Used Machines

Sheffield-based CNC machine tool distributors Ward Hi-Tech hit the jackpot fast

2011-10-03T10:48:00.000-07:00

Sheffield-based CNC machine tool distributors Ward Hi-Tech hit the jackpot fast, after launching its new range of heavy duty, long-bed CNC lathes manufactured by SFM of Taiwan.

Ward Hi Tech new agency finds ready buyersWithin a few weeks of launching the new agency, the company struck a deal with a major supplier of machined forgings to supply an SFM Model CHT56 for producing, amongst other things, a range of lengthy forged rods used in the manufacture of tracked vehicles.

The machine had to be rigid and powerful enough to cope with the arduous machining process and have the capacity to allow deep internal bores to be machined to a fine finish.

SFM's CHT56 provided the solution ideal. With a swing of 1,420 mm and heavy duty headstock, the machine comfortably accommodated the heavy adjustable fixture necessary to hold the customer's range of components, and the robust boring station option allowed a 150 mm diameter by 2.5m long Sandvik balanced boring bar to be employed to produce the internal diameters.

So successful was the initial installation that the client quickly decided to return and order a further two SFM machines to similar specification.

"Seldom have we had such an immediate positive reaction to the launch of a new agency," said Ward Hi-Tech UK sales manager Mike Burke.

"Shortly after confirming this initial order for these three SFM lathes at a combined value of around £700,000, we sold a model CST42 with 1,070 mm swing by 4,000mm between centres valued at over £220,000 to an existing customer of ours based in the Midlands.

"All in all, we are over the moon with the results and by the reaction generally that we are getting to the SFM product range."

Sales Manager of Murata’s Machine Tools Division

2011-10-03T10:46:00.001-07:00

The Machine Tools Division of Murata Machinery USA Inc. has announced the promotion of Steve Landrum to North American sales manager for the Turning Division. He moves up to the position after four years as regional manager for turning in the company’s Southeast Gulf Coast territory.

Announcing the promotion, Kevin Wigington, general manager of the Machine Tools Division, said Landrum’s new position includes responsibility for all aspects of supporting Murata’s distribution network, including regional sales managers’ efforts to promote the company’s turning products.

“Steve is well-qualified for this position,” said Wigington. “His long, successful career in the machine tool business includes more than 20 years of experience in direct sales and sales management.”

“In the short term, Steve will continue to service the Southeast Gulf Coast territory,” Wigington continued, “and as general manager, I’ll continue to be involved in turning sales. But when the transition is complete, I’ll be able to devote more time to the Machine Tools Division’s fabrication and operations departments.”

“We appreciate the efforts of all our distributors, and we look forward to even greater successes with the addition of Steve Landrum as sales manager,” he concluded.

Murata Machinery USA, Inc. is a world leader in manufacturing automated material-handling systems, machine-tool technology and textile machinery. The Machine Tool Turning Division supplies twin- and single-spindle automated turning centers that provide innovative technology and compact designs for high productivity with intelligent gantry-loader material handling.

Users of Muratec’s automated CNC turning lathes include aerospace manufacturing, automotive engineering and other industries that depend on precision, high-speed turning machines. All Muratec turning machines incorporate environmentally friendly, semi-dry cutting features to reduce dust, oil mist and odor for a safer work environment.

For more information on Murata Machinery or its products, visit http://www.muratec-usa.com or call 704-875-9280.

Manufacturing officials from around the world are expected to be in Detroit

2011-10-03T10:45:00.000-07:00

Manufacturing officials from around the world are expected to be in Detroit this week for a new trade show that officials say will rival the annual North American International Auto Show held in January.

More than 70 companies are participating at the Detroit International Advanced Manufacturing Technology Show from Monday through Saturday at Cobo Center in downtown Detroit.

"DIAMTS will focus on what Detroit needs urgently,” reads the show’s website. “The first theme is OEM auto parts and components, system and modules; the second theme is EV, its system and modules, parts and components, and everything related to green energy in automotive; and the third theme is Advanced CNC machinery and production automation.

"Through DIAMTS, Detroit is going to cooperate with international automotive companies and create a win-win situation for everybody. “

According to reports, speakers include Kirk Lewis, former chief of staff of Detroit Mayor Dave Bing and previously a debt analyst at Ford Motor Co., and Chris Brower of consultancy KPMG.

Oct. 2, the Detroit News: “More than 200 booths have been sold, according to the show's organizer, Detroit International Auto Salon. The participating firms are mostly American, including Detroit's automakers, but others are from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Austria, the Netherlands and Nigeria.”

Click here to register for the free conference, organized by Detroit International Exhibition LLC and Detroit International Auto Salon.

source:http://www.mlive.com/auto/index.ssf/2011/10/trade_show_aims_to_create_busi.html

ake automobile spare parts worth Rs.1.10 crore were seized in Delhi

2010-12-16T01:47:00.001-08:00

Fake automobile spare parts worth Rs.1.10 crore were seized and three people arrested, police said Wednesday.

Kamal Saxena, 32, Naginder, 42, and Irfan Khan, 35, were arrested Tuesday on a tip-off that they were manufacturing and packaging fake auto parts in the name of M/s Lucas TVS, a police official said.

While Saxena was arrested from his factory in Mukandpur village in north-west Delhi, Khan and Naginder were caught from Samaipur Badli in outer Delhi.

'Three machines used for packing, packing material, two pressing and heating machines were recovered from the factory,' the official said.

On interrogation, Saxena told police that Naginder and Khan obtained the raw material for packaging of counterfeit products from him and were running their business in Samaipur Badli in outer Delhi.

On this information, the duo were arrested and packing material and machines were recovered from them.

'The value of the auto parts, cartons and machines used for manufacturing the packing material is Rs.1.10 crore,' added the official.

source:http://www.sify.com/news/fake-automobile-spare-parts-seized-news-national-kmpxkBjicbh.html

Holiday heavy equipment and rental theft is on the rise nationwid

2010-12-16T01:42:00.000-08:00

Holiday heavy equipment and rental theft is on the rise nationwide, and thieves have been targeting machines at dealerships, rental yards and large construction sites, police said.

“These high-dollar thieves like to strike during the holidays, when heavy equipment may be more accessible because it is being used during bad weather, or left unattended on vacated construction sites,” said Glynda Chu, spokeswoman for the Edmond Police Department.

Chu said business owners are encouraged to register all equipment with the National Equipment Register, and make sure all emergency contact information is current and correct.

In an effort to help cut down on these types of crimes in the local area, the Edmond Police Department is offering these theft prevention reminders:

• Make sure lighting and alarms are working properly.

• Watch those false alarms, it could be thieves testing your reaction, and watch for vehicles driving by slowly or repeatedly, they may be “casing” your property. Hiring an armed guard over the holiday could be money well spent.

• Test cameras in daylight and after dark; are the cameras positioned to capture license plates and faces?

• Move light or highly targeted equipment into service bays or more secure areas of the yard.

• Conduct a security survey of the yard and buildings. Walk around the property to see if there are any vulnerable points.

• Talk to neighboring businesses, especially those that will be open during the holiday, and watch out for one another.

• Make sure an employee checks on the facility at different times during the holiday.

• Know which law enforcement agency is responsible for your business, so if there is a theft or attempted break-in, you know which agency to quickly report the crime.

• Get information on what was stolen to other companies and clients as soon as possible in case they are approached to buy your stolen property.

• Make sure you have an up-to-date record of equipment serial numbers. Verify what’s on the machine PIN plate is accurately recorded in your records.

• Photograph machines with your logos.

• Always update records when you get new equipment.

Chu said should a break-in occur, be prepared to respond immediately. Also remember to always report any thefts to the National Equipment Register as soon as possible.

Always call police to report any suspicious activity at the job sites, yards and dealerships, Chu said.

“You know best when something doesn’t look right, don’t just let it go, report it,” Chu said.

If you are a victim of this type of theft you can report it online to the National Equipment Register at www.nerusa.com/TheftReportasp.

Remember, it is not a question of if, but where and when heavy equipment and rental equipment will be stolen before and during the holidays, Chu said. Take these precautions now, and it could save a lot of money, stress and time, she said.

source:http://www.edmondsun.com/local/x1666504562/Police-Theft-of-holiday-equipment-rises

Use Machine and Human Translators During Research

2010-12-14T07:18:00.000-08:00

When conducting research work for any project, having a language translation software on hand is indispensable for many people. This is especially true when you're trying to draw from as much information as you can, which often requires going through materials about the subject in other languages.

Many businesses, in fact, use machine translators this way. When researching old patents, for instance, they usually employ a language software to go through old filings, trying to see if anything of significance will turn up. In the event that they do find one that's particularly sensitive, they usually then send it to a human interpreter who can do a more thorough and detailed translation.

Without the aid of a translation tool, researching foreign documents can become an "either-or" proposition, instead of the flexible process it now is. Researchers will have to choose between completely ignoring them (since they can't understand the language) or bringing in someone who can translate for everything (a serious expense).

This is the main reason why many professional translators also encourage the use of translation software. While some will argue that machine translators can harm their business, they actually do the reverse - it makes it easy for companies and individuals to identify which documents need to be translated. As such, they can allocate proper resources, instead of having to choose between passing on the activity or wasting a good chunk of money on translating documents they may not need.

In fact, you can save a lot of time, money and effort upon using translation software.

Tired of boring exercise books?

Innovative Language Translation Software may be your saver.

Read how state-of-the-art technology helps you to learn faster and more efficient in the surrounding of your quiet home or at work. Read more

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Laurianne_Sumerset

New Machine Quality at Used Machine Prices

2010-12-14T07:17:00.000-08:00

Almost everyone who enjoys woodworking as a hobby imagines what it would be like to earn a living by operating a full-scale commercial woodworking company. But the path from hobbyist woodworking to commercial woodworking involves lots of planning and purchases. If you decide to take your passion for woodworking into the commercial realm, chances are that most of wood working machines that you see in your woodshop today won't be there when you finally open your commercial production line. For example, instead of using hand saws and circle saws for all of your cutting needs, you'll eventually need an industrial grade gang rip saw; a radial design power saw with its blade mounted to its motor that cuts wood both across the stock and above it.

Industrial grade gang rip saws simplify a variety of cuts that take significantly more time and effort when made with other types of saws. But to bring the power of top grade gang rip saws to your production line, you could be looking at spending multiple thousands of dollars. Although taking your woodworking to the next level can put lots of money in your pocket, getting to that level can take lots of money out of it. Faced with the expense of industrial wood working machines, some aspiring woodworkers try to compromise by buying a grade of machinery that isn't designed to stand up to the production needs of commercial woodworking, and the result is always the same: the machines work wonderfully for a little while, then they start breaking down with increased frequency, eventually burning out. If you feel tempted to buy a rip saw in a cheaper grade than you ideally need, a better idea is to shop for an industrial gang rip saw used.

When woodworkers are first cutting their teeth in the commercial woodworking business, many of them don't know about the value of used industrial woodworking machinery. Unlike domestic grade woodworking machinery, industrial machinery's long life span and sturdy construction mean that it can be "used" and still perform like new, especially if its former owner kept it properly maintained. In addition to startup woodworkers, commercial woodworking companies also buy machines used in order to save money; and when you learn how much new industrial woodworking machines cost, it's easy to see why. In order to make sure that they get a quality machine for the money, woodworking companies follow two simple rules when buying used machines: they research the seller's reputation and they ask to see a copy of a machine's official maintenance record. If you follow the same rules as you shop for used gang rip saws, you'll end up with the saw that you need at the price that you need.

As a commercial woodworker, I've always bought used wood working machines to save money. If you need a used gang rip saw, I'd recommend RTMachine.com.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mike_Barone

Haas Used Machines and Parts Are Available

2010-12-14T07:16:00.001-08:00

Injection mold making places intense demands on any milling machine, and eventually the various parts need replacing. Of course, this usually happens when you need the machine the most!

This is the time when your supplier is put to the test. It is one thing to market and sell a machine tool, but quite another to have good customer service. Your machine tool company should be able to get your parts the next day.

Haas is the leading supplier of machine tools in North America and they also have an excellent reputation for customer service. Haas used machines and spare parts are generally readily available, especially when you need it now.

The milling process can wear on the tools and parts, creating the need for replacements. Haas used parts include replacement parts such as:

- Used Haas vertical and horizontal machines - Known for over the top performance.
- Used tools and parts - As good as new quality backed by Haas reputation.
- Used CNC turning centers - Offers 15 to 40 horsepower and upwards to 7,000 RPM.
- Used CNC lathes - Known for the high quality at a reasonable price.

The savings as a result of purchasing used parts and machinery is remarkable and Haas used parts are of the highest quality. Some people are surprised to learn that Haas is known as the leading machine tool builder in the U.S.

If a manufacturer is repairing a Haas machine it makes sense that Haas used machines and parts will be the first choice. Their machine tools are also known for high accuracy, repeatability and durability. Haas machine tools have the ETL mark of certification. This means that they meet NFPA 79 standards. They also have received ISO certification.

Other sources for tools, part and milling machinery are Bridgeport, Deckel, Haas new machinery and parts and Makino. Maho has stopped manufacturing machine tools, since being taken over by Deckel.

Whenever you are looking at new or replacement machinery, make sure that the customer service is excellent and that parts are available. Few things are as frustrating as having your expensive machinery sit idle because you cannot find a replacement part. Haas used CNC machinery is recommended by many in the industry.

Randy Hough has a website about injection mold making. Part of this process includes using such machine tools as Haas, whether new or used.
http://global-plastic-injection-molding.com

"You know Dad, I've been thinkin', one is a lot more than zero!" my son, Thomas, age 5.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Randy_Hough

A Closer Look at the Different Processes and Types

2010-12-14T07:15:00.000-08:00

Machine tools are described as machines that are vital in disposing operations for material removal. It operates on different operating principles like shaping, drilling, grinding, turning and milling. Machine tools are relatively expensive and not all may have the capability to buy brand new equipment for a particular purpose. It is in this regard that used machine tools are sold in the market.

The real purposes of such products are varied. First, they aim to provide consistency between the motion of the work piece and the cutting tool used. It also desires to render stiffness while the cutting operation is done. Furthermore, it provides consistency during the cutting procedure while it controls vibrations in the process. Add to that, it also helps facilitate accurate surface finishes. With these purposes, one may be able to look into how efficient used machine tools are.

Machinery processes

Machine tool equipment are comprised of a base and a tower. These components are used either of two ways: the tool is fixed on the base while the work piece or material is placed on the tower; or the tool is held by the tower while the work piece or material is fixed on the base. In the process, the rotation or motion is supported by the movements of three spatial axes. Bearings, screws, rack and pinion arrangements and linear guides are important in the process.

What are machine tools made of?

Knowing what tools are made of will help one learn how to buy used equipment for manufacturing. An ideal tool is made out of heavy iron and steel. Cast iron is usually seen at its base while the entire structure is usually fixed on concrete. Powering the machine is made easy with the use of axles, screws and gears. Ideally, machine tools are said to be efficient if and when their respective cutting tools move freely.

Different types of machinery

When looking for machine groups, different categories may emerge. The different categories are also sub-categorized into specific types. When looking for used machine tools, classifications such as air compressors, bar machinery, air cooling and filtration equipment, bending and forming equipment and boring mills may be found. Other machine tools to look for are broaching machines, die casting machines, drilling machines and EDM machines.

Furthermore, searches for electrical and power equipment, fasteners, fabrication equipment, forging machines and saws may also be made. Along these various types, there are different products a person may choose from. This will now depend on the needs of the company or the individual.

Visit IndustrialPR.net to read about new innovative products being launched into the marketplace as well as articles on manufacturing technologies for the industrial marketplace. Gain access to leading manufacturers, exporters and global suppliers of used machine tools and allied goods and services.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Richard_C._Milton

Gang from Leicestershire stole cash machines in raids across country

2009-11-07T19:10:00.001-08:00

Organised crime gang members who looted almost £500,000 from shop cash machines were jailed yesterday.

Acting in teams, the professional villains used specialist apparatus to crack open the cashpoints, before making off in high-speed cars.

Mainly targeting Co-op stores, they committed 17 burglaries around the country – including four in Leicestershire – between March and November 2008.

They worked against the clock, evading the police for months. In their wake, they left almost £250,000 worth of destruction, including fire damage to many stores.

At Leicester Crown Court, 12 of the team admitted their part in varying roles.
The gang from Leicestershire struck with almost military precision as they stole cash machines in night-time raids at stores across the country.

After smashing their way in with crowbars, they used sophisticated cutting equipment described as “a bespoke ATM burgling kit” to rip out the machines. Some contained between £70,000 and £84,000,the court heard.

David Herbert, prosecuting, said the gang of 13 operated in two separate teams – some were more involved than others – as 17 outlets were targeted during 2008 in eight counties.

Ricky Downes, 28, was involved in a raid at Glenfield Co-op when £71,860 was taken on March 24.

Mr Herbert said: “It was done using oxyacetylene burning equipment which shows how efficiently it was done.”

He said Downes was initially arrested three days later at East Midlands Airport, before he could jet off to Spain on holiday.

He was linked to an address in Woodland Drive, Braunstone, where a concealed safe was found sunken into a concrete floor in a shed. It contained £43,000 and the keys to a Subaru vehicle used in the raids.

The vehicle, which was kept at another address, contained two gas cylinders, two fire extinguishers and cutting equipment, crowbars and a pair of welder’s goggles, with Downes’ DNA on it.

Mr Herbert said: “It was a bespoke ATM burgling kit. It’s safe to assume Downes was the person doing the cutting at Glenfield and thereafter.”

But Downes was granted bail at the time – and continued to offend – because he had an excuse for having the equipment: a job in 2006 that needed oxyacetylene equipment, working as a salvage operator.

“For that reason he was released on bail and chose to continue offending.”

He was also linked to a storage facility at Dawson’s Yard, near Coalville, where other cutting equipment and tools were found.

Mr Herbert said: “Detection was possible because of a number of different categories of evidence.” mobile phone evidence linked the defendants with each other and to the crime scenes. Surveillance and DNA evidence also played a part.

The court heard getaway cars, and back-up vehicles, were stolen, and their number plates changed, shortly before a raid. The court heard £78,920 was taken on June 1 from a cashpoint in Earls Barton, Northamptonshire.

Two days later the gang failed to steal anything during a raid at Broughton Astley Post Office and store.

A haul of £14,540 was taken from a store in Tean, Staffordshire, and £84,600 in Heckington, Lincolnshire.

They then took £20,120 from a store in Spalding and £57,850 at Woodhouse Spa, both Lincolnshire.

A cash machine holding £10,330 went from Fleckney Co-op in Leicestershire.

In Cheshire, three stores were raided and machines containing £44,000, £44,690 and £18,000 taken.

Two attempts were made, one in Cambridgeshire and another in Exeter.

Despite the first team, including Downes, being arrested and remanded into custody, the second team committed raids from September to November.

Mr Herbert said police had both teams under surveillance and foiled a burglary in Cambridgeshire, where a fire took hold.

Mark Underwood, who has a previous conviction for causing death by driving recklessly after a burglary, attempted to drive off from a car park but ended up crashing into three police cars which blocked him in.

The second team eventually came unstuck in Exeter and arrests followed.

Satellite navigation systems taken from two of the gangs cars showed they were targeting other Co-op stores throughout the country and South Wales.

Mr Herbert said: “They simply weren’t going to stop until they were caught.”

After his arrest, Mark Underwood was heard giving a coded message on the phone about recovering money, which led police to discover £20,000 buried near conifer trees near junction 21 of the M1 motorway.

Judge Simon Hammond said: “Just short of half-a-million pounds was stolen and damage just short of a quarter of a million pounds was caused during 17 burglary offences in eight counties.

“Two teams were used, no doubt to evade detection, usually three inside and two outside.

“They operated very quickly, because once the alarms were activated the police would be on their way.”

“Oxyacetylene cutting equipment was used and for every offence they were hoping to get £75,000 and were playing for big money.”

After the case, Leicestershire Police said they were delighted to put the gang behind bars., revealing one of the convicted criminals had used his ill-gotten gains to go and see a Ricky Hatton fight in Las Vegas.

However, he was met at the airport by American authorities who put him on the first plane back to England, where he was arrested by detectives.

Superintendent Phil Smith said: “To say this was a huge enquiry was an understatement. “We hope the convictions provides local people and local businesses the reassurance the people responsible for a huge proportion of these crimes are now behind bars.”

Gang members: Offences and sentences

Jamie Sylvester (25), Glenhills Boulevard, Eyres Monsell - admitted burglary in Exeter. Sentenced to four years and five months

Simon Bird (34), Cotley Road, Mowmacre Hill, Leicester – admitted burglaries in Cheshire, Exeter. Six years.

Anthony Underwood (32), Federation Street, Enderby – found guilty of burglaries in Staffordshire and Lincolnshire. Seven years

Craig Jones (35), Woodshawe Rise, Braunstone, Leicester – admitted burglaries in Cambridgeshire. Four years

Lee Faulkner (31), Buddon Close, Beaumont Leys, Leicester – admitted burglaries in Gloucester, Lincolnshire, Cheshire, Exeter. Six years

Glenn Morris (27), Ambleside Drive, Eyres Monsell – admitted burglaries in Desborough, Broughton Astley, Staffordshire, Fleckney. Six years and eight months

Mark Wayne Underwood (27), Littlegarth, Saffron Lane Estate, Leicester – admitted burglaries in Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire, Fleckney. Also admitted dangerous driving. Seven years and eight months

Ricky Gene Downes (28), Mount Road, Cosby – admitted burglaries in Cambridgeshire, Glenfield, Staffordshire, Fleckney. Six years and two months

Oliver Gent (30), Slade Close, Thorpe Astley, Leicester – admitted burglaries in Gloucestershire, Macclesfield, Cheshire. Five years and four months

Thomas Calvert (25), Elm Tree Avenue, Glenfield – Admitted burglaries in Gloucester, Houghton on the Hill, Spalding, Woodhall Spa. Six years

Robert Rourke (32), Bluegates, Beaumont Leys, Leicester – admitted burglaries in Houghton on the Hill, Spalding, Gloucestershire, Cheshire, Macclesfield, Exeter. Eight years

Shane Underwood (29), Stanton Row, Saffron Lane Estate, – admitted burglaries in Houghton on the Hill, Spalding, Cheshire, Exeter. Eight years

Sean Underwood (19), Denman Lane, Huncote – admitted burglary in Exeter. Three years detention
http://www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/news/Thieves-raided-shop-cash-machines-Leicestershire-jailed/article-1491984-detail/article.html

Used and rebuilt rubber machinery

2009-09-14T01:48:00.000-07:00

This worldwide buyer and seller of quality American-made new, used and rebuilt rubber machinery is celebrating its 16th anniversary with the creation of a new web site featuring its most current new and used rubber machinery inventory.

In addition be being a leading seller of new and used equipment, this company also buys surplus rubber machinery and equipment from companies looking to discard unwanted equipment. This company will buy and sell from one piece of machinery to a complete manufacturing line or plant.

Equipment offered for sale on the company's web site includes a press control panel, presses, 120 gallon hydraulic units, mills, rheometers, tensile testers, lathes, calenders, mixers, cutters, gear reducers, and more.

Used, rebuilt machinery suppliers

2009-09-14T01:47:00.000-07:00

The following directory lists the suppliers of used and rebuilt
processing machinery to the rubber industry, with address,
contact information and type(s) of machinery offered. Rebuilding
capabilities are listed on the following pages.

