with BCN3D’s hardware in order to unlock tremendous value via deep hardware and software integrations and innovations.” - Daniel Arroyo, CTO and Co-founder of AstroPrint, and newly appointed Chief Software Officer of BCN3D.

About BCN3D

BCN3D is one of the leading developers and manufacturers of 3D printing solutions in the world with an installed base in more than 60 countries. Its main clients include Nissan, BMW, NASA, Camper, Louis Vuitton and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

About AstroPrint

AstroPrint is a standardized Operating System and developer ecosystem for 3D Printers. Often called 'The Microsoft of the 3D Printing Industry,' it aims to become the standard platform that controls and distributes content to 3D printers. The company was originally accelerated by Techstars and counts Stanley Ventures, Mundi Ventures and 500 Startups across it’s investors.

After recently celebrating 20 years providing flow meter rental solutions to industry, Flowhire will be at the Birmingham NEC this week at the leading Chemical Industry Tradeshow CHEMUK which opens its doors on the 15^th and 16^th September.

Flowhire which is the sister company of batching and flow metering solutions provider Flowquip, offer a wide range of flow meters to the chemical industry for applications where a permanent installation isn’t necessary. These applications include; fire hydrant testing for accurate measurement of water from stand pipes, air, gas and steam flow meters for energy monitoring and testing compressor and boiler efficiency. Flowhire’s large range of meters include Turbine, Electromagnetic, Coriolis and Vortex flow meters, as well as the popular Ultrasonic ‘clamp on’ flow meters.

This newly extended award-winning range of HDC Chisels now has a superior ergonomic design and 11 different blade widths up to 40mm.

HDC Chisels are designed for jobs on site that need strength and precision for accurate chiselling work.

All the blades are forged using a unique steel formula into a one-piece I-beam construction for strength and rigidity with a robust profile for extreme breaking strength and a design that maximises power transmission downwards through the tool.

Not many instrumentation companies can claim to have 40 years experience supplying metering solutions to the chemical industry. Based in Sowerby Bridge, West Yorkshire Flowquip was one of the first of its kind, a flow meter distributor buying from the major flow meter manufacturers and putting metering systems together for the chemical and process industries.  Although many of those manufacturers such as Perflow, Tylor, Rhodes and KDG are long gone, Flowquip have managed to adapt to change, embrace technological advances and are still one of the leading flow meter suppliers today, providing complete batch control systems, additive dosing systems and tanker loading and discharge systems to the chemical industry.

By Karl Lycett – Rittal UK Climate Control Product Manager

Finally! The temperature seems to be reducing to a more bearable level, the nights are slowly drawing in and... do I see a hint of colour change in the trees?

That’s right Autumn is upon us once again and that can only mean one thing… It’s time to stop, look back at the summer period and understand how things went.