Advanced Engineered Systems, Inc.
Marc Skelding, Dir. Of Sales
4311 Capital Circle
Janesville, WI 53546                                      608 754-3611
                                                    Fax: 608 754-3847
                                                 Email: aesol@aol.com

Types of Machinery: Assembly machines
(special), cutting equipment, marking
machines, materials handling equipment,
presses, special machinery and general
machine work

Akron Tire Engineering & Machine Co.
Adele D. Roth, Gen. Mgr.
1288 Starlight Dr.
Akron, OH 44306-4023                                      330 724-0343
                                                    Fax: 330 724-0347
                                  Website: hometown.aol.com/atemcoinc
                                             Email: atemcoinc@aol.com

Types of Machinery: Calenders, mills,
mixers, presses, slitters, special machinery
and general machine work, tire building
machines

Alsop Industrial Services, Inc.
Don Alsop, Pres.
1643 E. Legrande Ave., Suite A
P.O. Box 33802
Indianapolis, IN 46203-0802                               317 783-0885
                                                    Fax: 317 783-0891
                                     Website: www.alsopindustrial.com
                                      Email: info@alsopindustrial.com

Types of Machinery: Autoclaves, bale
cutters, band building machines, bead
flippers, bias cutters, blenders, calenders,
deflashing equipment, extruders, extrusion
equipment, mills, mixers, molds,
ovens, presses, scales, special machinery
and general machine work, splicers

CCS Instruments Inc. Corporate Consulting Service Instruments Inc.
Jack Warner, Pres.
221 Beaver St.
Akron, OH 44304                             330 376-3600; 800 742-8535
                                                    Fax: 330 376-8500
                                           Website: www.ccsi-inc.com;
                                                   www.orecozone.net;
                                                 www.ccsequipment.net
                                             Email: info@ccsi-inc.com

Types of Machinery: Bale cutters, cloth
spreaders, cutting equipment, dies,
gages (indicating), knives, measuring
equipment, molds, recording chart paper

Crotech AG
Anthony Crowe, Pres.
Gstaltenstrasse 40
4416 Bubendorf, Switzerland                              061/903-07-07
                                                   Fax: 061/903-07-08
                                      Email: crotech.ag@spectraweb.ch

Types of Machinery: Extruders, pelletizers,
presses, special machinery and general
machine work, strainers

Cumberland Engineering
John Farney, National Sales Mgr.
100 Roddy Ave.
South Attleboro, MA 02703-7951                            508 399-6400
                                                    Fax: 508 399-6653
                                 Website: www.cumberland-plastics.com

Types of Machinery: Bins, cutters (extrusions),
cutting equipment, granulators,
grinders, knives, processing systems
(material), shredders

Davis-Standard, LLC
Sandy Whewell, Mktg.
1 Extrusion Dr.
Pawcatuck, CT 06379-2313                                  860 599-1010
                                                    Fax: 860 599-6258
                                      Website: www.davis-standard.com
                                       Email: info@davis-standard.com

Types of Machinery: Bead covering
machines, branders, control systems,
controllers, cutters (extrusions), cutting
equipment, dies, digital control systems
(length, speed, stretch), drives, drums,
extruders, extrusion equipment, feeders,
gages (indicating), heaters, hose covering

Delroyd Worm Gear
Jay Dubell, Product Mgr.
2221 Niagara Falls Blvd.
Niagara Falls, NY 14302-1032                              716 731-5180
                                                    Fax: 716 731-9329
                                         Website: www.nuttallgear.com
                                       Email: nuttall@nuttallgear.com

Types of Machinery: Gears (reduction),
reducers (speed, gear), reducers (speed,
motor)

Durbin Industrial Valve, Inc.
Scott Durbin
1062 Triplett Blvd.
Akron, OH 44306                                           330 724-9968
                                                    Fax: 330 724-9975
                                         Website: www.durbinvalve.com
                                         Email: valve@durbinvalve.com

Types of Machinery: Used and rebuilt
machinery, valves (control and regulating)

Erie Press Systems
George Currie, Executive V.P.
1253 West 12th St.
P.O. Box 4061
Erie, PA 16512                                            814 455-3491
                                                    Fax: 814 456-4819
                                           Website: www.eriepress.com
                                         Email: gcurrie@eriepress.com
Types of Machinery: Presses

Farrel Corporation
William Flaherty, V.P. of Sales
25 Main St.
Ansonia, CT 06401                                         203 736-5500
                                                    Fax: 203 735-6267
                                              Website: www.farrel.com
                                            Email: support@farrel.com

Types of Machinery: Batch off systems,
calenders, component parts, control systems,
dies, extruders, extrusion equipment,
guides, hose covering machines,
insulated wire equipment, masticators,
materials handling equipment, metering,
mixing and dispensing units for epoxies

Federal Equipment Co.
Larry Kadis, Exec. V.P.
8200 Bessemer Ave.
Cleveland, OH 44127                                       216 271-3500
                                                    Fax: 216 271-5210
                                            Website: www.fedequip.com
                                            Email: larry@fedequip.com

Types of Machinery: Used and rebuilt
machinery

Feedscrews.com
Ron Anderson, CEO/Pres.
2511 N. Friday Rd.
Cocoa, FL 32926                                           321 637-0728
                                                    Fax: 321 636-3508
                                          Website: www.feedscrews.com
                                       Email: anderson@feedscrews.com

Types of Machinery: Used and rebuilt
machinery, chrome plating, drums,
extruders, extrusion equipment, roll grinding
service, rollers, used and rebuilt
machinery, component parts, deflashing
equipment, dies, drives, extruders, extrusion
equipment, feeders, grinders, insulated
wire

Feed Screws Div., New Castle Industries, Inc.
Fred Scocchera, Sales Mgr.
1399 Countyline Rd.
New Castle, PA 16107                                      724 656-5600
                                                    Fax: 724 656-5620
                                              Website: www.newcas.com
                                              Email: sales@newcas.com

Types of Machinery: Used and rebuilt
machinery, chrome plating, drums,
extruders, extrusion equipment, roll grinding
service, rollers

Freeman
Chad Root, Dir. of Sales
911 Graham Dr.
Fremont, OH 43420                                         419 334-9709
                                                    Fax: 419 334-3426
                                         Website: www.freeman-die.com
                                       Email: fremont@freeman-die.com

Types of Machinery: Assembly machines
(special), cementing machines, coaters,
cutting equipment, deflashing equipment,
dies, molds, presses, skivers, splitters

Freeman Schwabe Machinery
Greg DeFisher, CEO
4064 Clough Woods Dr.
Batavia, OH 45103                                         513 947-2888
                                                    Fax: 513 947-2887
                                      Website: www.freemanschwabe.com

Types of Machinery: Assembly machines
(special), cementing machines, coaters,
cutting equipment, deflashing equipment,
dies, molds, presses, skivers, splitters,
used and rebuilt machinery, cutting
blocks, cutting equipment, die making
machines, fabric edge gummers, laminators

French Oil Mill Machinery Co.
Daniel P. French, Chairman/Pres.
Polymer Machinery Group; Hydraulic
Machinery Group
1035 W. Greene St.
P.O. Box 920
Piqua, OH 45356-0920                                      937 773-3420
                                                    Fax: 937 773-3424
                                           Website: www.frenchoil.com
                                           Email: sales@frenchoil.com

Types of Machinery: Assembly machines
(special), cementing machines, coaters,
cutting equipment, deflashing equipment,
dies, molds, presses, skivers, splitters,
used and rebuilt machinery, cutting
blocks, cutting equipment, die making
machines, fabric edge gummers, laminators

Gomaplast Machinery, Inc.
Marcelo S. Hildebrandt, Pres.
500 East Henry St.
Wooster, OH 44691                                         330 263-7645
                                                    Fax: 330 263-7846
                                           Website: www.gomaplast.com
                                           Email: sales@gomaplast.com

Types of Machinery: Autoclaves, bale
cutters, bearings, belt making machines,
calenders, controllers, cutting equipment,
cylinders, deflashing equipment, drives,
drums, extruders, extrusion equipment,
feeders, gages (indicating), gears, gears
(reduction), hose knitting machine

Industrial Rubber Machinery Inc.
Larry Weber, Pres.
3784 Brant Dr.
P.O. Box 27087
Akron, OH 44319                                           330 645-0020
                                                    Fax: 330 645-0070
                                     Website: www.rubbermachinery.com
                                     Email: larry@rubbermachinery.com

Types of Machinery: Autoclaves, bale
cutters, batch off systems, blenders, calenders,
coaters, cutters (extrusions), cutting
equipment, dicers, doors (vulcanizer
quick opening), extruders, extrusion
equipment, granulators, grinders, laminators,
lathes, let-off machines

International Reserve Eqpt. Corp.
Thomas J. Mertz, Ptnr./Advert.
4 S. Prospect Ave.
P.O. Box 198
Clarendon Hills, IL 60514-0198                            630 325-7040
                                                    Fax: 630 325-7045
                                               Email: ireserve@cs.com

Types of Machinery: Blenders, centrifuges
(latex), dewatering equipment, dryers,
evaporators, mills, mixers, presses,
screens, used and rebuilt machinery

JM Machinery Inc.
Michael Dyer, President & CEO
P.O. Box 378
Wadsworth, OH 44282                                       330 825-2400
                                                    Fax: 330 825-0569
                                         Website: www.jmmachinery.com
                                       Email: Rubbermachinery@aol.com

Types of Machinery: Autoclaves, bale
cutters, ball making machines, band
building machines, batch off systems,
bead covering machines, bead flippers,
bead making machines, bead wire cutters,
bead wrappers, belt covering
machines, belt cutters, belt making
machines

Karder Rubber Machinery & Engineering
David M. Supple, V.P.
258 Kenmore Blvd.
P.O. Box 349
Akron, OH 44309-0349                                      330 253-3377
                                                    Fax: 330 253-4733
                                         Email: krme@worldnet.att.net

Types of Machinery: Autoclaves, bearings,
bushings, calenders, couplings,
Eextruders, gears, gears (reduction),
insulated wire equipment, mill stock
blenders, mills, mixers, platens, presses,
reducers (speed, gear), roll grinding service,
rollers, strainers (rubber)

Kobelco Stewart Boiling Inc.
David Sealfon, Sales & Marketing
1600 Terex Rd.
Hudson, OH 44236                                          330 655-3111
                                                    Fax: 330 655-2982
                                             Website: www.ksbiusa.com
                                          Email: information@ksbi.com

Types of Machinery: Calenders, extruders,
gears, gears (reduction), guides,
inflators (tire, post cure), knives, mill stock
blenders, mills, mixers, mixing control
systems, pelletizers, presses, roll grinding
service, rollers, take-off apparatus, tire
building machines

Machinery Exchange Corp.
Bob Thompson,
P.O. Box 26073
Akron, OH 44319                                           330 896-0585
                                                    Fax: 330 896-0147
                                        Email: bthompson@mecakron.com

Types of Machinery: All types

Machinery Products U.K. Ltd.
Johnny Walker, Managing Director
Four Trees
South Elkington
Louth, Lincolnshire LN 11 0RU United
Kingdom                                             44 (0) 1507 610108
                                            Fax:  44 (0) 1507 610 044
                                 Website: www.machineryproducts.co.uk
                                   Email: johnny.walker@btconnect.com

Types of Machinery: Used and rebuilt
machinery, autoclaves, bale cutters, balers,
blenders, braiders, calenders, extruders,
extrusion equipment, film casting
equipment, granulators, hose making
machines, knives, lathes, mill stock
blenders, mills, mixers, pelletizers, presses

MKB Industries Inc.
Malcolm V. Blyth, Pres.
63-8 N. Branford Rd.
Branford, CT 06405                                        203 481-1900
                                                    Fax: 203 481-1943

Types of Machinery: Pelletizers, platen
insulation, platens, presses

NFM Iddon Limited
Michael I. Iddon, Sales Dir.
Quin St.
Leyland, Lancashire, PR5 1TB England                       1772-421258
                                                     Fax: 1772-431114

Types of Machinery: Bead covering
machines, calenders, coaters, coolers,
drums, knives, mills, presses, rollers,
take-off apparatus, unwrapping (after
cure) machines, vulcanizers

NFM Welding Engineers, Inc.
William A. Wells, V.P. Sales
577 Oberlin Rd., S.W.
Massillon, OH 44647                                       330 837-3868
                                                    Fax: 330 837-2230
                                                 Website: www.nfm.net

Types of Machinery: Bead covering
machines, calenders, coaters, coolers,
drums, knives, mills, presses, rollers,
take-off apparatus, unwrapping (after
cure) machines, used and rebuilt
machinery, vulcanizers, calenders, control
systems, dewatering equipment,
extruders, extrusion equipment

OEM Press Systems, Inc.
311 S. Highland Ave.
Fullerton, CA 92832                                       714 449-7500
                                                    Fax: 714 449-7510
                                     Website: www.oempresssystems.com
                                     Email: sales@oempresssystems.com

Types of Machinery: Controllers, cylinders,
expanders, heaters, hydraulic systems,
laminators, materials handling
equipment, platen insulation, platens,
presses, pumps, thermal liquid heat
transfer systems

Patterson Industries (Canada) Limited
Mike Lindsey, Sales Mgr.
250 Danforth Rd.
Scarborough, Ontario, Canada M1L 3X4                      416 694-3381
                                                    Fax: 416 691-2768
                                 Website: www.pattersonindustries.com
                               Email: process@pattersonindustries.com

Types of Machinery: Agitators (cement
and latex), autoclaves, blenders, dryers,
evaporators, mills, mixers, polymerizers,
powder mixers (blenders), tanks, used
and rebuilt machinery, vulcanizers

Process Machinery & Equipment Corp.
Eric Buttermore, V.P.
P.O. Box 6507
Kingwood, TX 77325                                        281 358-9299
                                                    Fax: 253 322-2311
                                            Email: pmehouston@aol.com

Types of Machinery: Autoclaves, calenders,
extruders, mills, mixers, presses

Quality Mold Inc.
Greg Kalikas, V.P. Sales
2200 Massillon Rd.
Akron, OH 44312-4234                                      330 645-mold
                                                    Fax: 330 645-2493
                                         Website: www.qualitymold.com
                                         Email: sales@qualitymold.com

Types of Machinery: Batch off systems,
bead flippers, bead making machines,
bias cutters, calenders, extruders, insulated
wire equipment, knives, let-off
machines, molds, steelcord belting
machines, tire building machines, trimmers,
valves

Reliable Rubber and Plastic Machinery
Thomas Liccardo, Vice Pres./Sales Mgr.
2008-14 Union Tpke.
North Bergen, NJ 07047                                    201 865-1073
                                                    Fax: 201 865-6878
                                  Website: www.reliable-machinery.com
                                   Email: info@reliable-machinery.com

Types of Machinery: Bale cutters, batch
off systems, blenders, brakes (pneumatic
clutch), calenders, control systems, coolers,
cutters (extrusions), cutting equipment,
digital control systems (length,
speed, stretch), extruders, extrusion
equipment, gages (indicating), grinders

Rogers Industrial Products Inc.
Rob Cole, General Mgr.
532 S. Main St.
Akron, OH 44311                                           330 535-3331
                                                    Fax: 330 535-4408
                                           Website: www.rogersusa.com
                                           Email: sales@rogersusa.com

Types of Machinery: Assembly machines
(special), bushings, control systems, cylinders,
gages (indicating), gears, gears
(reduction), hydraulic systems, lubrication
systems, materials handling equipment,
platen insulation, platens, presses,
pumps, reducers (speed, gear), reducers

Rubber City Machinery Corp.
Robert Westfall, Exec. V.P.
1000 Sweitzer Ave.
P.O. Box 2043
Akron, OH 44309                                           330 434-3500
                                                    Fax: 330 434-2244
                                                Website: www.rcmc.com
                                                 Email: info@rcmc.com

Types of Machinery: Assembly machines
(special), bale cutters, band building
machines, bead locators, bias cutters,
control systems, cutting equipment,
debeaders, guide line projectors, guides,
knife blades, knives, laser guide lights,
let-off machines, marking machines, mills

Scantland Industries
Phillip P. Troia, P.E., President
1576 Druid Dr.
Copley, OH 44321                                          330 668-6655
                                                    Fax: 330 666-8805

Types of Machinery: Control systems,
hydraulic systems, inspection machines,
platen insulation, platens, presses, tire
building machines, tire painting machines,
tire testers, vulcanizers

Soberay & Sons Ltd.
Ron Soberay, Pres./CEO
12900 Lake Ave., #623
Lakewood, OH 44107                                        216 334-2003
                                                    Fax: 216 334-2005
                                      Website: www.soberayandsons.com
                                       Email: info@soberayandsons.com

Types of Machinery: Band building
machines, batch off systems, bead wire
insulating heads, bead wrappers, belt
covering machines, belt cutters, belt folding
machines, belt making machines, belt
stretchers, bias cutters, blenders, braiders,
brushing machines, buffers, calenders

Technical Machine Products
Dave Sledz, V.P.
5500 Walworth Ave.
Cleveland, OH 44102                                       216 281-9500
                                                    Fax: 216 281-0408
                                            Website: www.techmach.com
                                             Email: mail@techmach.com

Types of Machinery: Controllers, gears,
mills, mixers, mixing control systems,
mold stripping equipment, platens, presses,
special machinery and general
machine work, temperature control, thermal
liquid heat transfer systems, dewatering
equipment, dies, dipping machines,
drives, electroplating, extruders, extrusion
equipment

Wayne Machine & Die Co.
Janice Lischak, Office Mgr.
100 Furler St.
Totowa, NJ 07512                                          973 256-7374
                                                    Fax: 973 256-1778
                                        Website: www.waynemachine.com
                                         Email: info@waynemachine.com

Types of Machinery: Calenders, cutting
equipment, dies, extruders, extrusion
equipment, film casting equipment, insulated
wire equipment, pelletizers, take-off
apparatus, troughs (cooling), used and
rebuilt machinery, winders

West Coast Rubber Machinery, Inc.
Mark Pederson, Sales Mgr.
7180 Scout Ave.
Bell Gardens, CA 90201                                    562 927-2546
                                                    Fax: 562 806-4628
                                           Email: wcrmacc@hotmail.com

Types of Machinery: Assembly machines
(special), bale cutters, batch off systems,
calender stock windup/letoff service
cores, calenders, control systems, cutting
equipment, deflashing equipment,
extruders, guides, hydraulic systems,
industrial instrumentation, masticators

Zeppelin Systems USA, Inc.
Christian Tittensor, Sales & Mktg. Mgr., Tire and Rubber
P.O. Box 286
Coopersburg, PA 18036                                     610 282-5848
                                                    Fax: 610 282-5849
                                   Email: ctittensor@zeppelin-usa.com

Types of Machinery: Bale cutters, batch
off systems, blenders, control systems,
feeders, materials handling equipment,
mills, mixers, mixing control systems,
process control (extrusion), processing
systems (material), pumps, scales, temperature

Re-manufactured VTLs are very competitive

2009-08-04T04:57:00.003-07:00

Machine tool company is putting more investment into re-manufactured VTL's - having acuired more 'carcasses' to offer competitive CNC vertical borers to the aerospace and turbine industry

To find competitive CNC vertical borer solutions for the demands of the aerospace and turbine industry, Pennine has expanded its 'VTL Re-Engineering' programme with the addition of seven vertical turning lathe (VTL) carcasses for its 2006 programme.

The seven machines are, three Morando VLN-12, two Schiess DE14 and two Schiess DE18 models.

The Morando type VLN-12 machines are elevating rail, ram machines with 1200mm tables (1600mm swing) and 12 station toolchangers.

Schiess DE 14 machines are elevating rail turret machines with 1250mm tables (swing 1400mm).

The Schiess DE18 are elevating rail turret machines with 1600mm tables (swing 1800mm).

All will be supplied with new CNC controls and drive systems (Fanuc) although a particular customer requirement maybe possible.

The re-manufactured stock build programme takes sound machine carcasses, which are subsequently rebuilt, re-engineered and retrofit with the latest CNC technology.

Result is large capacity, sturdy accurate machines at a reduced cost (compared with new) having as new accuracy and performance.

These machines are then sold with full warranty John Ginley, Pennine's managing director, explains, "Typical parts which are produced on these VTLs are large rings with complex profiles to tight tolerances from exotic materials, such as titanium and nimonic alloys.

A significant priority is placed on accuracy, machine rigidity and high torque and power at relatively low cutting feeds and speeds.

Re-manufacturing and Re-engineering a sturdy carcass machine, such as the Schiess and Morando variants, provides an excellent base to achieve these priorities.

A re-manufacturing and re-engineering programme starts with a complete assessment of the machine condition, followed by dismantling of the machine for examination, logging and a quality audit of all the major sub assemblies.

At this stage, depending on the examination results, a decision is taken on which aspects of the machine will be retained and which will be re-engineered." Typical areas that maybe re-engineered are: * Replace the existing axis drive arrangement with the latest digital servo motors, coupled to the ballscrews through torsionally rigid couplings or timing belt drives, to improve positioning response and reduce backlash.

* Replace an existing multi-speed table drive gearbox and fixed speed motor with a 2 speed electric change unit and modern digital spindle motor.

This gives infinitely variable speeds, a better power profile, less noise, less driveline backlash and allows the use of constant surface speed control.

* Fit a table encoder to provide screw cutting and feed per rev operation.

* Replace the axis lubrication system (pump, distributors, piping, etc.) and enhance monitoring to aid precise positioning and to minimise wear.

* Replace the original hydraulic installation with a new compact system to reduce oil capacity, lower power consumption and allow greater monitoring (levels, pressures etc).

The more compact tank can often be fixed to the machine carcass, removing the need to disconnect the hydraulics when the machine is moved.

f* Fit an enhanced guarding system to meet current health and safety requirements and provide improved coolant and swarf control.

The guarding arrangement can accommodate a swarf conveyor if required.

* Replace existing wiring with new to meet CE requirements.

* Select a new CNC control to suit machine type with digital control, to provide latest features at the machine and with enhanced communication capabilities to allow connection to customer networks.

* Add direct axis measurement, particular to the X (diameter) axis, for enhanced accuracy and improved repeatability.

j* Upgrade the toolholding arrangement to incorporate modern systems, such as Sandvik's Capto.

k* Take advantage of modern compact electrical and electronic equipment to reduce the size of the electrical panels.

Where possible these are mounted on the machine carcass to ease maintenance, reduce floor space, remove the need to disconnect the machine when moving and provide a single machine lift.

* Decide on operator station type and position to provide flexible viewing and operation available with new compact CNC controls.

Fixed or portable handwheel arrangements can be incorporated to aid machine setting.

* Consider the fitment of tool setting and/or workpiece inspection probing systems.

The same care and attention to detail is applied to the elements of the machine that are being retained.

* After a thorough cleaning of all parts, the slideways are inspected and re-ground as necessary.

PTFE-based anti-friction material is fitted to the moving elements to reduce stiction and aid positioning accuracy and repeatability and/or linear bearings replaced or refurbished to return the machine alignments to British Standards for vertical CNC borers.

* Gearboxes (eg elevating rail and retained table drive components) are stripped and all bearings and any worn gearing replaced.

* Table bearings are inspected and, if required, replaced with new.

* The table bearing and gearbox lubrication system is overhauled and, where possible, improved and then checked for correct operation.

* Tool holding systems (turrets or toolchangers) are completely overhauled.

f* Ballscrews are refurbished or, if necessary, replaced with new.

New support bearings are fitted.

* Telescopic steel slideway covers are refurbished, with the fibre bellows type being replaced with steel telescopic units.

* The machine's moving elements are precisely aligned and adjusted using calibrated granite artifacts, and finally checked with Pennine's Renishaw laser interferometer.

* The re-assembled machine is now rewired using appropriate wiring, conduits and drag-chains and with due regard to CE requirements.

* Sensors and solenoid valves on the machine are wired directly to the CNC's distributed I/O, which allows a comprehensive software interface to be written to control the machine and provide the necessary safety interlocking and enhanced diagnostic support.

* In addition to cable routing meeting new CE requirements, the latest cabling, tubing and drag-chains provide a more modern appearance.

* Finally, a suitable enclosed and interlocked guarding system is designed, manufactured and fitted.

At the end of the Pennine re-manufacturing process, the machines are ready to meet the customer's 2006 production demands.

Large roll grinder and CNC Elgamill are for sale

2009-08-04T04:57:00.001-07:00

Among second-hand machine tools currently available from a UK company are a large Craven travelling wheel head roll grinder and a Butler CNC floor-type, high power travelling column Elgamill.

The UK-built Craven Travelling Wheel Head Roll Grinder has a swing over bed of 2000mm, and a maximum grinding diameter of 1829mm.

Its maximum grinding length is 8600mm.

The machine accepts a maximum roll weight of 75 tonne and the machine tool price is GBP 175,000 (plus VAT if applicable), ex-site.

Gribben expects keen interest in this roll grinder.

The second machine is a UK-built Butler CNC Floor type Hi-Power Elgamill (serial number 28211) a travelling column type machine with up to 7000mm of X-axis travel.

The column's universal, 2000 rev/min Huron-type machining head has 2000mm travel (Z-axis).

The floor plates are 8400mm x 1925mm.

Gribben advises that these details are approximate.

The CNC with the machine is a Heidenhain 360 system.

The price is GBP 80,000 (plus VAT if applicable).

Long bed, travelling column millers offered in UK

2009-08-04T04:56:00.002-07:00

Company dealing in second-hand and re-engineered machine tools is offering two Butler 'Elgamill' long-bed, travelling column, horizontal spindle, milling/boring machines.

Gribben Davies Machine Tools have available for sale from site in the UK the following two two Butler 'Elgamill' long-bed, travelling column, horizontal spindle, milling/boring machines.

Details are as follows.

* Butler CNC Elgamill Model HE 10000 Bed Mill, built in 1990s and refurbished in 2001.

Control: Heidenhain TNC355.

Table Size: 10m x 1000mm.

X: 8280mm, Y: 1670mm, Z: 1050mm.

Machine spindle taper: 50INT, 3,000 rev/min and 22kW motor.

Price: GBP 190,000.00.

* Butler Elgamill Model DR12 Bed Mill, built in mid-1980s.

Table: 6000mm long.

X: 4200mm, Y: 1100mm, Z: 970mm.

Machine spindle speed is 2,000 rev/min, spindle taper: 50 Int.

Pendant Control Price: GBPGBP 5,000.00.

CNC machine tools to be auctioned

2009-08-04T04:56:00.001-07:00

GoIndustry Michael Fox International will conduct an online auction of approximately 150 lots of late model CNC machine tools and metal fabrication equipment during July/August 2006.

GoIndustry Michael Fox International Inc, one of the world's largest providers of used industrial asset disposition and acquisition services, will conduct an online auction of approximately 150 lots of late model CNC machine tools and metal fabrication equipment.

Online bidding begins on July 19 and ends on August 10, 2006 at 12.00 noon (EST).

The highly sought after metalworking equipment includes a plasma cutter; machining centers; turning center; boring mill, and tool holders.

A full list of items and further details about the online auction are available on-line.

On-line auctions allow buyers to participate in the bidding process from the comfort of their own office or home.

Travel costs are not necessary and time away from the office is saved.

Buyers in every corner of the world can access equipment information and place bids at any time of day, in every time zone, as online sales run 24h/day - a huge benefit of the online auction sale format.

"This auction will be a great opportunity for buyers of metalworking machinery and equipment to benefit from the range of equipment for sale.

The equipment is in great condition, buyers are going to be very pleased with their purchases", commented Paul Shoniker, director of Auction Sales and Services, GoIndustry Michael Fox International.

* About GoIndustry Michael Fox International - GoIndustry Michael Fox International is a global leader in the auction, liquidation, and appraisal of machinery and equipment, inventories, and business assets.

The GoIndustry group of companies includes over 250 staff in 25 offices in 16 countries that provide local service with global reach to clients all across the globe.

Apex set to auction CNC machinery

2009-08-04T04:55:00.000-07:00

Apex Auctions has announced that it will be selling a large number of high-quality CNC machinery throughout September.

The first sale to close is a 104 lot auction of CNC and fabricating equipment available due to the closure of Bearing and Engineering Products Ltd.

The sale includes a virtually unused Okuma four-axis CNC lathe manufactured in 2007.

A 2002 Daewoo Puma CNC lathe, a Yang CNC lathe and a 2001 Dugard Eagle machining centre will also be open for bids.

A slightly smaller auction of 36 lots from Advanced Manufacturing Limited will also take place.

This sale consists of a selection of CNC and manual machine tools, including Yang, Eagle, Ajax, Taiwan, Takisawa and XYZ.

Following this auction there is 128 lots of equipment from Leecar Manufacturing, which ends on 16 September.

All machines in this sale are available due to retirement.

A DMG twin pallet horizontal machining centre is already attracting bids, as well as a Gildermeister CNC lathe and a Richmond vertical machining centre - all of which were manufactured between 2000 and 2003.

The auction that Apex said is attracting the most attention is the second phase of the equipment available from Flight Refuelling.

Lot one consists of a Makino CNC flexible manufacturing system, which was installed in 2000.

The FMS comprises two Makino A77 high-speed horizontal machining centres, a 16-position pallet system, transporter and load/unload stations, and a tool presetter.

Also attracting interest, according to Apex, are two Mazak Integrex high-powered CNC turning centres and a Mazak SQT CNC turning centre.

The auction ends on 18 September, with viewing of the equipment available by appointment only.

Apex set to auction CNC machinery

2009-07-29T03:38:00.000-07:00

Apex offers gear manufacturing equipment

2009-07-29T03:37:00.000-07:00

Apex Auctions has announced that it will be offering for sale a selection of large capacity gear manufacturing equipment in spring 2009.

The machinery is currently in operation at the Reid Gear Company, which is closing due to the retirement of its managing director, Tom Reid.

More than 280 lots of engineering equipment have been made available for sale, including: Maag SH450/500s heavy duty gear cutting machine; Maag SH350/500 heavy duty gear cutting machine; Maag SH100/140 gear cutting machine; Maag SH100 gear cutting machine.

All equipment will be available for auction online through the Apex Auctions website with the major machines available for immediate sale.

The Tunnel: Seattle’s deep dig

2009-07-26T20:31:00.000-07:00

Picture this: Washington’s jumbo ferry, the MV Tacoma, runs aground in downtown Seattle between Safeco and Qwest fields, hangs a left onto First Avenue and then starts burrowing underground and disappears.

Got that?

If you do, then you have a pretty good picture of the size and operation of the machine that will be used to drill a deep-bore tunnel to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct, said Ron Paananen of the state Department of Transportation.

Paananen is in charge of the overall $4.24 billion project to replace the viaduct with a 1.7-mile deep-bore tunnel, rebuild parts of the seawall and improve the Alaskan Way surface street with a promenade, as well as build a new surface street in the footprint of the viaduct after the structure is removed.

His main focus these days is the $1.9 billion tunnel and the machine that will dig it.

The tunnel boring machine will weigh 5,000 tons, about the same as a jumbo ferry, Paananen said. Its power plant will be 400 to 500 feet long, about the same length as a jumbo ferry. The diameter of the “drill bit” will be almost 55 feet.

Industry experts say it will take 18 months to two years to build that machine, at a cost well over $50 million.

“It would be one of the biggest machines ever made,” said Craig Bournes, product manager for Lovat Inc., a Toronto-based firm that manufactures tunnel boring machines. Lovat built two of the machines for King County’s Brightwater, a project that eventually will carry sewage in underground pipes from an inland treatment plant to a discharge point in north Puget Sound. Those machines are much smaller – less than 19 feet in diameter.

Lovat, which is now owned by Caterpillar, is one of several international firms interested in building the tunnel boring machine for whichever design-build team wins the contract to build the tunnel. Herrenknecht AG of Germany, The Robbins Co. of Ohio, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Shield Tunneling Association of Japan, Kawasaki Heavy Industries and WIRTH in Germany are others.

GOING DEEP

When the project is finished, the tunnel is expected to carry 85,000 vehicles a day. An additional 25,000 vehicles will be using the Alaskan Way surface street. The viaduct currently carries about 110,000 vehicles a day.

The tunnel boring machine for the Alaskan Way project will have to dig a single tunnel that is large enough for four lanes of traffic – two lanes stacked on top of two other lanes, each pair carrying traffic in opposite directions.

That single tunnel idea is relatively new. Originally, the DOT was going to build two tunnels – one for each direction of travel. But the technology has advanced to allow four lanes in a single tunnel, and that chops about $600 million off the cost, Paananen said.

This scale of tunnel is not unprecedented. For example, Interstate 80 in the San Francisco Bay area goes through a 1,700-foot long, double-deck tunnel through Yerba Buena Island.

Over the past few weeks, work crews in Seattle have been drilling holes every 100 to 400 feet along the eventual route of the tunnel to see what kind of soil the tunnel boring machine will encounter. The tunnel will be 1.7 miles long and will be as deep as 200 feet in some places, which means most of it will be below sea level. The tunnel has to be deep enough to get underneath a 60-foot-deep railroad tunnel that carries freight trains under downtown Seattle. There also are sewer lines closer to the surface.

Paananen said so far the soil samples show native glacial deposits of sand and gravel along most of the route, but there is fill material at the southern end of the tunnel.

Unlike an earlier proposal for a cut-and-cover tunnel that would have been built under Alaskan Way, the single deep-bore tunnel will be about 500 to 600 feet farther inland, farther away from the shoreline. The southern tunnel entrance will be at King Street and will follow under First Avenue until it gets about one block past the Pike Place Market. At Stewart Street it will veer further to the east and resurface at Denny Way onto Aurora Avenue North, also known as Highway 99.

That means the Battery Street Tunnel probably will be closed and filled in, Paananen said. Its fate lies with Seattle city officials, he said.

SLOW GOING

Tunnel boring machines move at a pace of about 2 meters (6 feet) an hour and are guided by laser. The face of the machine chews up the soil and rock to that 6-foot distance and seals off a chamber at the front of the machine.

Rails will be laid behind the machine. The ground-up dirt, rock and other materials are turned into a slurry and are either piped out behind the machine or are carried out on conveyor belts or rail cars for disposal, Bournes said.

Thereafter, prefabricated concrete sections are bolted into place to form a ring around the circumference of the tunnel. That takes about two hours, although once the work gets under way it could take less time, he said. Then, the machine moves forward to grind up the next 6-foot segment.

It takes about a dozen workers to operate the boring machine, but there are many more workers providing support.

The machine will inch forward underground for all 9,000 feet, emerging at the north portal near Seattle Center like a giant sandworm.

After the tunnel is built, the double-decked traffic lanes will be built.

Paananen said it will take four or five months just to assemble the tunnel boring machine on the lots that have been cleared at the south end of the project to serve as a staging area for construction work.

The state will be buying property and getting easements from each of the property owners so the state can tunnel under their properties.

WORK STARTED

Work on the Alaskan Way project already is well under way. Two Seattle City Light electrical transmission lines that are attached to the viaduct are being relocated. Most people don’t realize that an earthquake that is severe enough to bring down the elevated structure would disrupt much more than traffic. Two-thirds of downtown Seattle would lose power if the viaduct were to collapse.

“It’s not just transportation that’s vulnerable,” Paananen said.

New power lines are being buried in a trench to the east of the viaduct and the switch-over will take place this fall. Other utility lines also are being moved.

A tunnel is better able to withstand an earthquake than an elevated structure, but regardless of which alternative was built, it will have to meet current seismic resistant standards.

The DOT also plans to seek contractors, probably in October, to tear down the southern end of the viaduct, the portion between Holgate and King streets. That is an estimated $300 million job.

It will be nearly two years – mid-2011 – until actual construction work begins on the deep-bore tunnel, but the legislative green light has set in motion more preparatory work.

In September, the DOT will send out a request for qualifications, which is basically a call for engineering firms and contractors to show that they can team up and have the wherewithal to design and build the tunnel.

“We know there are teams of engineers and contractors forming already,” Paananen said.

By the end of October, the DOT expects to announce which three or four teams have been chosen to proceed to the next phase of the project, and compete for a contract that could pay them between $800 million and $1.3 billion, he said.

Each of the finalists will be paid to further refine their proposals, and that will take the better part of a year, Paananen said. The winner of the contract probably won’t be chosen until September 2010.

During the legislative session that ended in late April, DOT officials told lawmakers they needed approval for the deep-bore tunnel concept because they needed to order a tunnel boring machine as soon as possible so they could get on a yearlong waiting list.

http://www.thenewstribune.com/local/story/822857.html

Used large horizontal honing machines offered

2009-07-24T21:41:00.001-07:00

Machine tool dealer is offering two large Delapena horizontal honing machines for sale from a site in the UK at GBP 40,000 and 45,000 each.

Gribben Davies Machine Tools have for sale - from site in the UK - two horizontal honing machine tools.

One is a Delapena HHM20 6000mm horizontal honing machine, built in the early 1980s.

Price is GBP 40,000.00 (plus VAT if applicable) - net ex site.

The second Delapena machine is a HHM30, 9000mm horizontal honing model, built in the early 1980s.

Price is GBP 45,000.00 (plus VAT If applicable) - net ex site.

Used water jet cutting machines are on the Web

2009-07-24T21:41:00.000-07:00

Manufacturer of water jet abrasive cutting machines - also used for coating removal - has posted used machines on its Web site.

In the USA, a leading manufacturer of ultra-high pressure waterjet and abrasivejet systems for precision cutting, coating removal and surface preparation, Jet Edge, is now posting used waterjet equipment for sale on its Web site.

Jet Edge's used equipment inventory includes ultra-high pressure intensifier pumps, motion systems, accessories and mobile cleaning and cutting equipment.

* About Jet Edge - Jet Edge is an ultra-high pressure waterjet technology company with a global presence.

Jet Edge's primary business includes designing, engineering, manufacturing and servicing ultra-high pressure intensifier pumps, precision waterjet and abrasive waterjet cutting systems, and surface preparation and coating removal products, as well as high-pressure cutting heads and related products, parts and components.

Jet Edge products are used in a wide range of industries, from the world's leading airlines to automotive, aerospace and industrial manufacturers and machine and job shops.

Headquartered in St.

Michael, Minnesota, USA, the company has distribution partners throughout North and South America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East, and serves customers in more than 100 countries.
http://www.manufacturingtalk.com/news/jee/jee124.html

Concepts NREC Signs Global Machine Tool Partnership with Hermle

2009-07-17T04:45:00.000-07:00

White River Junction, Vt. and Gosheim, Germany (PRWEB) July 16, 2009 -- Concepts NREC, a world leader in turbomachinery design, engineering and manufacturing, today announced it has signed a global partnership agreement with Maschinenfabrik Berthold Hermle AG (Hermle) of Gosheim, Germany, in which Hermle will be a global machine tool partner with Concepts NREC offering the MAX-PAC family of computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) software to its machine customers worldwide. Original equipment manufacturers and machining organizations will benefit from the two companies' combined expertise in the design and machining of 5-axis turbomachinery products.

Based in Gosheim, Germany, with North American headquarters in Franklin, Wis., Hermle provides manufacturing solutions, applications assistance, customer training and service. More than 18,000 Hermle machines are installed worldwide, and Hermle operates via a well-developed network of company representatives in over 50 countries, which includes 30 North American locations in the United States and Canada operated by Hermle Machine Company. Hermle's precision machine tools are used to manufacture products in many industries with turbomachinery applications. Concepts NREC representatives will work with Hermle to implement its software sales, support and distribution processes.

Hermle's extensive manufacturing reach, reputation for excellence plus its experience in solution sales makes it an ideal partner for Concepts NREC

Turbomachinery manufacturers using Hermle machines tools and needing 5-axis capabilities will benefit from implementing our MAX-PAC manufacturing software. We anticipate a mutually beneficial partnership with Hermle.

Michael Bisser, departmental director sales, of Hermle said, "We are pleased to partner with Concepts NREC. It is a good opportunity for Hermle to strengthen its solutions for the sophisticated requirements of the turbomachinery industry by offering a value-added software system and our machines through one source. We provide some of the best machine tools and CAM software products available, and because Concepts NREC's 5-axis machining software is proven, forming this partnership to offer it to our customers was the next best logical step for us."

The Concepts NREC and Hermle partnership agreement opens new sales markets into additional countries for Concepts NREC while filling a capabilities niche for Hermle.

"Hermle's extensive manufacturing reach, reputation for excellence plus its experience in solution sales makes it an ideal partner for Concepts NREC," said Mike Dergance, director - global software sales for Concepts NREC. "Turbomachinery manufacturers using Hermle machines tools and needing 5-axis capabilities will benefit from implementing our MAX-PAC manufacturing software. We anticipate a mutually beneficial partnership with Hermle."

Concepts NREC's CAM products include the MAX-PAC family: MAX-5™, MAX-AB™ and MAX-SI™ for advanced manufacturing of turbomachinery impellers and related components.

About Hermle
Maschinenfabrik Berthold Hermle AG manufactures and markets milling machines and machining centers worldwide. The Company's products are used for the machining of tools, molds and series-produced parts in a variety of sectors, including medical technology, optics, aviation, turbomachinery, automotive and racing, as well as in tool and mold making. Hermle was founded in 1938. Hermle AG operated through its eight subsidiaries, three of five wholly owned, as well as three affiliated companies based in Germany, Switzerland, Russia, the Netherlands, Italy and the United States. Maschinenfabrik Berthold Hermle AG is headquartered at Industriestrasse 8-12, Gosheim, 78559 Germany. Telephone: +49 (.... Facsimile: +49 (0)7426 1309. For more information, go to: www.hermle.de.

About Concepts NREC
Concepts NREC is a leading worldwide turbomachinery design, engineering and development organization as well as a provider of turbomachinery design/analysis software and education, with a staff of over 100 professionals at its facilities in Wilder, VT, and Woburn, MA, as well as representation worldwide. For over a half century, Concepts NREC has provided manufacturers, users, government agencies and the engineering community with technology tools, services and products that have met their needs, helped achieve their goals and aided to develop and produce some of the world's most advanced turbomachinery products. Concepts NREC is headquartered at 217 Billings Farm Road, White River Junction, VT 05001-9486. Telephone: 802-296-2321. Facsimile: 802-296-2325. For more information, go to: www.ConceptsNREC.com.

http://www.prweb.com/releases/ConceptsNREC/Hermle/prweb2647484.htm

Election officials face impossible mandated task

2009-07-17T04:44:00.000-07:00

Posted: Wednesday, July 15, 2009 9:40 pm
By GLENDA H. CAUDLE
Special Features Editor
Apparently some of Tennessee’s lawmakers “just don’t get it” — the seemingly insurmountable hurdle they have placed in the path of election commissions across Tennessee who, it turns out, “just can’t get it.” That is the assessment of Obion County election officials and county commissioners faced with what appears to be an impossible task imposed upon them by legislators in Nashville.
It all comes down to a specialized type of voting machine. Fourteen senators in Nashville — 13 Democrats and a lone Republican — want all 95 county election commissions to have optical scan voting machines and paper ballots in place for the 2010 elections. Election officials say that is an impossibility because machines that meet the standards imposed by the Voter Confidence Act passed in 2008 do not exist. In other words, they can’t get the equipment they are required to have to be in compliance with election law. They want a delay in implementing the law until the 2012 voting cycle.
The problem is, a slim majority of the state’s senators appear to be either unwilling or unable to understand the problem, according to local officials concerned not only about the issue of compliance but also with the looming questions of voting accuracy, the integrity of the voting process and the expense for Obion County.
The Obion County Legislative Body is poised to address the problem, with one of their members defining it is an “unfunded mandate,” in its session Monday. An agenda item for that meeting is consideration of a letter of support for the Obion County Election Commission as that body looks into a possible court challenge to the 2010 implementation of the Voter Confidence Act, according to Ralph Puckett, chairman of the county court.
Background
The Voter Confidence Act, which passed both houses of the General Assembly with “broad bipartisan support” in 2008, according to Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett, requires that all 95 counties in the Volunteer State use optical scan voting machines and paper ballots no later than the November 2010 election cycle. The act is very specific, Hargett says, mandating the counties use only certified equipment that meets the security and reliability standards adopted by the federal Election Assistance Commission in 2005.
The problem for Obion County and the other 94 such entities in Tennessee is, there are no vendors certified to sell equipment meeting those standards.
“Because the commission’s certification process typically takes about 18-24 months,” added Hargett in a recent press release, “I’m not confident that a vendor could complete that process in time to have equipment in place for the November 2010 elections.”
The secretary of state describes the situation as a “Catch-22 for county governments.”
“Whether counties acquire new equipment or not, they will still not be in compliance with the act,” Hargett says.
A bill to address the problem by delaying implementation of the act until 2012, when the specified equipment might conceivably be available, passed the state House of Representatives recently, again with “broad bipartisan support.” All Republicans voted for the bill, as did a majority of Democrats who were present to vote, including Judy Barker of Union City. Mrs. Barker, Obion County election commission member Rob Joyner says, was in close contact with local election officials and commissioners to see how the bill would affect Obion County and her vote reflected local concerns.
However, the legislation fell a vote short of passage in the Senate June 18. Seventeen votes were required to provide for the implementation delay. Only 16 were recorded — all Republican. Thirteen Senate Democrats, including Sen. Roy Herron, who represents area citizens in District 24, voted against passage of the Senate bill. One Republican teamed with Democrats, and two Republicans were absent for the vote. And so the law calling for use of the non-existent scanners still stands — and still plagues local voting officials and county commissioners.
Sen. Herron was unavailable for comment when The Messenger sought to make contact Tuesday afternoon at his Nashville senatorial office and this morning at both that office and his Dresden law firm.
Local concerns
Obion County replaced its old pull-lever voting machines with new touch screen machines in June 2002, when 39 of the systems were purchased at a cost of $191,995. Four years later, in June 2006, 13 touch screen machines for handicapped voters were purchased. The State of Tennessee reimbursed Obion County for the entire cost of the most recent purchases and in 2006 — four years after the fact —finally ponied up $185,540 in partial reimbursement for the standard equipment purchase of 2002.
Those new machines — which will have been in place only eight years for the standard machines and four years for the machines adapted for handicapped voters by the 2010 election cycle — will no longer be acceptable, once the Voter Confidence Act goes into effect.
That fact alone is enough to leave members of the Obion County Legislative Body with less than positive feelings about the law now being enforced by an actual minority of legislators in Nashville. They are even more disturbed, however, to find they must replace those machines with equipment that does not even exist.
Supporters of the original act say the machines will make it easier to conduct recounts and verify election results since there will be paper ballots fed into a vote-counting machine. But local election officials are far from reassured even on that point.
Last year, Joyner and Obion County Legislative Body chairman Ralph Puckett went to Hickman, Ky., to see how voting officials there handle paper ballots in a set up that is not certified to meet the standards of the Voter Confidence Act but is, nevertheless, an optical scan system similar to one that would have to be used in Tennessee under the act’s provisions. A representative of the manufacturer was training poll workers in Hickman and allowed the Tennessee guests to have access.
In observing the way paper ballots were handled, the local officials spotted several areas for concern.
As Joyner understands the procedure, it would function in this way: A voter would walk in the door, make contact with a local election official and present the identification called for. The voter would then be presented with one or more paper ballots, depending on how many issues and offices are involved in the election cycle.
Under the present system in place in Obion County, according to Joyner, poll workers “program” the touch screen voting machine when the voter tells them what election he wishes to take part in and the appropriate ballot with all voting options relevant to that voter’s area of residence “pops up” on the screen. Dozens of candidates and issues can thus be addressed privately and with a minimum of effort and confusion on the voter’s part. If necessary, Joyner says, printers can be purchased to connect to the machines and provide a “paper trail” some feel is essential.
Elections using paper ballots, by contrast, would require the voter to juggle multiple paper ballots for marking with a pencil, depending on the number of candidates and variety of issues at stake in the election.
In the scenario Joyner describes for the future, once the potential voter collects the appropriate ballots from a poll worker, he will be escorted to a table and provided with a pencil for marking the ballot. If the voter makes a mistake, he must appeal to the poll worker for a fresh ballot, and the “spoiled” ballot must be placed in a special ballot box before a new one can be dispensed. Then the marking process begins again. The potential for “wasting” numerous paper ballots and for introducing irritants into the system not only for the troubled voter but also for the poll worker and other voters who are waiting to use the system looms large, Joyner says.
By contrast, under the present system, the voter can retrace his steps on the touch screen and correct any selection he may have made in error. Voters are even urged by prompts on the screen to review their ballots and make sure they reflect their wishes before they submit them for a count.
But suppose, Joyner says, the paper ballot voter is satisfied with his votes and proceeds to feed them — one ballot at a time — into the optical scanning vote “reader” being required by the recent events in Nashville. Suppose, further, that the machine is unable to read the ballot, or a particular selection on the ballot, because of an indistinct mark or because a selection was not “filled in thoroughly” or because the voter appeared to have erred in some other way. That ballot will simply be “spit out,” and the voter will lose all his votes on that ballot without any possibility of correcting the problem, since there is no way to trace individual voters and offer them a chance to clarify their wishes.
Joyner says, further, that he is unaware of any effort to accommodate handicapped voters using the new system — another potential problem.
And, finally, the state has agreed to cover the cost of only one ballot reader for each polling place, meaning voters will have to wait their turn to feed in their ballot/ballots.
Expense falling on the shoulders of local government already concerned about their budgets are also part of the scenario confronting county commissioners. Will the single machine to be provided by the state for each polling place be sufficient for the needs of the voters, and if it is not, who will pay for additional machines?
Danny Jowers, chairman of the Obion County Budget Committee, said he is puzzled that proponents of the new paper balloting system are pushing so hard for its implementation. “The members of the Budget Committee see this as an unfunded mandate on the county. It could add $15,000 to $20,000 to each election. If (state government) will only pay for one machine per precinct, who will pay for the rest? The cost associated with it is what I am concerned about. They told us the last machines (those currently in use in Obion County) were the best thing going, so now, why — all of a sudden — are these so bad?
“I know what our senator is saying about it and the only thing that puzzles me is, all we are asking for is a two-year delay until we could get the machines and find out how much it would cost, but for some reason, they want to ram it through. That has me puzzled. I don’t know what the truth is.”
“It’s just throwing money away,” Puckett says of the push to implement the system by 2010. “Another thing (to be concerned about) is the paper ballot. Only a few — maybe two companies — make the paper that can be used and it is expensive. In even a smaller election, it might cost about $30,000 (in local funds) to hold that election, because you have to have 110 percent (the number of paper ballots that must be on hand, to adjust for ballot spoilage) of the number of voters. Only about 25 percent (of the eligible voters) actually vote, except in a presidential election, so you waste a huge amount. And if there is a long ballot, with three or four sheets, that could cost three or four times that figure and the county has to buy the ballots. If the state wants to shove this down our throat, why don’t they furnish money to buy the ballots?
“When this was first presented, the fiscal review committee tagged it as no expense to the county, so it passed easily, but then the final bill says the counties have to buy the ballots. In Weakley County, I read a report they put $48,000 in the budget for only one election.”
Costs for ballot storage and new training for poll workers will also fall on Tennessee’s counties.
To add to the gloomy picture, local officials trying to meet the specifications of the act say they can see problems with elderly voters or voters with some difficulty with motor control or with vision problems having to feed ballots into the scanning machines. If their well-meaning efforts to vote instead create a paper jam or if some other problem affects a machine and it “goes down,” leaving a precinct without an approved means of recording the votes until a new machine can be brought in or repairs made, “that could really slow us down,” an official said.
Why change?
The concern of the senators who are insisting that election officials must have the new machines in place in time for the 2010 elections appears to be rooted in a fear of “conspiracies” designed to interfere in the balloting process, according to a spokesman for the Obion County Election Commission.
Joyner said those who want to abandon the equipment now being used say the machines are not trustworthy and could be “jimmied.” Joyner adds that even if the new paper ballot voting machines were available, the paper ballots would be counted by a computer system and the system would still be open to fraud of the same type the paper ballot proponents say they fear. In addition, the new paper ballot system would not offer any safeguard against the “discovery” of containers of suspicious paper ballots supposedly “rescued” from an automobile or some other location at the last minute. Similar scenarios have come into play in numerous elections in the past and have been the cause of heated political battles.
The system currently in place in Obion County has a fail-safe feature which will not allow voting to be “closed out” until all the boxes from voting precincts have been accounted for. This eliminates the chance of “missing” a box or of contention over whether a “discovered” box should be accepted. Such safeguards may not be part of the new system, but it is difficult to know since no such systems exist at this point, opponents of the mandated 2010 change point out.
Even if these possibilities for a potential “gaming the system” were solved by the use of the new voting systems being required, the problem of acquiring the machines remains as the paramount obstacle to conducting legal elections in 2010, thanks to the senators’ refusal to delay implementation of the act.
Joyner points out, further, that some of those who profess to favor the 2010 implementation of the act because they are concerned about the possibility of fraud using current voting machines are unwilling to support efforts to eliminate fraud in other areas.
A letter from Chris Devaney, chairman of the Tennessee Republican Party, to State House Minority Leader Gary Odom, a Democrat, echoes those charges and calls on Democrats to support legislation that is being held up in the General Assembly by that party. Specifically, Devaney wants Democrats to agree to drop their opposition to:
• HB.1838 — Requiring the county registrar to verify proof of citizenship for voter registration and identify verification when voting.
• HB.0779 — Requiring the State Coordinator of Elections to promulgate rules to make it easier for overseas military voters to return their absentee ballots.
• HB.0639 — Requiring a voter to present photo ID to vote, and allowing voters without proper ID to cast provisional ballots.
What next?
In a meeting July 6, the Obion County Budget Committee voted to support the filing of a suit by the local election commission to delay implementation of the Voter Confidence Act until 2012. County commissioners will have the opportunity to add their support to that action Monday.
Meanwhile, county attorney Steve Conley of Union City is hopeful that the situation can be resolved by the secretary of state.
The legislature is in recess and Conley says he has not been in contact with either Rep. Barker, who supported the delay in implementation, or Sen. Herron, who opposed it.
“There is a November 2010 deadline, so there is no urgency to file at this point,” he says. “My advice is not to rush into a lawsuit if there are other avenues. At this point, I am simply working with county attorneys and the secretary of state’s office and hoping to have the secretary of state take care of this for us. But, if not, we will be working hard to get the legislature to pass a bill delaying implementation. Secretary of State Hargett has more authority than any county attorney or collective group of attorneys, and he is reaching out to legislators. His office is over the state division of elections and if that office is saying the equipment is not available, I don’t see how the legislature will have any choice but to delay.”
If those avenues fail, however, Obion County officials want to be ready to respond and they are finding other counties share their concerns.
Officials in Sullivan County in East Tennessee have unofficially expressed interest in joining a possible suit to delay implementation of the act, and local officials say they believe other counties may come on board, as well.

http://www.nwtntoday.com/news.php?viewStory=28992

Screening Cuts Would Hurt Most In Rural States Like Arkansas, Group Says

2009-07-15T09:07:00.001-07:00

FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas and other rural states will get hit particularly hard by proposed cuts in Medicare for "advanced medical imaging" such as MRIs, supporters of breast cancer screening said Monday.

Worse, the change proposed by President Barack Obama's administration would cut back on prevention and greatly increase the cost of curing many problems, said radiologist Dr. Steven Harms of the Breast Center in Fayetteville. White House spokesmen had no immediate reaction to the remarks Monday.

The proposed rate is based on an assumption of how much an imaging machine is used. The more a machine is used, the more private paying customers pay the expense of the machine, in Medicare's formula. The current rates assumed for these machines is 50 percent, or five hours out of a 10-hour day at a clinic. The new rate would assume the machines would have a "utilization rate" of 95 percent. That kind of rate is impossible, critics said.

"When I was tested, they used different machines for different tests. It was impossible to keep them all in use on the same patient," said cancer survivor Robin Hall Guadagnini of Fayetteville. The only way to use all the machines for all the tests in full use all the time would be to use several at once on the same patient, she and doctors said.

The most active machines at the largest hospitals in the country can't maintain a utilization rate of more than 70 percent, Harms and Eric Hoffman, spokesman for the group, said. The 95 percent figure was clearly an arbitrary number picked to meet a budget goal, Hoffman said.

The bottom line is that the Medicare reimbursement rate for an MRI on the breast would drop about 20 percent, from $800 to about $640, and many doctors would no longer be able to afford to perform the procedures, Harms and his clinic staff said.

http://www.nwaonline.net/articles/2009/07/13/news/071409fzmedical.txt

Diebold voting machines continues

2009-03-07T06:47:00.000-08:00

Computerworld.com reported this week that a new report from the new york secretary of state sheds light on allegations raised last November, when 200 Humboldt County, Calif., votes were not tabulated during the presidential election.

The report claims that voting machines manufactured by Diebold Inc. subsidiary Premier Election Solutions, formerly Diebold Elections Systems, are equipped with a button that can be used to delete audit logs — audit logs that the federal government requires to be stored permanently on the voting process. The report also claims that the voting kiosks failed to maintain required logs of important method events and generated inaccurate data and time stamps in several cases.

The voting kiosks have a history of controversy.

In August 2003, former Diebold chief executive Walden O'Dell publically expressed support for then President George W. Bush and said Diebold would help "give" Bush the election. soon after his statements were made public, issues regarding the accuracy of the Diebold voting machines' tabulations began surfacing.

O'Dell resigned in 2005, facing allegations of insider trading. After subsequent allegations that the voting kiosks were providing inaccurate vote talleys, Diebold attempted to sell the voting division, but failed to shake the troubled business unit. In August 2007, the company rebranded the division to help distance itself from the controversy.

American Axle & Manufacturing has sold off the machinery and equipment from its Detroit manufacturing complex.

2009-03-07T06:46:00.000-08:00

The March 5 sale came nine months after the auto supplier auctioned off equipment & machinery from its closed Buffalo plant on E. Delavan Ave. in 2008.

American Axle & Manufacturing has sold off the machinery & equipment from its Detroit manufacturing complex.

The company did not disclose how much money was raised in the Detroit auction which took place in an idled building on a portion of the site.

On the block were many machines & plant equipment used to machine-forge axle components.

The company said it is reducing U.S. manufacturing capacity by 70 percent while expanding capacity overseas by 150 percent.

The cut in U.S. production is needed to match a forecast for automobile & van sales of 10 million to 12 million vehicles in 2009, company CEO Richard Dauch said in a Jan. 30 conference call.

Since then, American Axle also closed its town of Tonawanda forge plant. The company continues to operate a small Cheektowaga machining operation with fewer than 100 employees.

The company auctioned off the Buffalo plant’s industrial equipment & machinery over two days last June.

Apple has unveiled new Mac models including the long rumored updated Mac Mini

2009-03-04T09:35:00.000-08:00

Rumors typically start swirling about new Apple products well before the official announcement of the products. For a long time now, rumors have been bandied about that claim Apple was getting ready to launch new computer systems, including a revision to the Mac mini.

Apple has finally made the products official with announcements today that three new updated products are now available. Among the new products to receive updates is the aforementioned Mac mini. The new mini features NVIDIA graphics with the GeForce 9400M GPU that is now inside the new MacBook notebooks. Apple says that the graphics performance is now three times greater with the NVIDIA GPU than it was when Intel supplied the graphics for the machine.

The CPU used in the mini is the Intel Core 2 Duo walking at 2GHz with a 1066MHz FSB. Inside the small 6.5-inch square is also 802.11n wireless networking & Bluetooth is built-in. A slot-loading SuperDrive is standard on all minis that allows burning of CDs & DVDs. iLife 09 & Mac OS X Leopard are standard on the machine as well. The new mini starts at $599.

Graphics aren’t the only thing that was updated in the mini. Buyers can now get up to 320GB of storage & a 120GB HDD is standard. Machines can be optioned with up to 4GB of RAM as well. Apple says the mini is the world's most energy efficient desktop computer with power consumption under 13 watts at idle; that’s 45% less power than previous generations required. The back panel has three USB ports, Gigabit Ethernet, Mini DVI port, FireWire 800 port & a Mini Display Port.

Apple also announced updates to the Mac Pro line adding quad-core Nehalem-based Xeon processors to the mix. Apple claims that the new processor makes the Pro up to 1.9 times faster than the old model. The integrated memory controller allows the Pro to use DDR3 RAM at 1066MHz for a 2.4 times increase in memory bandwidth.

Turbo Boost is a new feature on the Mac Pro that allows the user to boost the clock speed of the CPU with a button press based on their workload. The feature turns off cores of the CPU that aren’t being used to save power & increases the speed on the active cores up to 3.33GHz on a 2.93GHz CPU. The machines have options for AMD & NVIDIA GPUs. A base quad-core machine starts at $2,499 with a dual processor machine starting at $3,299.

The Apple iMac all-in-one line was updated with price cuts that make the 24-inch model cost about what the 20-inch version retailed for before. The 24-inch iMac now sells for $1,499. The machine uses NVIDIA 9400M graphics providing a resolution of 1680 x 1050 on the 20-inch iMac & 1920 x 1200 on the 24-inch iMac. The machines are built using recyclable glass & aluminum. The machines are also free of harmful toxins like BFRs & PVC and the systems meets Energy Star 5.0 & EPEAT Gold requirements.

CPUs for the machines include the Core 2 Duo at 2.66GHz with an option to add the Core 2 Duo at up to 3.06GHz. The 24-inch iMac now gets 4GB of RAM standard & 640GB of standard storage space with an option for up to 1TB of storage. The 3.06 GHz version automatically gets 1TB of storage & all iMac models can use up to 8GB of RAM. The 20-inch iMac starts at $1199.

The number of UK cash machines being targeted by criminals has risen, with nearly two a day being attacked

2009-03-02T22:52:00.001-08:00

There were 635 reported incidents in 2008, a rise of 17% on a year earlier, prompting an offer of rewards of up to £25,000 for tip-offs about the crime.

Figures released by machine operator Link also showed that fraud via cash machines cost £37m in 2007.

Many of these involved skimming devices being fitted to machines to copy a customer's card details.

Among the techniques used are miniature cameras being fitted to record Pin numbers as they are typed in.

They can then be used to create a fake card to use in other machines.

Information

Graham Mott, from Link, said: "We're urging the public to pass on information that they may have about cash machine crime, for example card skimming or physical attacks on cash machines themselves.

"Even something that may sound insignificant could be part of a bigger picture and prove invaluable in convicting someone involved in cash machine crime."

Detective Chief Inspector John Folan, of the Dedicated Cheque and Plastic Crime Unit (DCPCU), said: "Tackling cash machine fraud is a continuing priority for the DCPCU, and a joined-up initiative of this nature has our full support.

"Any relevant information passed through to Crimestoppers will be used to help track down and arrest those responsible - which will not only disrupt criminal activity but also send out a clear message that we are cracking down hard on those carrying out crimes of this nature."

Safe use in MRI machines sold in HK

2009-02-22T22:33:00.000-08:00

The world's first pacemaker designed for safe use in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was commercially obtainable in Hong Kong Sunday.

The first-ever MR-Conditional pacemaker system, named the " EnRhythm MRI SureScan pacemaker & CapSureFix MRI SureScan pacing leads", was designed, tested & approved for use with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) under specified scanning conditions.

Patients receiving the EnRhythm MRI SureScan Pacing System will for the first time be able to undergo MRI scans under certain conditions, representing a major milestone in the evolution of implantable cardiac devices.

Lau Chu Pak, former president of Hong Kong College of Cardiology, said that approximately 2 million Europeans have implanted pacemakers, but these patients are prohibited from receiving MRI scans, a widely practiced diagnostic process for manycommon diseases & conditions, because their tool could interact with MRI machines, potentially affecting the tool or patient safety. According to estimates, 50-75 percent of patients worldwide with implanted cardiac devices are expected to need an MRI scan during the lifetime of their devices.

"This data is promising," continued Sommer," While the trial is ongoing, we've observed no lead-performance issues or unexpected MRI effects in this patient group to date." The clinical trial will include up to 470 patients at 53 centers in Europe, the Middle East, Canada & the United States.

"MRI is unmatched & irreplaceable in the diagnosis of cancer & neurological disorders," said germany expert Torsten Sommer. "And for investigation of the brain & spinal cord, there is basically no suitable alternative in most cases. As the necessity forMRI grows, it is critical to introduce a solution that allows pacemaker patients safe access to MRI," they added.

MRI lets doctors see internal organs, blood vessels, muscles, joints, tumors, areas of infection & more, without X-rays or surgery, & without exposing the patient to any ionizing radiation. The MRI machine creates a magnetic field, sends radio waves through the body, then measures the response with a computer, generating an picture of the inside of the body. In plenty of cases, MRI gives information that cannot be seen on an X-ray, ultrasound or computed tomography (CT) scan.

Lau said the EnRhythm MRI SureScan pacing system includes modified hardware to minimize the level of energy transmitted through the lead/device connection point. In addition, the new system also includes a new SureScan feature designed to eliminate the impact of MRI-generated electrical noise, as MRI scanners may cause traditional pacemakers to misinterpret this noise & as a result withhold or deliver unnecessary pacing therapy. The tool & leads also contain radiopaque marks, viewable via X-ray, to indicate that the system is MR-Conditional, a classification indicating a medical tool may be used in the MRI suite under certain conditions.

NYC subway line 100-ton machine to extend

2009-02-20T01:31:00.000-08:00

NEW YORK - A 100-ton machine will begin cutting through hard rock underneath midtown Manhattan to build a $2 billion subway extension on the Far West Side.

New York City officials lowered the tip of the tunnel boring machine into an assembly chamber Thursday to begin the next phase of the No. 7 extension. Two of the machines will be used to excavate two 7,100-foot tunnels between West 25th Street and Times Square.

It will take two months to assemble each machine. The tunnels could be finished by the middle of next year.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said the "7" extension will rejuvenate the underdeveloped far West Side. It is contingent on a massive redevelopment of the Hudson rail yards along the waterfront. The entire extension is expected to open in 2013.

Buy Pfaff Sewing Machines for Your Needs

2009-02-17T21:55:00.003-08:00

Are you going to get a new sewing machine in this season? If yes then you should be well acquainted with the machine. You should be clear in your mind about the kind of machine you want to buy. This could be confusing if you don’t have prepared a chart for that. This is not an easy job. It is also that there is no specific brand for that. Your compatibility with the machine is one of the first priorities. This should not be neglected. The second thing is the intention. What is your reason for buying a new sewing machine is? You should not neglect it.

The thing is sewing is not just a job. It is also used for the purpose of entertainment. Many people try it as some kind of hobby. Hence you should decide first what do you intend it for? A good choice would be the Pfaff sewing machines. These are one of the earliest machines made by the human beings. The name is due to the inventor of this kind of machine. There are certain facts about which you should be fully aware before buying a new Pfaff sewing machine. You must be familiar with the price variations in the sewing machine market.

There are a lot of companies in this business and all of them claim to be the best. Not everyone of their product is the best. It is also true that not every machine suits with every seamstress. It varies from person to person. Their price could be anything between $100 and it could up to $8000 as well. If you want to buy a sewing machine for completion of your college projects then you should better hang up with cheaper one, which will help you, do your projects and also they could be very easy to operate. There are a number of Pfaff machines available in the market, which will cater to your needs without any discretion.

Hence everyone can find their first choices in the market of the sewing machines. It is very enjoyable. Besides the company is very trusted and you could fully rely upon it. One of the many advantages about the sewing machine is that you could learn many things with these machines. This is not one machine that you will outgrow very easily. It is very durable in that sense. You can grow with this machine. There will be many advantages with this machine.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/art-and-entertainment-articles/buy-pfaff-sewing-machines-for-your-needs-769966.html

Washing machine manufacturer moves to Mexico, lays off 60

2009-02-17T21:55:00.002-08:00

Kay Reiter, executive director of the Sandusky County Economic Development Corporation, said local officials met Friday with representatives from Fisher & Paykel, manufacturer of washing machines and dryers.

"They announced that they will be moving the dryer operations in July to Mexico, and the location is just over the border right by Brownsville, Texas," Reiter said. The machinery now used at the Clyde plant, located at 101 Water Tower Drive, will be moved to the Mexican factory.

"In June they will be stopping the production of their washing machines until further notice," she said. "They're stopping production but all of the machinery will be staying at the plant ... They're hoping if the economy turns around that possibly that line will start back up, but they're not making any promises at this time," the director said.

She said the company currently employs 86 people locally, but that number will drop to 26. "The motor line that was the original project that came to Clyde from Australia is staying," she said. "I do know that some of the employees will be offered jobs to go with the dryer line to Mexico. I do not know the exact number at this time," she said.

The company decided to move its production of Smart Drive washers from Australia and its moving motor manufacturing from New Zealand in 2005. In late 2007, it reportedly employed 128 people at the Clyde facility.

A woman who answered the telephone Monday at the Clyde plant declined to comment on the situation, but instead forwarded questions to the company's California office. That office was closed on Monday due to the Presidents' Day holiday.

Law puts a halt on selling youth dirt bikes and ATVs

2009-02-17T21:55:00.001-08:00

A new law is putting the brakes on youth dirt bikes and ATV’s. Lawmakers say the lead content in parts of off-road machines is too high and dangerous for children.

Dealerships filled with the newest in off-road vehicles are missing one big seller.

Jason Johnson/U Motors: “We can't sell a machine for a child 12 or under, currently.” Mike Hennebry/Wheels Inc: “Well, I kind of feel short changed on the whole situation.”

This comes after a temporary national ban on any ATV or dirt bike designed for children 12 and younger because some parts contain lead levels greater than 600 parts per million. And it has sellers fuming; one local company is losing 50 thousand dollars a year in sales.

Jason: “If there were a part on the machine that had lead, is the child going to eat the part off the machine? We don't think that that is normal.”

Until they get the OK to sell them again, dealerships in the F-M are either keeping their youth bikes on display or are wiping them off the floor completely.

And this ban is not only affecting sales, it could also hurt ridership. Kids could get on bigger, used bikes that aren't as suitable for them or not get into the sports at all.

Mike: “If you have a six year old and you want to introduce him to dirt biking, you'd have absolutely nothing to offer them at this point.”

Jason: “It's something I've enjoyed with my family and hope to pass on to my son, but now I don't know when or if that can happen.”

And the news may get worse for dealers, sales managers say they don't know if they'll be reimbursed by the manufacturers if the bikes are recalled.

Some youth bike manufacturers are getting around the law. Polaris has already sent out a new handbook for some of its vehicles, including new stickers that say no one, 12 and under, can operate this vehicle, allowing the dealers to sell the ATV.

Magusi Mineral Resource Announced By Globex Partner

2009-02-13T21:01:00.000-08:00

GLOBEX MINING ENTERPRISES INC. (TSX: GMX)(FRANKFURT: G1M)(PINK SHEETS: GLBXF) wishes to inform shareholders that First Metals Inc. (TSX: FMA) have reported a new NI 43-101 compliant mineral resource at the Magusi Project near Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec.

A 20,000 meter, 20m x 20m infill drill program to a depth of 350m was completed and reported in a NI 43-101 conformable report by Scott Wilson Roscoe Postle Associates Inc. as of October 31, 2008.

The results reported below are reproduced from First Metals press release dated February 9, 2009. Notes:

1.CIM definitions were followed for Mineral Resources.

2. Mineral Resources are estimated at a cut-off of $80 NSR/tonne.

3. Mineral Resources are estimated using an average long-term copper price of US$2.50 per pound, a zinc price of US$0.75 per pound, a gold price of US$800 per ounce, a silver price of US$13.50 per ounce and a US$/CAN$ exchange rate of 1.00 to 1.11.

4. Grade interpolation was carried out with inverse squared distance (ID2) method.

5. The Company provided Scott Wilson RPA with NSR multipliers per metal unit. Those NSR multipliers which vary in function of head grades and metal recoveries are based on SGS Lakefield metallurgical tests. The NSR values for each assay as well as each block in the model were then calculated.

6. Minimum underground mining width of two metres was used.

A permit to remove and process a 50,000 tonne bulk sample was received and site preparation, upgrading of road access, infrastructure installation and collaring of the ramp have been done.

Metallurgical test work by SGS Lakefield was undertaken and has been for the most part completed although the press release gives no details.

First Metals also started discussions in order to facilitate a restructuring plan under a Notice to Make a Proposal under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act. Globex's royalty interest is registered against title and Globex believes that in the worst case, should First Metal go bankrupt, that Globex's royalty will be payable by whoever acquires the property.

This press release was written by Jack Stoch, P. Geo. President and CEO of Globex in his capacity as a Qualified Person Q.P.

We Seek Safe Harbour. Foreign Private Issuer 12g3 - 2(b)
CUSIP Number 379900 10 3

Forward Looking Statements: Except for historical information this News Release may contain certain "forward looking statements". These statements may involve a number of known and unknown risks and uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity and performance to be materially different from the Company's expectations and projections.

N.S. NDP propose 10 per cent manufacturing tax credit to boost business

2009-02-13T02:21:00.000-08:00

Nova Scotia's NDP will introduce a 10 per cent manufacturing and processing tax credit if they come to power, party leader Darrell Dexter told a business audience Thursday.

Dexter used a lunchtime address to the Halifax Chamber of Commerce to pitch a refundable credit as the most effective way of supporting private-sector businesses during the economic downturn.

"The credit would be 75 per cent refundable because a downturn is often the best time to invest," he told the audience.

Dexter said his proposal would cost the province up to $25 million in the first year of the program with as much as $18 million paid in rebates.

"That provincial investment would trigger the creation of more than 2,000 jobs from construction, purchases of equipment and machinery and the increased operations that result, according to the province's own analysis of a manufacturing tax credit," he said.

The idea was presented as the first plank of the party's platform ahead of what's expected to be an election year in Nova Scotia.

Dexter was asked later by reporters how he would pay for the proposed program, given a shrinking provincial surplus and the fact the Conservative minority has opened the door to running a deficit in 2009-10 after tabling seven consecutive balanced budgets.

"I would pay for it out of the available revenues to the province," Dexter said.

When pressed, he refused to accept that the choice could boil down to either the tax break or staying in the black. Dexter said there's no question that any budget would have to be balanced.

"We have within our budget, money for economic development. We have money for restructuring. We have money for capital investment. This money would come from those areas and are an important part of any stimulus package that a government would bring forward," he said.

The idea isn't new, having been tried by the Conservative government of former premier John Hamm. Businesses were offered a 30 per cent non-refundable tax credit for investments in processing plants and equipment.

But Jamie Muir, a Conservative member and former cabinet minister, said the program was cut in 2002 as part of the ongoing fight to balance the books.

"Anytime you can reduce taxes it's a good thing," he said. "But the decision that's going to have to be made is if you reduce that amount of revenue, what's the tradeoff?"

Dexter's suggestion got a qualified endorsement from Jean-Paul Deveau, president of Dartmouth, N.S. -based Acadian Seaplants Ltd.

Deveau said although the tax credit would clearly help his company, it wouldn't make a difference in whether or not it makes further investments.

He said the tax credit would have to be as high as the former Tory program to spur significant investment by companies.

"That kind of stimulus that would be provided to manufacturers would make a difference and would make a difference in terms of decisions that manufacturers would make," said Deveau.

In his speech, Dexter also promised to do more to make Nova Scotia a "learning province" by involving business and post-secondary institutions in efforts to ensure students get basic skills.

He said that would include a specific role in curriculum review and development.

Article resource:http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5hcqZTY0PbUBsXuHy0GTpz9bMt4dQ

First repairs in renovation of wastewater plant to begin in May

2009-02-11T20:55:00.000-08:00

The city of Marietta's aging wastewater treatment plant is slated to receive a multi-year, multi-million dollar renovation and the components prioritized for renovation in 2009 are three primary sedimentation basins where solids settle from the wastewater.

The basins are fundamental and have been part of the plant since it went online in the mid-1950s.

The last renovation of Marietta's wastewater treatment plant took place in 1987.

Marietta Wastewater Superintendent Steve Elliot said the machinery of the primary sedimentation basins is designed to last about 20 years. Though the machinery has been maintained, it is in need of repair and no longer meets EPA requirements and standards.

It's like any other mechanical device; after years of running 24 hour a day the process “gets sloppy,” Elliot said.

Marietta's wastewater treatment plant has three primary sedimentation basins but is currently running on only two, Elliott said.

The renovation of these sedimentation basins is only the first step in updating the wastewater treatment plant and its processes. Many of its other components are in need of repair as well, including pumps, sludge-thickening equipment, and final clarifiers.

In an effort to save money, the three sedimentation basins are going to be renovated up to current EPA standards. There is no standard size for all the parts needed to rebuild the three basins and every chain, motor, sprocket, and gear is made to order, Elliot said.

"In 2008 we operated at 95% of design flow, and 96 days we were above design flow, so on an average day we’re just under capacity. It varies with precipitation and river levels. In 2007 we operated at 108% and in 2006 we operated at 102%," Elliot said.

That means the plant at times is operating beyond the capacity it was designed to handle.

Elliot said Marietta's wastewater treatment plant is capable of treating 3.34 million gallons a day while meeting its EPA permit requirements.

In wet-weather conditions the plant can utilize a hydraulic system to move 2.6 million gallons to an equalization basin for storage and treat up to the maximum hydraulic design of 8.25 million gallons, but that level of operation cannot be sustained for long periods of time without violating EPA requirements.

Elliot said there were 33 in 2008 when the plant operated above the maximum hydraulic design.

Marietta's wastewater treatment plant received three minor violations in 2008, Elliott said, and if “we lose a major process, we’re in danger of losing our permit," he said of the EPA National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit needed to discharge treated wastewater into the Ohio River.

So far about 30% of the final designs have been completed for the wastewater treatment plant's renovation. Elliot said the renovation process cannot go much further until negotiations are concluded between the city of Marietta and Washington County.

City and county officials are working on a plan to extend the service area of Marietta's wastewater treatment plant to parts of Washington County within reasonable distance. Areas under consideration include Oak Grove, Devola, areas of Ohio State Route 7 North around Reno and areas of Ohio State Route 7 South, Elliot said.

If such areas are included, the wastewater treatment plant will need to be renovated to handle a higher capacity.

Once the final design is finished the plan will go to the city engineer for a project cost estimate.

Elliot figures that amount will be somewhere between $12 and $15 million, but said it is hard to estimate at this time because the project's scope depends on what city and county officials decide to do.

Over $1 million in funding for the project's design was secured through low interest loans from the Ohio EPA, Department of Environmental Financial Assistance. These might be rolled over into construction loans.

Other possible sources of funding are State and Tribal Assistance Grants from EPA and the federal stimulus package in development, Elliot said.

The first stage of the update to the three primary sedimentation basins is set to begin in May.

A contract has been awarded to Downing Construction of Baltimore, Ohio. Downing was the low bidder and won the job at the price of $343,370, Elliot said.

Applied Materials Customers Say Downturn Deepest Ever

2009-02-11T01:28:00.000-08:00

Applied Materials Inc. (AMAT) Chief Executive Mike Splinter said his customers have called the downturn the deepest they have ever seen, as demand for semiconductors falls amid the deepening recession.

"Unprecedented things are happening right now," he said in an interview with Dow Jones Newswires. "Being in this industry more than 35 years, I've never seen people shut down memory factories. You just always keep it going."

In recent months, the majority of memory chip makers have taken action to halt production amid the economic downturn.

The memory segment can represent almost half of total revenues for chip equipment makers. But in the fourth quarter, nearly all chip makers saw sales tumble as demand for semiconductors slumped.

While the Santa Clara, Calif., company, which makes the tools used to produce computer chips and also more recently solar panels, said it wouldn't provide specific guidance for its business segments, it expects overall revenue to decline by 30%.

Revenue is expected to decline in each of its businesses.

Splinter said that the chip equipment market needs to consolidate, and Applied Materials is working to preserve cash and cut costs so that it can pursue acquisition opportunities when they appear.

"There needs at least to be fewer players than there are today," said Splinter, though he added sparking any deals could prove difficult.

"Getting consolidation to happen has been quite difficult if you look over the history of this market," he said. "There needs to be a triggering event. What that will be is hard to say."

Applied Materials shares were recently down 3.5% to $9.35 in late trading after reporting its first quarterly loss since 2003 amid cutbacks by a wide variety of chip makers.

In addition to making tools used in producing semiconductors, the company has a fast-growing business in solar panel manufacturing. Splinter said that the fate of the U.S. stimulus package currently being negotiated in Congress could affect its work in the solar area, at least indirectly.

Currently, the Senate version of the bill contains a provision providing tax credits for manufacturing equipment used in solar power that is absent from the version approved by the House, Splinter said.

A final version sent to the White House that includes those credits would be important for the solar sector.

Splinter said customers need to regain confidence that the market deterioration is slowing in order to begin moving toward purchases of capital equipment, but he sees few signs that a bottom has been reached.

Best and worst industries in 2008

2009-02-09T22:46:00.000-08:00

Software publishers and home-health care services were among the nation’s top-performing small-business sectors in 2008, with annual sales growth of 17.39 percent and 13 percent, respectively, according to Sageworks, a North Carolina company that develops financial analysis tools and provides financial information for private companies.

The list is based on annual revenue growth percentages for small businesses with revenues of less than $15 million per year.

Other industries that performed well last year based on annual sales growth were remediation and waste-management services (up 12.3 percent); direct-selling companies (12 percent); accounting, tax preparation, payroll and bookkeeping services (11.5 percent); investigation and security services (11 percent); computer systems design (10.7 percent); management of companies and enterprises (10.7 percent); medical equipment and supplies manufacturing (10 percent); and electrical equipment and component manufacturing (9.24 percent).

Businesses tied to auto, real estate and construction were among the worst-performing groups in 2008 based on annual sales growth.

According to Sageworks, real estate agents and brokers (–5.52 percent); credit-intermediation services (–5.47); lumber and construction materials merchant wholesalers (–5.45 percent); cement and concrete product manufacturing (–4.7 percent); motor vehicle parts, supplies and merchant wholesalers (–3.67 percent); nondepository credit intermediation (–2.11 percent); wood product manufacturing (–1.93 percent); furniture stores (–1.48 percent); chemical and allied products merchant wholesalers (–1 percent); and dry cleaning and laundry services (–0.84 percent).

Dispenser designed for modern appeal

2009-01-29T23:17:00.000-08:00

RPC Bramlage has launched the latest generation of its renowned CD dispenser - the CD Smart - offering all of the range’s proven functionality in a stylish new look CD Smart has been designed for modern appeal, with a slim cylindrical body and an hourglass-shaped dispensing head

The appearance of the cap and body can be customised to meet specific branding objectives with a range of decorative options, including hot stamping, silk-screen printing and labelling.

High-quality, environmentally-friendly function is assured thanks to the dispenser’s patented mechanical vacuum operation.

It is available initially in 15 and 30ml sizes and can be injection moulded in PS, PP or PET.

Machinery & Industrials

2009-01-03T08:22:00.001-08:00

We remain extremely cautious on the machinery sector.

As foreign economies deal with weaker exports to the U.S and Europe, industrial customers are cutting back on capital spending. Equipment orders are decelerating in almost every end-market -- from machines used in construction, infrastructure, agriculture to base metal projects.

There are several data points that help to paint the picture of a global slowdown. Japan's core machine orders fell 4.4% in October, and fell in 6 of the first 10 months of the year. What’s more, according to the cabinet office in Japan, overseas orders fell a whopping 37.2% in the same month. In November, Japanese industrial production fell 8.1% sequentially, and 16.2% y-o-y.

Also, according to the VDMA machine makers association, German plant and machinery orders fell in October, with a decline in export orders.

When looking at the macro backdrop for industrial production and machinery orders, we expect to see a continued slowdown in capital spending.

OPPORTUNITIES

While the credit crunch and slower economic growth dampens private sector spending, fiscal expenditures appear ready to play a counter-cyclical role. China announced a rather large stimulus package in November.

Also, we expect the U.S government to pass a stimulus package in 2009, as well. The recent rally in certain construction-machinery stocks has likely been in anticipation of higher U.S public infrastructure spending by the incoming administration.

There may be a silver lining amid the current economic slowdown. Central bankers have gone from raising interest rates and fighting inflation to slashing rates and flooding the system with liquidity. These monetary conditions may eventually help to stabilize commodity prices. We would become more constructive on stocks such as Freeport McMoRan (FCX), on signs reflation measures were working their way into the real economy.

NSW pubs raking in $1.1 billion from poker machines

2009-01-03T08:22:00.000-08:00

THE state's greediest pubs are raking in a staggering $1.1 billion from poker machines each year, with each machine in Western Sydney taking almost four times the annual average wage.

The revelations have prompted calls for access to pokies to be slashed and a reduction in the number of machines in lower socio-economic areas.

Documents reveal the $1.1 billion was collected by the top 500 hotels - more than two-thirds of the total pub poker machine revenue statewide, equating to a $200 loss by every adult, The Daily Telegraph reports.

The Australian Hotel Association defended the amount saying clubs had three times the number of machines of hotels.

The top 25 gaming pubs alone raked in just under $150 million in revenue, with all but two in Sydney's west or southwest.

The pubs took an average of $6 million each from the cap of 30 machines in the 12 months to September 2008 - $200,000 per machine.

The amount is almost four times the average yearly wage and more than three times the average pub poker machine yield of $64,000.

Gambling experts are now demanding the Government regulate the gaming hot spots in the same way they cracked down on problem drinking venues.

With the economic crisis set to get worse, it is predicted more and more people will try to gamble their way out of poverty and debt.

Salvation Army gambling rehabilitation head Gerard Byrne said there was no doubt western Sydney had more problem gamblers and both the addicts and their families were constantly seeking welfare assistance.

He said there needed to be increased restrictions on the hours gamblers could access poker machines and a tougher Government approach to problem areas, such as a reduction in machine numbers.

Mr Byrne said the greatest concern was with the for-profit hotel gaming sector rather than the technically non-profit clubs.

While clubs overall have more poker machines and reap more money from them, each machine is not as heavily used and they are not intended to make a profit for the business.

However Australian Hotels Association CEO Sally Fielke said this was because the clubs had three times as many machines to go around.

"The hotel industry participates in and is proactive in gambling harm prevention programs such as GameCare and other gambling counselling services to assist the less than 1 per cent of the population who have a problem with gambling,'' she said.

However Mr Byrne warned the tough economic times could increase problem gambling.

"We see gamblers try to supplement their income by getting that next big win to pull themselves out of the financial mire.''

Already pubs and clubs must shut down poker machines for six hours. However they can apply for an exemption to this and shut down for only three on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays.

Thunder Mountain Gold Announces an Intercept of Sulfide Mineralization at Their South Mountain Property

2008-10-06T22:59:00.000-07:00

BOISE, Idaho--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Thunder Mountain Gold, Inc. (OTCBB:THMG) today announced that Thunder Mountain Resources, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary (Company), has completed their first core hole in its planned exploration program at their South Mountain Mine, Owyhee County, Idaho. The hole (DMEA 2) encountered a zone of mineralization from 656 feet to 705 feet with approximately 40 feet of the core consisting of massive sulfide consisting of sphalerite, chalcopyrite and pyrrhotite - similar in character to that mined on the Sonneman and Laxey Levels. The target for the hole was the down dip extension of this mineralization approximately 280 to 300 feet below the Sonneman Level. It is believed that the intercept proves that the mineralization extends well below the existing workings. The hole was drilled from the surface and was completed to a total depth of 785 feet. It was designed to test the down dip extension of the DMEA 2 and peripheral high-grade mineralization encountered on both the Sonneman and Laxey mine levels.

The intercept has not been analyzed as yet. Once the core has been split, it will be sent to ALS Chemex Labs in Elko, Nevada for analysis. It is expected that the analysis will be completed by early November, but Management believes that it will be similar in value to the DMEA 2 mineralized zone encountered on the Sonneman Level where a bulk sample test conducted in the mid-1980s by South Mountain Mines, Inc. had values of 22.87% zinc, 0.50% copper, 0.47 lead, 0.12 ounce per ton (opt) gold and 3.3 opt silver. The DMEA 2 zone on the Sonneman Level was extensively drilled by South Mountain Mines and a zone of massive sulfide approximately 75 feet by 50 feet was defined. This zone is within a broader zone of mineralization that was intercepted by the Sonneman Level tunnel and drilling that is approximately 300 feet long and locally 50+ feet thick.

The core rig is being moved to a second surface site to drill test the Texas mineralized zone approximately 300 feet down dip of the Sonneman Level. The Texas mineralization, located some 900 feet east of the DMEA 2 zone, was defined and partially mined by the underground mining conducted during World War II through the mid-1980s. This mineralized zone extends was mined from the Laxey Level to the surface, and has been encountered on the Sonneman Level, some 300 vertical feet below the Laxey Level. The total down dip mineralization of the Texas Ore Shoot has been identified over some 750+ feet from the surface to the Sonneman Level.

In addition to the drilling, the Company has completed the portal and tunnel rehabilitation of the Sonneman Tunnel. Access is now possible from the portal to a caved area near the Texas mineralized area. Confirmatory channel samples are planned for the DMEA 2 and other zones along the Sonneman Level.

Jim Collord, President of Thunder Mountain Gold, said of preliminary drill results, “We are excited by the intercept of what we believe is significant sulfide mineralization within the DMEA 2 drill hole. Subject to verification, it may well prove that the favorable host marble horizon and mineralization extends well below any high-grade mineralization encountered by the previous underground workings. We are guardedly optimistic that after the assay reports are analyzed the results could enhance the resource defined by previous operators. We are optimistic that the resources outlined in the Kleinfelder technical report can be expanded well below the 150-foot depth cut off below the Sonneman Level that was used for their resource calculation. We are anxious to verify our visual observation of the sulfide intercept with the upcoming analytical work.”

About Thunder Mountain Gold, Inc.:

Thunder Mountain Gold is an exploration company focused on the generation of precious and base metal projects in the Western United States, Mexico, and Alaska. A 73-year old company, Thunder Mountain Gold performs its own natural resource exploration and generates value for shareholders by aggressively developing high-grade, high-quality precious and base metal resources in politically stable mining regions.

Forward-Looking Statements: Statements made which are not historical facts, such as anticipated production, exploration results, costs or sales performance are "forward-looking statements", and involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected, anticipated, expected or implied. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, metals prices volatility, volatility of metals production, exploration project uncertainties, industrial minerals market conditions and project development risks. Refer to the Company's Periodic Filings for a more detailed discussion of factors that may impact expected future results. Thunder Mountain Gold undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements.

Cautionary Note to Investors - The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) permits mining companies, in their filings with the SEC, to disclose only those mineral deposits that a company can economically and legally extract or produce.

5 tips for going from zero virtual machines to 1000

2008-09-21T22:31:00.000-07:00

The number of virtual machines you have in your organization doesn't equal maturity, says Andrea Eubanks, senior director, enterprise and technical marketing for VMware. The goal is not necessarily 1000 virtual machines, it's a mature stable growth path for virtualization in your company, she says. Still, making the leap from the initial stages of virtualization to a more standardized virtual environment takes scale and planning.

"A lot of organizations get to 30 percent virtualized and say we're good, we've saved a lot of money," Eubanks says. "It's not enough."

Read the latest WhitePaper - Monitor the core and troubleshoot the access layer with integrated network analysis solutions

If you're aiming for a very flexible virtualized infrastructure, you need to be at least 50 percent virtualized, she says.

In a presentation with VMworld attendees, Eubanks shared five key success factors to IT transformations involving virtualization, which VMware has noted among customer implementations:

Quality Industrial Machinery

2008-08-24T22:26:00.002-07:00

Industrial machinery is absolutely necessary for many businesses to grow and while industrial machinery can cost tens of thousands of dollars and up, purchasing it from suppliers or manufacturers that are affordable and competent usually means a company can be competitive back in their home markets. If you are looking for a low cost supplier or manufacturer of industrial machinery from Asia, perhaps one of the best places to connect is by using the services of Made in China.

Find Industrial Machinery Effectively

Industrial machinery is not a product that can be easily found; in fact it can be one of the most difficult orders to fulfill. However, Made in China can give you the resources necessary to connect with top manufacturers and suppliers of industrial machinery ultimately giving your business an advantage to grow and profit. With Made in China, you can search through our B2B E-commerce marketing platform with over 5 million businesses. Once you find potential matches of industrial machinery suppliers, you can further research a business or a product to ensure it fits your needs before making your initial contact with a company. This means that your initial search for industrial machinery can be quick, convenient and affordable.

Purchase Industrial Machinery Overseas with Fewer Complications

While purchasing industrial machinery overseas is an excellent way to gain a competitive advantage, one of the downsides of overseas trade is that for many it can be complicated and expensive. Made in China understands that many of their business members are new to overseas trade and we offer plenty of tools and resources to ensure that buying industrial machinery is efficient and effective.

Besides having instant information available, Made in China also offers comprehensive trade services such as trade consultancy for businesses that need critical and specific information when trading with an overseas industrial machinery supplier. Made in China is committed to providing all businesses quality information and making their trade experience as positive as possible. Whether you are a one person enterprise or a multi national corporation, you will find using our service that you can easily avoid many of the pitfalls and obstacles abound.

Purchase Industrial Machinery Today

With Made in China, you can be on your way to connecting with manufacturers and suppliers of quality industrial machinery. In addition, joining our service is free, so it is easy and affordable to become part of one of the biggest groups of businesses on the internet.

(Article source: http://www.madeinchina.com)

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Yin_Liang

Boiler And Machinery Insurance

2008-08-24T22:26:00.001-07:00

Boiler and machinery insurance refer to the insurance of machines. Boiler insurance is not applicable only to boilers, but any machine that generates electrical power, for example, generators, motors etc. Boiler and machinery insurance include the damage to not just the machine, but also to the surrounding area through explosions, fire etc.

Why Opt for Boiler and Machinery Insurance?

If you have ever tried to settle a simple insurance claim related to breakdown or damage to machine or equipment, you will know how difficult it is to get the company to pay for additional damages like destruction of property, loss of business etc. Boiler and Machinery Insurance covers not just the damage to the machine, but also other damages caused by the malfunctioning machine. These damages may include business loss and property damage. In fact, some types of Boiler and Machinery Insurance also cover damages to neighboring properties, and pay for setting up of temporary arrangements for running the business.

Who Needs Boiler and Machinery Insurance?

Anyone who runs any kind of business that uses electrical or mechanical devices of some sort should buy a Boiler and Machinery Insurance policy. Many people have the misconception that Boiler and Machinery Insurance is only for large factories and manufacturing units. As a small business owner, you probably do not use heavy machines, but even the smallest of businesses use equipment like air conditioners, refrigerators, ovens, coffee machines etc. Malfunction in any of these equipments could cause an explosion or fire, damage to neighboring as well as your own property and business loss. Boiler and Machinery Insurance will cover all these damages.

What Does Boiler and Machinery Insurance Cover?

Boiler and machinery insurance are of different types. Some kinds of boiler and machinery insurance cover a specific boiler that is recognized by year of manufacturing or number. Other Boiler and Machinery Insurance cover electrical motors. The more extensive Boiler and Machinery Insurance cover all kinds of machinery and equipment, as well as damage caused by equipment malfunction.

How to Choose Boiler and Machinery Insurance:

Most small business owners opt for boiler and machinery insurance to cover the items that are not covered by other kinds of insurance policies, like property or vehicle insurance. Choose a policy that not just pays you for the damaged machine, but also helps you recover from business losses caused by the accident. This means that you should look for a boiler and machinery insurance policies that will help you set up a temporary business unit after an accident, pay for damages to the property and compensate for business losses.

If you are a small business owner who is unsure of which boiler and machinery insurance policy to opt for, you can approach a small business consultant for help. Insuring your machine is the best way to safeguard yourself from not just damage to your equipment, but also business losses.

Alexander Gordon is a writer for http://www.smallbusinessconsulting.com - The Small Business Consulting Community. Sign-up for the free success steps newsletter and get our booklet valued at $24.95 for free as a special bonus. The newsletter provides daily strategies on starting and significantly growing a business.

Business Owners all across the country are joining "The Community of Small Business Owners” to receive and provide strategies, insight, tips, support and more on starting, managing, growing, and selling their businesses. As a member, you will have access to true Millionaire Business Owners who will provide strategies and tips from their real-life experiences.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Alexander_Gordon

Heavy Machinery Material Handling

2008-08-24T22:26:00.000-07:00

Handling of heavy machinery is a task that requires specially designed equipment. Heavy machinery like pneumatic conveyors, milling machines and drill jigs are used in places like farms, docks and construction sites. It is difficult to transport this equipment from one place to another. This is when the powerful material handling machines like tractors, bulldozers, trucks and trailers are used.

The equipment used for handling heavy machinery varies, depending upon the location. Industrial trucks and tractors are used to handle heavy machinery and move material around warehouses, storage yards, factories, or construction sites. A typical industrial truck, often called a forklift, uses a hydraulic lifting mechanism and forks to move large and heavy objects. Industrial tractors are also available to pull trailers loaded with material, goods, or equipment within factories and warehouses or around outdoor storage areas.

Ship loading and unloading equipment, conveyors and hoists are used at docks. Specialized material-handling equipment such as shipping tank unloading equipment is also used in docks, to gauge or sample shipping tanks and test them for leaks.

Other heavy machinery handling equipment includes conveyors and mine cars that are widely used in mines.

Prior to taking a decision about the material handling equipment to be used, it is important to take into account the general characteristics of the equipment. One should then attempt to determine which equipment is best suited for the required heavy machinery to be handled.

It is advisable to consult the dealers before purchasing or leasing such expensive equipment. Several companies provide material handling solutions for heavy machinery through their websites. Online Business to Business (B2B) platforms that allow buyers to interact with several manufacturers and equipment leasing companies are an excellent option to find the best prices for the purchase or leasing of heavy machinery material handling equipment.

Material Handling provides detailed information on Material Handling, Material Handling Equipment, Material Handling Systems, Heavy Machinery Material Handling and more. Material Handling is affiliated with Walk Through Metal Detectors .

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jennifer_Bailey

West OC Vending Machine Thief Sought

2008-08-15T20:23:00.002-07:00

WEST OCEAN CITY – Area police this week are seeking the public’s help in identifying the suspect who broke into and burglarized vending machines at the Francis Scott Key Family Resort in West Ocean City early last Tuesday morning.

Around 3:45 p.m. last Tuesday, Maryland State Police troopers responded to the Francis Scott Key on Route 50 in West Ocean City for a reported trespassing and theft case. The investigation revealed an unidentified male suspect came on the property and stole from vending machines sometime before 7 a.m. that morning.

A still photograph of the suspect was captured from surveillance tapes and has been submitted to the public through various local media. Anyone with information regarding the suspect’s identity or location is urged to call the MSP Berlin barrack at 410-641-3101, or the Worcester County Bureau of Investigation (WCBI) at 410-352-3476

Sword Wielder Arrested

OCEAN CITY – A local man was arrested on weapons and disorderly conduct charges last weekend after flashing a sword while encountering a group beating another man on a downtown street.

Last Saturday, an OCPD officer was on bicycle patrol in the area of Somerset Street when he observed a fight in progress. As the officer approached the scene, he noticed a group of people surrounding a male subject, who was on the ground in a fetal position. The officer heard the group screaming at the man on the ground.

The OCPD officer then noticed another man, later identified as Andrew James Wendling, 37, of Berlin, wielding a large sword and walking at a fast pace toward the group. The officer noted in his report Wendling was holding the sword high over his head and was also swinging the sword in a malicious way at the group. Wendling was allegedly just a few feet from the large group standing over his friend on the ground when the officer approached.

When Wendling saw the officer, he tried to hide the sword behind a nearby apartment building. According to police reports, Wendling became very loud and uncooperative with the officers on the scene and would not listen to lawful commands. He was also using foul language, according to police reports on the incident.

Wendling was ultimately arrested and charged with wielding a deadly weapon with intent to injure, disorderly conduct and making a false statement to a police officer.

Really Wanted That Beer

OCEAN CITY – A Pennsylvania man was arrested on assault and resisting arrest charges last weekend after fighting with resort police after twice being told to throw away his open container of beer.

Shortly after 1 a.m. last Saturday, an OCPD officer on bicycle patrol in the area of 15th Street saw a man, later identified as Drewbett Hatfield, 19, of Harrisburg, Pa., walking on the Boardwalk with an open can of Coors Light beer. The officer approached Hatfield and told him he was not allowed by local ordinance to carry an open can of beer on the Boardwalk and instructed Hatfield to simply throw it in a trash receptacle just 30 feet away to avoid any more problems.

The officer watched as Hatfield reached his whole hand into the trash can and carefully placed the open beer in it. The officer then thanked Hatfield for complying and started to ride off when he saw the suspect reach back into the trash can and retrieve the beer he apparently placed carefully on top and start to drink out of it again. Hatfield saw the officer watching him and carefully placed the beer back in the trash receptacle.

The officer approached Hatfield again and asked him to sit on a Boardwalk bench to which he agreed. The officer then asked Hatfield for identification, but the suspect replied he did not have any identification on him. When asked what his name was, Hatfield allegedly told the officer his name was John J. Stump and his date of birth was 1886. The officer was confused by the date of birth and asked Hatfield again and the suspect replied his birth date was 8/18/86.

The officer ran a check on the name John J. Stump in Pennsylvania and found there was nobody by that name on file there. The officer then noticed what appeared to be a wallet in Hatfield’s pocket, and when the officer asked to see it in an attempt to get a real name, Hatfield stood up and attempted to flee.

At that point, Hatfield allegedly shoved the officer with two hands, causing him to stumble backward about two feet. The officer was able to grab Hatfield and a wrestling match broke out between the pair. The officer repeatedly told Hatfield to stop resisting, but the suspect continued to fight with the officer.

The officer was able to wrestle Hatfield to the ground, but Hatfield got back on his feet and fled again. The officer caught him and wrestled him to the ground a second time, but the suspect was able to break free again. The officer then caught Hatfield a third time and wrestled him to the ground again.

This time, the officer enlisted the help of a couple of bystanders, who assisted him in getting Hatfield to the ground and keeping him there. The officer attempted to use his radio to call for backup when he realized the radio had been ripped from the front of his shirt.

The officer then located the radio hanging over his left shoulder, but when he attempted to grab it to call for back-up, Hatfield grabbed the officer’s arm in an attempt to prevent him from doing so. The officer applied a forearm to Hatfield’s face and the suspect stopped trying to prevent him from calling for back-up, according to police reports. Throughout the altercation, the officer repeatedly yelled at Hatfield to stop what he was doing and stop resisting, but the suspect would not comply.

It wasn’t until Hatfield allegedly heard sirens and saw lights approaching that he said, “Okay, what do you want me to do?” Backup did arrive and Hatfield was taken into custody and charged with second-degree assault on an officer, resisting arrest and public consumption.

Counterfeiter Nabbed

OCEAN CITY – A Capitol Heights, Md. man was arrested for passing counterfeit $20 bills at a Boardwalk store last week.

Shortly before midnight last Thursday, an OCPD officer responded to the Candy Kitchen store on the Boardwalk for a reported counterfeit $20 bill. Upon arrival, the officer met with a store employee who advised the officer a suspect described as a heavy-set African-American male wearing blue jeans and a white T-shirt had just come in the store and passed a counterfeit $20.

The store employee showed the bill to the officer, produced a special marker and explained the pen would leave a black or brown line on the bill if it was fake and a yellow line if it was real. He showed the officer the $20 bill with the black line allegedly passed by the suspect.

The officer called for assistance and broadcast a description of the suspect, but the initial search turned up nothing. The officer also gave dispatch the serial numbers on the phony bill and advised other merchants to be on the lookout. It wasn’t until about 3 p.m. the next day that a call went out for any officer in the area to respond to the Talbot Street area because detectives had a possible suspect in the counterfeit $20 incident in sight. Officers arrived and took the suspect, later identified as Eric Lyndell Searles, 36, of Capitol Heights, Md. into custody.

Police brought the employee from Candy Kitchen to the scene and he identified Searles as the man who had passed the phony $20 bill in his store the night before. Searles was arrested and charged with obtaining goods, money-forgery, and theft less than $100.

Heroin Bust in Berlin

BERLIN – Two Berlin men were arrested on heroin possession charges last week following a joint investigation by multiple local law enforcement agencies.

Last Thursday, the Worcester County Sheriff’s Office Criminal Enforcement Team conducted a joint investigation with the Ocean City Police Department’s Narcotics Unit resulting in a search and seizure warrant on a residence in Berlin. The warrant was served and, as a result, two individuals identified as William Joseph Moore and Eric Gerard Moore, both of Berlin, were arrested for possession of heroin and various other controlled dangerous substances.

The two suspects were charged with possession of controlled dangerous substances with intent to distribute and are being held on bond in the Worcester County Jail pending a court date. The Berlin Police Department and the Ocean Pines Police Department assisted in the service of the search and seizure warrant.

Two Alleged Armed Invaders Cleared

SNOW HILL – Two of the three men arrested in April in connection with an armed home invasion in Snow Hill had the charges against them put on the stet, or inactive, docket last week after separate hearings.

Timothy Lee Ayres, 39, of Snow Hill, appeared in Circuit Court last Wednesday to face a slew of charges including armed robbery, first- and second-degree assault and conspiracy to commit armed robbery along with other serious counts for his alleged part in a home invasion in Snow Hill in April, but had the charges against him placed on the stet, or inactive, docket.

Kevin Collins, 32, of Powellville, appeared for a motions hearing two days later on the same charges and walked out of the courtroom with the same result. The third suspect in the case, Dontay Lashone Washington, 27, of Pocomoke, who police believe wielded the gun in the home invasion, is scheduled to appear for trial on Sept. 4.

Around 5:15 a.m. on April 5, Maryland State Police troopers and investigators from the Worcester County Bureau of Investigations (WCBI) responded to a residence on Shockley Rd. in Snow Hill for a reported armed home invasion that had just taken place. Once on the scene, investigators interviewed several occupants of the residence, who said three suspects had entered the home illegally.

One of the suspects, later identified Washington, allegedly brandished a handgun, pointed it the head of one of the victims and demanded money. According to the police report, Washington told the victim he was going to kill him if he said or did anything he didn’t like. While at gunpoint, roughly $500 in cash was taken from the victim.

The suspects fled the scene prior to the arrival of the police, but one of the suspects, Collins, was identified by the victims and was taken into custody a short time later at his residence in Powellville. Collins’ vehicle, a 2001 Ford Explorer Sportrac, which was allegedly used during the commission of the crime, was seized as evidence.

Meanwhile, Washington and a third suspect, later identified Ayres, were still on the run and considered armed and dangerous in early police reports on the incident. A short time later, with the assistance of the Wicomico County Sheriff’s Office and MSP troopers from the Salisbury barrack, Washington and Ayres were located in a motel in Salisbury.

Both were placed under arrest and held at the Wicomico County Detention Center on $150,000 bonds. Collins was charged with armed robbery, robbery, two counts each of first- and second-degree assault, theft, conspiracy to commit armed robbery and false imprisonment. Washington and Ayres were each charged with armed robbery, three counts of first-degree assault and two counts of second-degree assault.

Appeal Results In Lower Sentence

SNOW HILL – A Bethany Beach man convicted on disorderly conduct, possession of marijuana and resisting arrest charges stemming from an incident at the mid-town bar last December successfully appealed his case in Worcester County Circuit Court last week and got a reduction in his sentence.

Anthony Magarelli, 23, of Bethany Beach, pleaded not guilty to the charges in District Court in Ocean City earlier this year, but was found guilty and sentenced to 30 days in jail for the resisting arrest charge, fined $250 for the disorderly conduct charge and fined another $300 for the possession of marijuana charge. However, Magarelli appealed the convictions in Worcester County Circuit Court last week and was able to get the resisting arrest and possession charges dropped.

He was found guilty on the disorderly conduct charge, however, and was fined $500, although he was successful in getting his jail time dropped. An OCPD officer was assisting with crowd control outside a mid-town bar on December 26 when he allegedly saw Magarelli being escorted out of the establishment. Magarelli was reportedly yelling and resisting security, and at one point grabbed the arm of one of the security guards and attempted to push him.

The officer stepped in to assist, taking a hold of Magarelli and informing him that he was a police officer as he attempted to escort Magarelli away from the scene. The officer said in his report Magarelli remained tense and would not come with him. As a result, Magarelli was placed under arrest for disorderly conduct.

After being reluctantly led to the police car, Magarelli reportedly began pushing and kicking himself away from the car, continuing to be un-cooperative with the officer. Magarelli also allegedly issued a slew of profanities and insults at the officers including, “you are all hillbillies, you are puppets of the man.”

A search of Magarelli incident to the arrest revealed a small baggie or marijuana. At the District Court level, Magarelli admitted he was wrong to yell at the police officer, but maintained there was no reason for the arrest in the first place. Magarelli maintained he did nothing wrong and was willfully leaving the establishment and was confused by the security guard’s actions. Magarelli also denied attempting to hit the security guard or the police officer, adding the officer had forced his face against the hood of the police car.

Despite Magarelli’s testimony, a District Court judge found him guilty on all counts. However, Magarelli appealed the verdicts and was able to successfully reduce the sentences against him.

Public Consumption Yields Pot Charges

OCEAN CITY – A Pennsylvania man faced possession of marijuana charges in District Court this week, stemming from drinking alcohol on a public street.

According to police reports, on June 21, Officer Sydney Findley was on uniform bicycle patrol in the area of 7th Street when he observed Francis Schiazza, 18, of Marcus Hook, Pa., stepping onto the street holding a Miller Lite can. Schiazza was seen drinking from the can, prompting the officer to approach. Schiazza attempted to hide the beer and was eventually placed under arrest for public consumption. Matters got worse for Schiazza however when a small bag of marijuana was found in his rear pants pocket.

Schiazza pleaded guilty to possession of marijuana this week, noting that he was in town for Senior Week during the time of his arrest. Schiazza was sentenced to probation before judgment with one year of unsupervised probation and $357.50 in court fines.

‘Stupidity’ Results In Court Fine

OCEAN CITY – Cody N. Griffie, 18, of New Oxford, Pa., appeared in District Court this week, pleading guilty to theft less than $100.

On July 10, a man claiming a white T-shirt had been stolen from his store flagged officers down in the area of Worcester Street. The victim told police that he had since gotten the shirt back, but wished to press charges. Shortly after, Griffie was identified and placed under arrest for the theft.

When asked why he stole the $20 T-shirt this week in District Court, Griffie replied, “stupidity,” pleading guilty to the charge. Griffie was found guilty and given a fine of $557.50.

Boardwalk Burglary Case Moves Forward

OCEAN CITY – Earlier this week, a local man faced a preliminary hearing for his part in a Boardwalk burglary, a case that will move to the Circuit Court level after probable cause was found to forward the case on to Snow Hill.

Gregory N. Roberson, 18, of West Ocean City, faces several charges for his alleged role in the burglary of Boardwalk Joe’s last month, including second-degree burglary, theft more than $500 in value and malicious destruction of property.

Detective Todd Speigel testified that on July 7, at 7:44 a.m., officers responded to Boardwalk Joe’s for a reported burglary. Officers observed forced entry through a window to the kitchen and reported a stolen safe, containing $400, four tickets to an Orioles baseball game, a deposit bag and various other items.

Speigel was contacted and informed by the owner of the establishment that Robertson, a former disgruntled employee, was likely involved in the theft. Detective Speigel testified that later that day, a citizen found a deposit bag in West Ocean City and returned the bag to Taylor Bank, where it was identified as the bag stolen from Boardwalk Joe’s. Detective Spiegel noted that the bag was found in front of Robertson’s residence.

Robertson was eventually brought in for questioning, at which point he told Detective Speigel that he and another man, later identified as Richard L. Huffman, discussed breaking in to Boardwalk Joe’s. Robertson reportedly told Speigel he stood as a lookout for Huffman while he entered the establishment through the window. “I didn’t want to get involved, but I know I am involved,” Robertson reportedly told Detective Speigel.

Robertson’s attorney argued the validity of the burglary charges, pointing out there was no evidence that Robertson entered the establishment.

Judge Mumford found probable cause to forward the case to Circuit Court.

Case to Remain In District Court

OCEAN CITY – Bradley Charles Ruzicka, 19, of Baldwin, Md., faced a variety of charges this week in a preliminary hearing in District Court, after he allegedly broke into his ex-girlfriend’s apartment last month.

Officer Aaron Morgan testified that on July 13, at approximately 1:43 a.m., he responded to a 73rd Street residence for a reported malicious destruction of property. Upon arrival, the victim informed him that her ex-boyfriend, Ruzicka, had punched through her window. She also later told Officer Morgan that Ruzicka came into the residence, uninvited, and stole a 30-pack of beer.

Ruzicka’s attorney painted a different picture however, implying that the victim had since recanted her story. Ruzicka’s attorney also pointed out that the door Ruzicka entered was not locked, adding there was no forced entry.

Ruzicka faces charges of malicious destruction of property, stalking, harassment, first, third and fourth degree burglary and theft less than $500. Judge Mumford dismissed the first and third degree burglary charges. The remaining charges will tried in District Court at a later date.

Drunk-Driving Enforcement Campaign Underway

OCEAN CITY – The Ocean City Police Department will be joining thousands of law enforcement and highway safety agencies across the country by taking part in the Drunk Driving: Over the Limit, Under Arrest crackdown campaign against impaired driving.

During the campaign, which will be enforced from Aug. 15 until Sept. 1, 2008, Ocean City officers will be out in force conducting saturation patrols and using undercover officers to get more drunk drivers off the road.

The national Drunk Driving: Over the Limit, Under Arrest impaired driving crackdown campaign is a prevention program organized by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The focal point for the campaign is the combination of high-visibility enforcement and a heightened public awareness through advertising and publicity.

Drunk driving is one of the most dangerous crimes in the United States. According to the campaign’s website, in 2006, more than 13,000 people died in highway crashes involving a driver or motorcycle rider with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of .08 or higher.

“In Ocean City, we see far too many people who have been driving under the influence of alcohol,” said Ocean City Police Chief Bernadette A. DiPino. “Driving drunk is simply not worth the risks that people take. Not only do violators risk injuring or killing themselves, but also injuring or killing someone else.”

DiPino urged Ocean City residents and visitors who have been drinking to use alternative means of transportation.

“We are actually quite lucky to live in Ocean City,” she said. “We live in a city that offers numerous options for a safe ride home, including the Ocean City buses and several taxicab companies.”

DiPino also recommends that people designate a driver before going out in Ocean City.

“Many establishments offer free non-alcoholic beverages to designated drivers,” she said. “By choosing to be a designated driver, you are choosing to not only ensure the safety of yourself, but the safety of your friends.”

The effort of Drunk Driving: Over the Limit, Under Arrest is supported by $11 million in paid-national advertising to help put everyone on notice that driving under the influence will not be tolerated, now more then ever.

Crime gangs target chip and pin machines

2008-08-15T20:23:00.001-07:00

POLICE are gearing up to tackle a new threat from fraudsters that could leave Welsh consumers’ bank accounts at risk of being plundered.

Officers are to urge shops to tighten security after it was revealed crime gangs are using the chip and pin system to raid bank accounts.

It is believed customers in about 30 shops across the UK have had their card details stolen and although South Wales Police said they have had no reports of it happening here, they are preparing for the possibility.

An officer from the fraud and financial investigation unit has begun speaking to retailers about beefing up their security.

Detective Inspector Dave Lowe said: “We have had no reports of PED (pin entry device) thefts yet. But quite often this type of fraud will migrate down the M4.

“There’s no guarantee it will happen here but equally it’s an issue we need to think about.”

When it was rolled out across the UK in February 2006, chip and pin was hailed as a system that would make bank cards safer and as a direct result, card fraud fell by a quarter in the first six months.

But now officers from the Dedicated Cheque and Plastic Crime Unit (DCPCU) – the special police unit that tackles card fraud – have uncovered a scam where thieves substitute chip and pin terminals in shops for ones that have been tampered with.

The compromised machines allow the normal transaction to go through but also record the card details, allowing fraudsters to produce cloned cards which are then used in cash machines abroad to withdraw money from customers’ accounts.

The deception came to light when DCPCU officers raided an alleged counterfeit card factory in Birmingham this week.

Sandra Quinn, of the UK payments association Apacs, said: “Whereas fraudsters used to put pinhole cameras above the chip and pin device to get hold of the pin number, they now manipulate the chip and pin terminal to get that basic data.

“They are getting hold of the pin from inside the reader.

“They steal readers from retailers, cracking them open, and try to recreate one and then put it back in a shop.

“We have been aware that this has been going on because police have been getting reports that terminals are being stolen.”

Detective Inspector Lowe said shops in South Wales will be advised to check their chip and pin devices regularly. Petrol stations are thought to be particularly vulnerable.

But he added that manufacturers and banks have already begun working on improvements to the device, which could stop fraudsters in their tracks.

Chairman of the Cardiff Retail Partnership, David Hughes-Lewis, of Jonathan David Jewellers, said: “This is something we have to be wary of.

“It was almost inevitable fraudsters would find a way around chip and pin but at the same time I think it has cut down fraudulent transactions hugely.”

Both Gwent and North Wales Police said they were unaware of any incidents of chip and pin terminal fraud in their force areas, but urged retailers and customers to be on their guard.

The Western Mail contacted Dyfed-Powys police but no-one was available to comment.

South Wales’ fraud and financial investigation team is also tackling other types of identity fraud, which have been seen across the area.

Detective Inspector Lowe said phishing – where fraudsters sent bogus e-mails to bank customers asking for account details – and card skimming at cash machines were problems, but ID fraud in general was much less of a problem in Wales than in other parts of the UK, such as London and the south-east of England.

He said: “It is an important issue for us and we will keep putting the effort and resources into it to protect people.”

Jane Milne, of the British Retail Consortium, said: “Customers should be assured that UK retailers always take the protection of cardholder data seriously and are continuing to invest millions of pounds to enhance existing security measures.”

TAIPEI PLAS 2008 Leads Printing Machinery to Stand in the New Stage

2008-08-15T19:33:00.000-07:00

TAIPEI PLAS 2008, which is regarded as one of the targeted international trade shows for manufacturers featured in printing machinery, showcases various products & business opportunities toward buyers, suppliers, and exporters before September 30th. TAIPEI PLAS 2008 has drawn much attention from worldwide visitors by its effective propaganda on the mass scale. Due to the business events hold by TAIPEI
PLAS, printing machinery manufacturers are able to take this great chance, publicizing the premium products like printing machines, printing parts, full automatic technology etc. toward foreign & domestic buyers during this trade show.

In this August, the organizer of TAIPEI PLAS has collected fields of printing machinery manufacturers & suppliers for this International Plastic & Rubber Trade Show, attempting to present visitors and buyers more impressive products, trading information, marketing projects beyond the expectation. Various plastic & rubber components providers in this trade show offer premium bargaining policies as well as the projects for good-quality sample production.

The full automation turnkey project & total solution for plant-setting are two major points in this business fair. Buyers can search for much information in details about printing machinery, and even the used machines are provided as the items for the new flexible turnkey project. Seeking the suitable partners through this trade show, manufacturers also can offer the new cooperation strategies or the blueprint for the new pilot scheme. Additionally, suppliers in this trade show can also pass down their R&D techniques of making printing machines toward the beginners in the industry.

Hundreds of products and machines are provided in TAIPEI PLAS. The most-inquired machines in this trade show are including One-Side Manual Feeding Printing Machine, 3-5 Color Digital Size Rotary Belt Label Printing Machine, Flexographic Printing Machine, Silk Screen Vacuum Printing Frame and more. These machines are all well-made with its multi functions, which lead them to be used easily for customized production. For example, each printing roller of the One-Side Manual Feeding Machine is equipped with an ink circulation system for saving ink. And by its full automation, the printing speed is almost up to 40pcs/min, making it able to handle mass production as many as possible.

Capable of adjusting printing length automatically, the printing machines provided in the trade show are highly recommendable for applying in the fields like paper-printing, gold-stamping, wrapping, rubber wrapping, narrow fabric needle looming, printing components and so on. These machines can be designed upon customer's request, keeping good quality and high efficiency for long-term use.

As long as suppliers and exporters take part in TAIPEI PLAS 2008, they can find all the wanted components, new innovated machines, used machines, or even plastic & rubber parts which fit their needs all in one. Industry-wide buyers certainly cannot miss TAIPEI PLAS 2008, or will lose the opportunities to meet the business partnership in this new stage.

Taiwan Laminating Coating Machinery Attempts To Warm Up Entire Machinery Economic in August

2008-08-15T19:32:00.000-07:00

In this August, Taiwanese laminating coating machinery suppliers gather together in the international Plastic & Rubber Trade Show, displaying the multi-function coating machines & lamination machines for worldwide buyers. For the purpose of warming up entire plastic & rubber machinery economic, this trade show also provides suppliers in Taiwan a great chance to reach every market channel, seeking more opportunities to meet more business partners.

To elevate the reputation, most laminating coating machinery manufacturers had took much time and effort to prepare for presenting the laminating coating machines, plastic products, rubber components and more as many as possible. Such effort has been seen constantly not only in this trade show but in these manufacturers' daily production services. As the statistics shows, the evident growth for exporting these laminating coating machines and plastic & rubber products has raised day by day.

For higher percentage of the entire exports, laminating coating machinery manufacturers in Taiwan try various flexible marketing policies to muscled their way, going through the competitive markets. Additionally, plastics and rubber products are indispensable for the global markets. Combined with casting and electroplating technology, laminating & coating industry impresses clients with the advanced machines which can be applied to fields of industries like auto parts, transportation, delivery devices, paper laminating products and so on.

Before September 30th from now on, TAIPEI PLAS 2008 is one of the targeted international trade shows for manufacturers featured in laminating coating machinery. According to its effectiveness and propaganda on the mass scale, TAIPEI PLAS 2008, hold biennially for decades, has been continuously drawing a great attention from visitors worldwide. Thus, laminating coating machinery manufacturers can take this opportunity to repute themselves with the products like laminating coating machines toward both overseas & domestic buyers during this trade show.

The plastic laminating machine is making used of adhesive property of polypropylene & polyethylene during melting status. This machine is able to adheres and laminates paper, and color-printed woven packaging bags by painting system. It also can be used to laminate on the film and paper directly, or even, laminating color-printed OPP and BOPP film on both sides of these bags production. And with the maximum coating width around 700mm, the machines made from most laminating and coating machinery films are able to provide buyers huge size machine of ordered dimension for common business uses.

Capable of dealing with mass production and customized orders, hundreds of laminating coating machinery providers participated in this trade show have the ability to handle flexible turn key projects for both new-coming visitors and old clients. Buyers in this trade show can obtain more premium information about purchasing the products, and certainly, they can also gain more partnership. This trade show collects categories of manufacturers in the supply chain and inclines to integrate entire laminating coating machinery events, offering visitors discerning choices for extrusion plants.

Electronic Voting Machines At Center Of Ohio Lawsuits

2008-08-11T21:55:00.000-07:00

Brunner filed the state's lawsuit in the Franklin County Common Pleas Court on Wednesday, in response to one that Premier brought against the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections and the secretary of state. Premier's lawsuit had requested a court determination stating it met the obligations outlined in its contracts.

"Based on the objective evidence, we believe that Premier's equipment has failed to perform as required by its contracts and according to state law. We have taken this action to recover taxpayer funds spent for voting systems used in half of the state's 88 counties because Ohioans deserve better," Brunner said in an announcement.

Ohio seeks punitive damages for providing touch-screen voting machines that caused problems in at least 11 of the 44 counties using them. It claims a breach of warranty, breach of contract, failure to conform to Ohio law, and fraud in inducement.

Brunner said that Premier's system dropped votes when memory cards were uploaded to shared servers. Election staff recovered the votes hours later, she said.

Election workers notified Premier of the problems and received a product advisory notice in late May. The notice explained that an antivirus program that operated on the server simultaneously had caused the problems. Premier instructed users to disable the antivirus software on vote tabulation servers when uploading votes from memory cards.

On May 30, Premier sued the Ohio secretary of state and the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections and requested the court to state that it had complied with all of its obligations under contracts and warranties for the voting systems. In April, the Butler County Board of Elections notified Brunner of potential equipment malfunctions. Brunner's IT staff and boards of elections staff launched a statewide investigation and concluded that similar problems occurred in 11 Ohio counties that used Premier's machines.

Brunner continues to investigate the malfunctions and test Premier's explanation that the problem was caused by the antivirus software. The state is developing mitigation plans to identify the potential for dropped votes and to fix the problem.

Brunner said the software was certified by the Board of Voting Machine Examiners as part of the Premier system when the system was introduced in Ohio. Finally, she claims that Premier did not document its explanation that the antivirus software caused the problems.

Light goes out on pioneer machine

2008-08-08T22:24:00.000-07:00

The pioneering Synchrotron Radiation Source (SRS) based at the Daresbury Laboratory in Warrington, UK, will be switched off on Monday.

The machine, which probed the structure of materials down to the molecular and atomic level, developed the technology now used in some 60 centres worldwide.

Its X-ray science has been behind new drugs and electronics, and was used in Nobel-winning research on cell energy.

UK synchrotron studies have now moved to the Diamond centre in Oxfordshire.

Daresbury's future is envisioned as an innovation super-centre, where scientific ideas can better make the leap to business.

"Though the SRS has gone, Daresbury Laboratory is growing," said Professor Colin Whitehouse from the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), which runs the facility.

"It is part of a burgeoning national Science and Innovation Campus and the home of the Cockcroft Institute, a national centre for Accelerator Science and Technology, amongst other world-class research facilities."

Synchrotrons are essentially giant X-ray machines. Their brilliant, high-energy light is produced by electrons travelling in a ring at near-light-speed.

As the particles turn through a course of magnets, they lose energy in the form of X-rays which are then focused down beamlines to target samples positioned at experimental stations.

The light is so intense, it can probe just about any material, revealing the precise positions of its atoms and the arrangement of its molecules.

Future science

Over the past 28 years, synchrotron light has supported cutting-edge research in physics, chemistry and materials science, opening up many new areas of research in fields such as medicine, geological and environmental studies, structural genomics and archaeology.

Since it was opened, the SRS has helped develop new medicines by studying the atomic structure of proteins; it has enabled the production of new materials for use in electronics and clothing; and it has led to the development of new detergents - to list just a few of its achievements.

Perhaps the SRS's biggest moment came when it was used by Sir John Walker to map the structure of an important enzyme that catalyses adenosine triphosphate (ATP) - the molecule that carries the chemical energy that operates the body.

The research earned Sir John the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1997.

Diamond was built in the South, to the dismay of Daresbury staff

The decision to site the new Diamond Light Source in the south of England rather than at Daresbury led to a huge political row in the late 1990s.

The North West of England felt that the role played by Daresbury in developing synchrotron science meant it should have been given the "third generation" machine.

Instead, the £300m-plus facility was put on the Chilton-Harwell science campus, the home of the ISIS neutron source, another type of machine that can probe matter at the microscopic level.

Daresbury will be involved in developing the technology for so-called "fourth generation" light sources.

These machines will use X-ray lasers to probe matter on time-dependent scales, allowing researchers to see, for example, the moment bonds are broken and made in a chemical reaction.

Europe, as a bloc, is committed to building one such machine at the moment, at the DESY (Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron) centre in Hamburg. It will be called the X-ray Free-Electron Laser (XFEL).

Blockbuster, NCR to use DVD vending machines

2008-08-08T22:20:00.004-07:00

DALLAS (AP) - Blockbuster and NCR today announced a pilot program to set up about 50 automated kiosks for DVD rentals.

Officials say the program could result in 10,000 kiosks within 18 months.

Dallas-based Blockbuster is the massive video rental chain.

NCR makes ATMs.

No word yet on where the first kiosks will be located.

Several smaller companies, including McDonald's subsidiary Redbox Automated Retail, have automated DVD rental kiosks in grocery stores, drug stores and McDonald's restaurants.

Blockbuster-branded kiosks initially will only do rentals, but could in the future also sell DVDs and video games, or accept downloads of new content.

Blockbuster showed off a downloading kiosk in May that could transfer movies to a portable media-playing device from Archos. The first 2 of those machines are expected to be used in Dallas this summer.

KLA-Tencor Profit Drops 48%; Fewer Orders Predicted (Update2)

2008-08-08T22:20:00.003-07:00

July 31 (Bloomberg) -- KLA-Tencor Corp., the second-largest U.S. maker of semiconductor equipment, posted a 48 percent drop in fourth-quarter profit after orders from memory-chip makers slowed.

Net income fell to $76 million, or 43 cents a share, the company said today in a statement. Sales declined 20 percent to $590.7 million in the period ended June 30, while orders decreased about 15 percent from the previous period.

Orders probably will plunge another 15 percent this quarter, Chief Executive Officer Rick Wallace said on a conference call. Global spending on chip equipment may decline by more than a fifth this year as the U.S. economic slump worsens and excess supply drives prices down, according to researcher Gartner Inc.

``In the final weeks of the quarter, we experienced a further slowdown in orders,'' said Wallace, 48. ``The outlook for near-term recovery is muted.''

The San Jose, California-based company fell 19 cents to $37.40 in extended trading after closing at $37.59 on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The shares have declined 22 percent this year.

Fourth-quarter net income last year was $147.3 million, or 75 cents a share. KLA-Tencor forecast that profit would amount to 32 cents to 36 cents this quarter, on sales of $510 million to $525 million. That compared with analysts' average projection of profit of 53 cents on revenue of $559.4 million.

Memory `Weak'

``Memory is weak, and it's going to be weak again in September,'' said Patrick Ho, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus & Co. in Dallas. ``It could be better in December, but it's hard to tell.'' He recommends buying KLA shares and doesn't own any.

Excluding reorganization costs and other expenses, fourth- quarter profit was 60 cents, beating the 57-cent average of estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Wallace called the results a ``strong performance'' amid an industrywide decline in orders from makers of memory chips.

KLA-Tencor's machines test whether each stage in the semiconductor-manufacturing process is completed successfully. The company is cutting costs to improve productivity as it faces increasing competition from Applied Materials Inc., the world's largest maker of machinery used to make computer chips. That may prompt further price cuts, Ho said.

``When you have a large, well-capitalized competitor that comes into your marketplace like Applied Materials, it can put a lot more pricing pressure on you,'' Ho said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Whitney Kisling in Washington at wkisling@bloomberg.net

Snow Machines Fight Fire

2008-08-08T22:20:00.002-07:00

RED LODGE - The fire is burning so close to Red Lodge Mountain so crews are trying out some unusual fire equipment.

irefighters are borrowing all of the resort's snow making machines to cover structures and land with as much water as they can. Crews say the machines can pump out more than 6,000 gallons of water an hour, which is a big help.

"They're working great. They're putting out a lot of water. There's huge man made lake up at the top of the ski hill that they use those snow machines in the winter anyway," said DNRC's Chris Davis.

Crews have used at least a dozen snow making machines non-stop since the fire started Saturday.

Stock Market Quote - Business News - Financial News

2008-08-08T22:20:00.001-07:00

BEAVERTON, OR, Jul 31, 2008 (MARKET WIRE via COMTEX) -- The R&D group at a developer of wireless metrology devices for wafer processing equipment, CyberOptics Semiconductor, Inc. (CSI), has characterized a new MEMS sensor to improve by 10x and 3x the vertical accuracy and range of the company's latest incarnation of its wafer-like auto-leveling inclinometer for fabs, the WaferSense(TM) Auto Leveling System 2 (ALS2) Vertical, according to Dennis J. Bonciolini, the company's CTO.
Apps engineers at the company, a subsidiary of CyberOptics Corp. (CYBE:
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CYBE 9.95, +0.04, +0.4%) , report that, market-wide, fab engineers continue to employ longstanding manual-alignment techniques to determine the vertical inclination of wafer processing equipment such as ion implants and wet-station robots, according to Bonciolini.
The absence of more precise vertical inclination metrology data and station-to-station controls -- as tolerances continue to shrink -- effectively jeopardizes yield and device performance at ion implant and wet-station processes and causes engineers to take machines offline for prolonged re-calibration and troubleshooting maintenance, Bonciolini said.
"You really need insight into your equipment to rein in what have become significant margins of error in leveling vertical wafer alignments," Bonciolini said. "The data is basically going to improve downtime -- and eliminate any surprises -- and establish a clear relationship between inclination and yield."
Bonciolini added that the company's latest wireless auto-leveling device and software, LevelView(TM) and LevelReview(TM), are largely intended to allow fab engineers to obtain real-time vertical and horizontal inclination measurements. Engineers use the measurements to characterize equipment, conduct statistical analysis via log file data and establish uniform metrology standards for process equipment and preventative maintenance schedules.
The R&D group at CyberOptics Semiconductor worked to improve its wafer-like leveling device to "extend our reach in the fab" and "further automate production" of 300mm and 200mm wafers, Bonciolini said.
The company's WaferSense ALS2 Vertical improves the device's vertical accuracy from +/-0.5 degrees to +/-0.05 degrees and vertical range from +/-15 degrees to +/-50 degrees. The company also reduced the form factor of the device's carbon fiber composite housing to develop a light 300mm version. The light 300mm device weighs 200 grams, down from 240 grams, and is primarily designed to work on flat surfaces.
CyberOptics Semiconductor's WaferSense ALS2 Vertical is used as an alternative to the machinist levels, bubble levels and wired devices used by process engineers to calibrate equipment.
"When you start looking at the cost to shut down your process or damage wafers, eyeballing it just isn't effective," Bonciolini said.
The WaferSense ALS2 Vertical's key specifications and features include form factors of SEMI 200mm notch or flat and 300mm, horizontal accuracy of +/- 0.03 degrees within +/-7 degrees, horizontal resolution of +/-0.002 degrees within +/-14 degrees, operating temperature of 20 to 70 degrees Celsius, height of 6.3mm, weight of 150gm at 200mm, 240gm at 300mm and 200gm at 300mm (CL version), wireless Bluetooth link, four hour run-time per battery charge and use with Windows 2000, XP and Vista.
The WaferSense ALS2 Vertical package includes the leveling wafer, USB-compatible link, LevelView(TM) and LevelReview(TM) graphical software CD, charging case and suitcase.
The WaferSense family of products includes the Auto Leveling System (ALS), Auto Teaching System (ATS), Auto Gapping System (AGS) and Auto Vibration System (AVS). Each device follows the processing life of a wafer.
About CyberOptics Semiconductor, Inc.
CyberOptics Semiconductor develops automated products that seamlessly measure critical parameters in semiconductor fabrication processes and equipment. The company's pioneering WaferSense(TM) line includes wireless metrology devices for vibration, leveling, gapping and teaching semiconductor process equipment. The company is the largest producer of reflective wafer-mapping sensors and a leading provider of frame grabber machine vision boards under its HAMA Sensors(TM) and Imagenation(TM) brands. CyberOptics Semiconductor is a subsidiary of CyberOptics Corp. (CYBE:
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CYBE 9.95, +0.04, +0.4%) , one of the world's leading providers of process yield and throughput improvement solutions for electronic assembly and semiconductor capital equipment companies. For information, visit http://www.cyberopticssemi.com/, e-mail CSsales@cyberoptics.com or call 800-366-9131.
"Safe Harbor" Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: Statements regarding the Company's anticipated performance are forward-looking and therefore involve risks and uncertainties, including but not limited to: market conditions in the global SMT and semiconductor capital equipment industries; increasing price competition and price pressure on our product sales, particularly our SMT systems; the level of orders from our OEM customers; the availability of parts required for meeting customer orders; the effect of world events on our sales, the majority of which are from foreign customers; product introductions and pricing by our competitors; unanticipated costs or delays associated with the transition of engineering and manufacturing for SMT Systems to Singapore and other factors set forth in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Note: all trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

New market place for used trucks by MinuteMachine

2008-08-08T22:20:00.000-07:00

(PRLEAP.COM) MinuteMachine.com, one of the leading Internet marketplaces for used construction equipment, has just released it new website www.MinuteTruck.com to enlarge their previous offer.

The international market place for used construction machinery www.MinuteMachine.com, where dealers and final customers can publish second hand equipment for sale, is online since 2006 and had an astonishing pace of development during the last two years. Today the Internet Portal receives about 16.000 visitor’s every day and more than 20.000 used machines are advertised.

Because of this huge enthusiasm and demand, the company will open up their market to the transport and commercial vehicle sector.
The CEO Inga Gerstenberg said "During the last two years we put all our effort in the construction machinery. We achieved in a very short period of time being one of the leading market places worldwide. Now it is time to be concerned with a new strategy to expand our repertoire to other branches of the industry sector."

MinuteMachine and MinuteTruck would like to facilitate companies around the world to establish contacts with potential customers, a B2B concept especially for a niche markets like construction machinery business or transport business.

The company already received an important feedback of the new strategy, because yet there are advertised more than 6.000 used trucks and trailers at MinuteTruck within a few weeks.

MinuteTruck is a market place for used trucks, where dealers and final customers can publish their used trucks and contact with a worldwide audience.

Electronic Voting Machines: Are They Safe?

2008-08-04T05:21:00.000-07:00

Right since its first trial in 1982 in a bye-election in Kerala, India, doubts have been expressed by stakeholders like contesting candidates and political parties as to whether Electronic Voting Machines are safe and tamper-proof. Even though use of EVMs was made universal from the 2004 Parliamentary General Elections, as recently as on 20 June 2008, on the eve of municipal elections in the state of West Bengal, political rivals clashed over the issue of testing EVMs and a 12-hour strike was called in Burdwan by three political parties. After the 23 February 2008 Assembly Elections in the state of Tripura, the Tripura Congress demanded a National Police probe on suspected EVM manipulations. On 9 June 2008, a delegation of Trinamool Congress urged the Election Commission of India not to use EVMs in the 2009 Parliamentary Elections. In respect of the 2007 Manipur elections, an application was filed under the Right to Information Act to get precise data on the specific EVMs used. Television talk shows and long essays in newspapers have been keeping the debate alive: are EVMs truly safe and immune from high tech rigging?

The concerns expressed through these discussions and debates are varied. One line of argument compares Assembly polls that used EVMs with Panchayat elections conducted with paper ballots and concludes that better results were obtained by opposition parties where EVMs were not used. Another line of argument goes on to state that it is theoretically possible to reprogramme the resident software to favour one particular political party only. Then there are those who refer to introduction of upgraded versions of the machine to hint that the earlier designs were faulty. Yet another class of doubts stem from the controversies over voting technology in America's presidential election in 2000 and alludes to a wide variety of literature available in the public domain doubting the Diebold-based touch-screen voting machines used in the US. The last group bases its objections on the apparently very forceful logic that if indeed India’s EVMs are so good, why aren’t these adopted by the international community? Why do almost all advanced democratic countries still rely on the good old ballot papers?

A basic reason for a large part of the debate surrounding use of EVMs is that insides of an EVM cannot be seen like an empty ballot box. The transparency with EVMs is demonstrated by conducting a mock poll in each polling booth before the voting actually starts. In this mock poll phase, each polling agent of contesting candidates presses few buttons of the EVM after which the votes recorded are counted and tallied. This is repeated if necessary and after satisfying all agents, the contents of the machine are cleared a final time, the cover concealing the ‘clear’ and ‘results’ buttons is closed and the agents are invited to put their seals on the lock.

But isn’t it possible in theory at least, so the argument continues, to so programme the software of the chip inside an EVM that after the first 100 votes or so – to take account of the mock poll - all subsequent votes could be recorded in favour of only one political party? Even without looking at the software technicalities, it is easy to see why this would not be possible by noting that ballot papers are pasted on its balloting unit alongside the buttons while the sequence of names written on the ballot paper is arranged alphabetically in three groups of recognised political parties, registered parties and independents. This sequence is determined after the list of validly nominated candidates is finalized by the Returning Officer, usually only a few days ahead of the poll, and is thus distinctly different in different constituencies. In other words, since it is not possible that candidates of party X appear only at the, say, fifth button everywhere, even a hypothetically rigged set of EVMs cannot ensure party X’s victory everywhere. Besides, the commissioning of the EVMs is done in full view of the agents of the candidates and the whole operation is video-graphed. For added transparency, the EVMs are assigned randomly to different constituencies and the serial numbers of the machines are carefully recorded for reference. After the ‘candidate setting’, the EVMs are placed in a dedicated strong room with 24x7 armed guards under the watchful vigil of polling agents till their deployment in voting booths.

In a much publicized event soon after the General Assembly Elections in West Bengal in 2006, a public demonstration on how EVMs could be manipulated was organised at the massive Science City auditorium in Kolkata by a group of people who alleged that the just concluded elections used rigged EVMs. It turned out to be a damp squib where only a Power-Point presentation projected few dummy EVM models and some hypothetical scenarios of hi-tech rigging of EVMs. “We never said that EVMs had been actually tampered with” remarked one prominent organizer later. “We merely pointed out that there is a theoretical possibility that this could be done.” In a 2005 case in the High Court of Bombay, even a computer expert of the petitioner challenging the use of EVMs admitted to the Court that no one could hack into the EVM system because the hardware and software used in EVMs were not known.

Nobody has been able as yet to prove that EVMs can be doctored or tampered with.

The Election Commission of India goes to extraordinary lengths to ensure that the secrecy of the hardware and software in the EVM is maintained. The machines are manufactured only by two public sector enterprises, one of which is under the Ministry of Defence and the other with the Department of Electronics, Government of India. The micro-controller chips are non-erasable and are encoded in machine language that cannot be understood by human beings. The encoding and chip manufacturing is done not in India but in a foreign country and its details are a business secret. The memory is non-volatile and even if the battery is removed, no data is lost. If the connecting cable is damaged or cut, the letters “LE” (Link Error) are displayed. If the memory device is removed, the micro controller detects it and declares that the machine is in an error state. The encrypted code and data is unchangeable and indelible by anybody, even by the manufacturer. Little wonder that the Election Commission has been challenging anybody to show them how to rig these EVMs.

It is therefore no surprise that the Supreme Court, High Courts, Government Standing Committees and Expert Technical Groups have over the years subjected the EVMs to the strictest scrutiny and found them to be totally secure and safe. The Goswami Committee on Electoral Reforms that was set up in 1990 included a report of a technical sub-committee consisting of experts from Defence Research and Development Organisation, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and Electronics Research and Development Centre, Trivandrum in which the tamper-proof functioning of the EVMs was fully established. In a Supreme Court case of 2004, the Court examined a scientist who was a co-designer of the EVM as an expert court witness; in its judgment, the Court observed that the EVM was a great invention, a national pride. The same year saw the nationwide roll-out of EVMs during the General Parliamentary Elections 2004 involving 670 million electors.

To understand why the EVMs used in India are quite different from the touch screen voting machines used in other countries like the USA, it is necessary to look at the origins and raison-d’être of the Indian EVMs. The design of the EVM was mandated in India purely by its own needs: to capture and reflect accurately the voters’ intentions, to save money and to make it difficult for miscreants to stuff ballot boxes with bogus unused ballot papers in the dying hours of the poll day. In the paper ballot era, ambiguous or multiple markings on ballots resulted in invalid votes and it was not unusual to find that the number of invalid votes were greater than the margin of victory. Complaints of deliberate counting errors by allegedly biased counting officials were also common and led to frequent recounting pleas and court cases. Reduction in consumption of thousands of tonnes of paper on economical and environmental grounds was also a strong motivation. Because each vote occupied a prescribed predetermined time interval in the EVM, quick loading of false votes were not possible. Above all, the initial design was consciously made to be as close to the system of marking on ballot papers as had been evolved from the third General Elections in 1962 so that the average voter had no difficulty in exercising her franchise.

The Indian EVMs are thus strictly stand-alone devices that record people’s voting intentions accurately and store it in its non-volatile memory till they are counted. The EVMs still have to be physically carried under armed police escort to the counting centres for machine-by-machine result counting in presence of agents of candidates, much like the ballot paper days. In contrast, in all other countries where e-voting is attempted through voting machines, the emphasis is on networking, centralized data transfers through public communication channels and for enabling remote voting by people who are away from their polling areas on the date of poll. In such a scenario, in spite of various levels of security firewalls, there is a larger possibility of hacking from anywhere in the network pipeline. The concerns for using EVMs are thus overwhelmingly different in countries other than India where no networks is attempted, nor any non-resident voting permitted, except for a very few government employees who are entitled to vote by post. Little wonder, therefore, not many advanced countries are keen to adopt the India’s stand-alone EVMs. To extrapolate the controversies over EVMs in other countries to the Indian context would thus be rather fallacious.

Why then do controversies continue? A survey conducted by the Centre for Study of Developing Society in 1999 indicated that 90.6% of the public preferred the EVMs in the 1998 assembly polls spread over two states where EVMs were used. It can be safely presumed that this figure has gone up now. Even so, few skeptics possibly remain. It is necessary to also win them over by publishing white papers and launching a carefully crafted awareness programme. For the just-defeated crest-fallen political candidate, however, the EVM can be a scapegoat to nurse his wounded ego: we think of the legal fight instituted in the Kerala High Court by a contesting candidate challenging the first ever use of EVMs in 1982. He won the election and lost the case. His political rival lost the election and filed an appeal.

It has been said that compared to the shiny touch-screen Diebold-system based US voting machine, the Indian EVM is rather ‘simplistic’. Perhaps. But it is reliable and robust. Born in India, it understands its needs. It can be easily transported in its plain plastic carry-case to the remotest villages through the heat and dust of rural roads. It can be set up by a village school teacher acting as a polling officer on the election day, helping him by displaying messages whenever the cables are incorrectly connected or the batteries run low. It works without electrical power or complex networks of connectivity. It is friendly even to literacy-challenged voter. It can accurately record and count our votes. It can be trusted to keep our votes safe and secret. It may not be much to look at but it is difficult not to be a bit proud of this rather lovable little machine.

LAX to be test site for shoe-scanning machines

2008-08-04T05:15:00.002-07:00

Los Angeles International Airport soon will test a pair of machines that let passengers keep their shoes on at security checkpoints.

The machines, made by L-3 Communications, resemble a large turnstile and will scan shoes for explosives as air travelers pass through them.

Dwayne Baird, a spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration, says data collected will help determine whether the scanners could be used at airports nationwide.

Aviation consultant Jack Keady says the results were inconsistent when similar shoe-scanning machines were tested last summer at Orlando International Airport.

Federal authorities have required airline passengers to remove their shoes for inspection since "shoe bomber" Richard Reid failed to detonate a bomb in his sneakers on a flight from Paris to Miami in December 2001.

Voting machines ready

2008-08-04T05:15:00.001-07:00

Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson stopped in Warren County Clerk Dot Owens’ office Thursday to display and demonstrate the optical-scanning voting machines that will be used here this fall.

Grayson’s aide wheeled in a waist-high black plastic case. Most of that is a bin into which paper ballots drop after they’re read. The actual scanner is a laptop-sized device on top. They brought sample ballots, with small rectangular boxes next to names for party straight-ticket and the presidential race.

Deputy clerks and two members of the Warren County Board of Elections - secretary Mary Stahl and new Democratic board member Harold Miller - looked on as Grayson described the machine.

Voters will be asked to completely fill the box next to the candidate of their choice. Pencils or pens can be used.

Miller asked what will happen if a box is only partially filled.

“It looks to me like that would be a problem for some people,” he said.

The machine successfully reads those “99 percent of the time,” Grayson said. If it can’t, clerks can still count the paper ballot by hand, he said.

Owens said the machine will take unmarked ballots or those that it can’t read, marking them as “undervotes.”

“The only way it’ll reject it is if it looks like you’re voting for two or three people in the same race,” she said.

If a ballot is rejected and returned to the voter, that person can get a replacement from poll workers, Owens said.

The machine not only tallies the vote and keeps the paper copy, it scans a double-sided image as a backup, Grayson said. Owens said that since the actual scanning goes so quickly, people can fill out their ballots anywhere in the voting room and feed them all through one machine.

Counties are phasing out old voting systems, but Warren County will still have the handicap-accessible eSlate electronic screen machines available in each precinct, Grayson said. Those and the new scanners, called eScans, are made by the same company. That should simplify and speed clerks’ vote-counting, he said.

“The machines work very well together,” Grayson said.

At a secretary of states’ conference last week, Grayson said, he was told that by 2012 Congress will probably require all elections to leave a paper trail.

Jefferson County has used paper scanners for 20 years, and probably half of all voters in the country will use such machines this fall, he said. Seven Kentucky counties used paper-ballot scanners in this year’s primary, and about 30 are expected to this fall, Grayson said.

“The voters really liked it, the poll workers liked it,” he said. “It really went better than we hoped.”

Owens said the machines have already been used for local absentee ballots, with no problems.

The machines’ cost will be reimbursed by the state, through federal funds from the 2002 Help America Vote Act, Grayson said. The $4,500 price for one machine is available for each precinct, he said. Almost every county has signed a contract to get money for this over the next two years, Grayson said.

Review: Mocha VNC and Mocha VNC Lite for iPhone

2008-08-04T05:15:00.000-07:00

As I walk the vast expanses of this Macworld Oregon Branch Office (otherwise known as my home), there are times when it’s useful to see what’s happening on a given machine—did my never-ending iPhone backup process end? Did the backup of the mini generate any errors? Is that file upload to the server done yet? Answering these questions used to require me sitting in front of one of the Macs in the house—using screen sharing, I could then connect to the machine in question and see what it was doing.
Now, with the App Store, though, all I need is a first-generation iPhone with the 2.0 software and MochaSoft’s Mocha VNC (or the free Mocha VNC Lite version). Mocha VNC allows you to connect to machines running OS X, Windows, and Linux using the industry-standard virtual network computing desktop sharing system. There are built-in VNC servers in OS X 10.4 and 10.5, so you can connect to your Macs with a minimal amount of work.

There are some limits with Mocha VNC—it only supports a single monitor on the remote system, and the maximum resolution of that monitor is 1,680-by-1,200. You can, however, zoom in and out on the screen as you would with a web page, and display the remote screen in portrait or landscape mode simply by turning your iPhone or iPod touch. Buttons along the bottom of the screen provide access to features such as the on-screen keyboard, Mocha VNC’s menus, a right mouse button, and a button to control what happens when you drag a finger across the screen—one mode moves the remote mouse pointer, the other just scrolls around on your zoomed-in display.

There aren’t many differences between the free and paid version of Mocha VNC, but the differences that exist are significant. The biggest limitation in the free version is that the only provided keyboard is the standard iPhone virtual keyboard—so no function keys, and no other special keys. (There are onscreen buttons for Control and Command, but not Option.) While this works OK for controlling Macs, you really need Control-Alt-Delete to work with Windows boxes, because otherwise you can’t login.

The full version has a second keyboard that contains all the function keys, the Windows key, page navigation keys, and two special Windows meta-keys: Control-Alt-Delete and Alt-F4. (There’s still no on-screen Option key, however.) With the paid version, you also get a dedicated on-screen right-mouse button, and support for macros (recorded bits of text you can send to the remote host with a couple of taps).

I found the speed of Mocha VNC to be decent on my home’s wireless network. The initial screen draw on a larger screen took some time, but updates were relatively quick, and typing worked at a decent, but not great, speed. However, because there’s no real keyboard or mouse, you won’t want to tackle any complex projects with your iPhone or iPod touch—it’s just too hard to work the buttons for the virtual keyboard and mouse. Instead, Mocha VNC is best used as a monitoring tool, or to do something fast and simple on the networked machine, such as starting a download or running Software Update.

While MochaVNC supports encrypted transmission of the VNC connection’s password, your actual session data is not encrypted—so this is a tool best used within a local network, behind a firewall. The program would be more useful if it supported data encryption for the entire data stream, and not just the initial connection password. On Mocha VNC’s FAQ page, the developer explains the lack of support for encryption by writing, “There is an issue with exporting 128 encryption from the USA, where the App Store server is located. 128 bits is seen as a dangerous weapon.” (Mocha VNC is located in Denmark.)
The biggest issue I have with Mocha VNC (both the full and lite versions) is that it seems to peg the AppleVNCServer process at nearly 100-percent CPU utilization much of the time. I tested this with connections to both my Mac mini and my Mac Pro, and it happened on both machines, not every single time, but quite often. I even reinstalled Mocha VNC, just to be sure something wasn’t wrong with my version of the program, but the high CPU utilization persisted. In practice, today’s CPUs have enough horsepower that you won’t notice this issue unless you ask the remote Mac to do something CPU-intensive, such as encoding a QuickTime video. However, it does mean that you may find the fan on your Mac really running fast the next time you walk past the machine—which is exactly how I discovered this CPU utilization issue.

There’s no apparent reason for the CPU utilization to be so high—connecting from one Mac to another with screen sharing, for instance, doesn’t drive the AppleVNCServer process to anywhere near 100 percent. Connecting to my Mac Pro from my MacBook Pro, as a test, led to the AppleVNCServer process generally using between 5 and 15 percent of the CPU, not 100 percent. (And that’s displaying two monitors at full resolution, versus one at a maximum of 1,680-by-1,200.) Clearly Mocha VNC is doing something different that’s driving the CPU utilization up, and hopefully this can be addressed in a future update.

If you have a lot of Macs and/or other machines in your home, and you want to keep an eye them from your iPhone or iPod touch, then the full version is worth the $6 cost. The added keyboard keys and right-mouse screen key in the full version are both very useful—and the extra keyboard keys are a requirement if you want to work with Windows machines. However, even the free version may be sufficient if you’d simply like the ability to occasionally view the screen of a Mac on your network. You won’t want to use either version for large, complex projects, but for simpler stuff, Mocha VNC can save you a walk down the hallway.

Libertyville, Ill. Considers Outdoor Vending Machine Rules In Response To Machine Proliferation

2008-07-18T03:57:00.003-07:00

Libertyville, Ill. is considering restricting outdoor vending machines for aesthetic reasons as the machines proliferate, according to The Libertyville Review in Libertyville, Ill. in the past outdoor vending machines used to be primarily pop machines, but now the village is seeing many different types of machines, including snack machines, video rental machines, bait machines and propane gas rentals.

Post offices to remove stamp vending machines

2008-07-18T03:57:00.001-07:00

Get ready to either stand in line or go online the next time you need to buy a book of stamps. The U.S. Postal Service is removing postage vending machines from all of its locations nationwide.
The machines at post offices in the immediate Harrisburg area are to be removed by the end of the month. The machine at the branch on Market Street in Harrisburg is to be removed Tuesday.
At the rest of the post offices in the Central Pennsylvania district, the machines are to be removed by Sept. 30. The stamp vending machines are the victims of technology, competition and aging parts, said Ray Daiutolo, Postal Service spokesman for the central Pennsylvania region. The service can no longer find parts for its 15,000 vending machines, he said. But perhaps the biggest reason they are going the way of the pay phone is that people no longer use them. Consumers are buying postage on the Postal Service's Web site, and through its "stamps by phone" and "stamps by fax" services. People also can find stamps at most grocery stores, and some banks offer them at their ATMs. "The cost is simply debited from their account with no fees from us," said Jason Kirsch, spokesman for the Swatara Twp.-Commerce Bank/Harrisburg. "With the ability to purchase stamps at our ATMs, that's one less errand to run." Giant Food Stores has been selling stamps at its stores for the last 10 years. It used to sell them at the customer service desks, but because of customer demand have since made the stamps available at all of its checkout aisles, said Dennis Hopkins, a spokesman for Carlisle-based Giant. The grocery store chain does not plan to stock up on more stamps because the Postal Service is doing away with its vending machines, but will keep an eye on how many it's selling, Hopkins said.

Milestone for tunnel linking LIRR, Grand Central

2008-07-18T03:56:00.000-07:00

One hundred forty feet below Grand Central Terminal, in a muddy, slippery tunnel filled with mind-boggling machinery, a recommendation graffitied onto the wall advises: "Watch your butt."
Truth be told, it includes a word slightly more colorful than "butt," but it's sage advice nonetheless to those who work or even visit that dark and dank place, which will connect the Long Island Rail Road to Grand Central by 2015.
The $7.2 billion project recently reached a milestone when one of two 600-ton-plus tunnel boring machines reached a spot about 150 feet below Park Avenue and 48th Street. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority will soon begin blasting out space there for a massive LIRR concourse under Grand Central.
During a tour for the media Thursday, project engineers handed out hard hats and orange vests for the trek down 16 flights of stairs that began around the corner from a vacant lot at East 63rd Street and Second Avenue. That's where the first machine began its journey in October.At the bottom of those stairs, a doorway leads to the 22-foot-diameter tunnel. Workers in heavy rubber boots step through puddles and muck, around tracks laid for a small construction train that carries them to and from the $10 million, Italian-made boring machine.
On this train, there are no padded seats, automated announcements or conductors. Instead, workers scoot onto long metal benches after hoisting themselves up in the dark. Long, piercing blasts warn workers of its slow approach. They, in turn, wave flashlights to signal where they are.
At the end of the tunnel, they step on a 360-foot-long machine that edges forward like an inchworm, using 45 steel blades to cut through an average of 50 feet of granite each day.
A second, similar machine is expected to catch up in about a month.
The new tunnels connect to two tunnels below the East River used by the F train that will link to the LIRR in Queens. A 4-mile-long conveyor belt carries muck from the tunnel out to Long Island City, where it is carted off to landfills or used in roads, said Joe Trainor, the chief engineer for MTA Capital Construction.
Working in the tunnel is not for the faint of heart, he said, but for those who relish venturing into parts of the city few ever see and completing jobs that will change thousands of commuters' lives, there's nothing else like it.
"This is what we love, and to think we can do it right here in Manhattan is wonderful," Trainor said. "We like to think of it as a challenge. It's exciting to be able to do this work right in your hometown."
Once the project is completed, the LIRR is expected to run up to 24 trains in and out of Grand Central during peak hours.

How to Become a Heavy Equipment Operator

2008-02-03T21:24:00.000-08:00

Contrary to the common myth, the job of a heavy equipment operator is not confined to just operating the bulldozer. Nor is it a gender specific vocation since both men and women are employed in this field.

If you can operate large machinery, are willing to work as a team, possess satisfactory communication skills and are open to suggestions for improvement, you can definitely be successful as a Heavy Equipment Operator.

Who is a Heavy Equipment Operator

Neither a designated trade nor designated profession, a heavy equipment operator maintains, repairs and adjusts the huge not so very delicate machines used in construction work. They also find employment at travel refuse collection routes or freight jobs.

Educational Qualifications and Eligibility Criteria

There are very few schools in the US that offer courses in heavy equipment training. Students are taught the basics of analytical and diagnostic techniques along with an in depth knowledge of electronics. Being a field job, the training imparted for the job is mostly done in practical surroundings.

The sub categories of the job position, such as a mechanic require a certification of validation, which needs to be renewed every 5 years.

Other than the educational factors, the first and foremost eligibility criterion is the possession of a Commercial Drivers License. Experience in driving trucks and smaller construction machinery is considered an added advantage. An ability to work with different people, to be open to the idea of additional training and responsibility and judgment of distance are some of the other criteria for hiring a heavy equipment operator.

A number of apprentice jobs are available for fresh graduates or trainees who have completed formal courses in heavy equipment operations. Most organizations pay a very nominal salary at the entry level to these apprentices.

Nature of the Job

The job of a heavy equipment operator is to operate machines such as the off highway trucks, graders, articulated trucks and loaders, scrapers, pavers, backhoes and shovels. As a junior operator, one could start out with operating small equipment and later move on to the heavier ones. The equipments under the former category include small rubber tire loaders and monitoring equipments.

With experience and training, one could eventually be promoted to senior positions such as a superintendent, job foreman, safety officer or trainer. If you are an independent minded person, you could also go ahead and set up a business of your own, after acquiring a few years of experience.

As this is a job that is required in almost every heavy manufacturing facility, one could easily relocate to any town or city without any worries about finding a decent job as a heavy equipment operator.

Salary

The standard workweek for heavy equipment operators is 40 hours. On an average, they could make approximately $20,000 to $49,000 a year (including benefits). A statutory holiday and vacation pay is also provided along with a group insurance for vision, health, dental, and retirement packages. Cumulatively, one could earn nearly 20% to 30 % of the basic hourly pay rate.

A word of caution though is that this job can take a toll on your health if you are not physically strong and if you dont possess the zeal to tackle the strenuous work conditions

http://www.articlecircle.com/career/how-to-become-a-heavy-equipment-operator.html

Dana Corporation Installs Aisle-Master IC Articulated Lift Trucks

2008-02-03T21:22:00.001-08:00

An articulated truck is a vehicle that is most commonly used in construction work. Articulated trucks are used to haul heavy loads, sometimes over difficult terrain, and they can be considered a type of tractor-trailer unit. There are simple articulated trucks that haul goods, as well as articulated dump trucks that are also loaders.

The main feature of an articulated truck that puts it in a separate driving class is its drive system. The drive system is based on the number of wheels on the axles used to pull the truck. The most common system is the 6 x 6 system, in which the truck has six wheels on three axles and all are used when driving the truck.

Another system used is the 6 x 4 drive, in which only the rear four wheels are used when driving. The original drive system in articulated trucks is the famous 4 x 4 drive. This was designed for trucks that drive over the roughest terrain on the planet. The 4 x 4 drive system helps the truck maneuver over terrain that could be a potential problem for the goods being carried.

An articulated truck can be used to carry all kinds of goods. The 4 x 4 drive system, for instance, is most often used for loads such as flammable liquid. An articulated truck also has the ability to carry loads of up to 40 tons in weight. This is why it is so popular in the construction industry, in which heavy materials are used.

One of the problems of the articulated truck is found with the rear trailer. Because of its coupling system, the trailer works independently from the driving cab. A skilled driver needs to keep a watchful eye on the trailer using side view mirrors. Because of the independence of the trailer, the driver has no sense of the trailer's motion. There are now video cameras that can be installed in the trailer to allow drivers to be aware of the trailer’s movement.

The articulated truck is one of the most versatile hauling vehicles in the world. Because of its versatility and mobility, it is used in a variety of industries, not just construction. Think of the large logging companies that transport huge numbers of trees; this would not be possible without the articulated truck. The military has a huge fleet of various types of articulated trucks, some of which are specially armored. You even have the articulated truck to thank for your garbage collection once a week.

htThe Spicer Drive Shaft Div. of Dana Corp. recently installed 4 Aisle-Master narrow aisle, LP Gas internal combustion lift trucks at its Gordonsville, Tennessee, production facility.

The installation is part of an eleven-truck order for facilities in Michigan, Tennessee and Kentucky. The purpose was to create more space for production equipment and improve material flow between storage areas and production operations at these plants. Dana consolidated a number of operations into its Gordonsville, Tennessee facility and needed additional space within this facility to install production machinery, as well as to free up additional floor space for storage of raw materials and finished goods. The Aisle-Master lift trucks are a fundamental part of Dana’s initiative to increase productivity at it’s manufacturing plants where drive shafts are produced for the automotive industry.

Dana also used the opportunity to redesign much of the layout for a better flow of material between storage and production, improving cycle times and freeing trucks for additional activity.

The Spicer Driveshaft Division is an operating unit of Dana's Automotive Systems Group. Dana’s core businesses are the manufacturing of axles, driveshafts, structures, brake and chassis products, fluid systems, filtration products, and bearings and sealing products. Dana combines these products and a variety of strategic services to support the production and aftermarket service sectors of its primary markets, supplying products to automotive manufacturers as well as three internal strategic business units, including the Heavy Truck, Off-Highway, and Automotive Aftermarket Groups.

By reducing aisle widths from 13 ft or 15 ft to 8-ft at the Gordonsville facility, manufacturing and storage space was created without increasing the size of the buildings. “We were able to increase our inventory storage by an average of 40% across our three facilities,” points out Mark Stebing, Training, Ideas, and Safety Coordinator at Dana. “We were also able to increase our production space at Gordonsville by at least 20%,” he adds. “Re-working the interior layout for narrow-aisle storage and relying on a flexible, multi-purpose truck was less expensive than the anticipated costs of new construction.”

Because Dana works three shifts, seven days per week, the lift trucks needed to be extremely reliable because downtime on the trucks would also affect receiving and production operations. “The significance of downtime can’t be over emphasized. We evaluated electric vehicles but full-shift operation wasn’t adequate and battery change time reduced the operating cycles available to one shift or another,” Stebing comments. “With global capabilities we manufacture and provide just-in-time delivery of fully integrated driveline solutions anywhere in the world.” The Aisle-Master is designed to work in 6 ft-6 in. aisles, saving space in areas where aisles between 12 ft and 15 ft are necessary. The articulated design allows the truck to be maneuvered easily in confined surroundings and the LPG engine permits indoor and outdoor use.

“We have an eleven truck fleet at Gordonsville and, while the Aisle-Masters have the capability to load/unload trailers with the low collapsed height 187 in. triple masts, we chose to leave this function to other trucks in the plant that can’t otherwise handle inventory as efficiently,” Stebing comments.

Dana handles products in a variety of load configurations:

• 48 X 40 and 90 X 40 wood pallets

• Collapsible wire containers

• Bulk corrugated containers on wood pallet bases

• Stackable plastic tote boxes carried on a plastic pallet base

Much of the lift truck activity is moving components in wire containers from indoor rack storage to production. The trucks also remove empty containers from production to an outdoor storage area.

Aisle-Master’s United States product manager, Finbarr Collins, oversaw the truck demonstrations and training at the Dana facilities during each of the three shifts. Dana management viewed this as a significant commitment because it ensured that the requirements of both its department managers and truck operators were taken into consideration to ensure the truck could fulfil the tasks required in all areas of the plant.

The fact that a 3-way, catalytic converter and fuel system controller are fitted to the Aisle-Master’s LP Gas, GM engine means the truck can be used both inside and out. “I’m used to an electric truck environment and we attempted to go ‘green’ with this application, but the facility was large enough, the ventilation adequate, and the productivity gains sufficient to move in another direction,” says Stebing.

Another important consideration for Dana was the truck’s reliability and spare parts availability. “Parts availability and reliability were key issues in our decision making,” says Mr. Stebing. “The fact that the Aisle-Master is fitted with a GM engine and most of the other components are available from US suppliers was an influencing factor. We work seven days around the clock, therefore we cannot afford any downtime from our fork trucks.” In addition to Aisle-Master’s US centralised spare parts, dealers will also carry a recommended stock of service items for routine maintenance at a local level.

Another important issue was operator training because the articulated concept is different from reach or counterbalanced trucks. “I wish I had this truck years ago,” says Stebing. “It’s a hoot to drive.” Aisle-Master provides a very comprehensive operator training program that covers both safety and operational procedures.

“The articulated design of the Aisle-Master means that operators can be trained quickly and my experience is that after a couple of days the drivers actually prefer the truck from an operational point of view compared to reach or counterbalanced trucks” says Aisle-Master’s Joe O’Brien. Visibility is significantly better and there is no rear end swing making the truck highly maneuverable and can result in less product and rack damage.

The financial benefits for Dana since introducing the Aisle-Masters include the fact that the truck can be used throughout the plant, reducing the number of application specific and area specific trucks required. Double handing is also eliminated, when necessary, because the truck can take product directly from the manufacturing or storage areas to the delivery vehicle.
With the demand for greater efficiencies now more relevant than ever, versatile products such as Aisle-Master, which can generate up to 50% additional storage space, will continue to become a popular equipment choice.

http://www.mhmonline.com/nID/1032/MHM/viewStory.asptp://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-an-articulated-truck.htm

What is an Articulated Truck?

2008-02-03T21:21:00.003-08:00

Articulated Trucks: The ATVs of Construction

2008-02-03T21:21:00.001-08:00

The off-highway articulated truck, a cross between a tractor-trailer and an articulated loader, is one of the most versatile pieces of equipment ever invented. The secret of an AT is in the coupling and drive systems. The coupling system allows the power and drive sections to move independently of the load section. An oscillating ring attaches the two sections together and allows the two units to move in a rolling motion around its centerline. The second part of this joint is the pivot, which allows the truck to steer (yaw) like an articulated wheel loader and bend (pitch) over obstacles.

The versatility would be lost on rough ground without a good drive system. Most ATs have 6x6 drive (six wheels, all driven) capability on three axles, although there are 6x4 (six wheel, rear four driven) on three units available as well. Additionally, there are rare, more compact 4x4 units for very difficult terrain.

The AT’s performance over rough ground means a pretty unstoppable unit considering its ability to haul payloads up to 40 tons and 13 high clearance.

In the Operator’s Seat
As tough as they are, ATs are comfortable machines to operate. Because of the operating circumstances, rough-terrain operators tend to get jostled about in the cab. Newer equipment, such as Caterpillar’s 730, boasts cabin arrangements easily rivaling an upscale passenger car’s driver position, cup holder included.

The same versatility that makes the AT such a great performer is also its weakness under the hand of an unskilled operator. Because the unit’s rear portion is designed to pivot behind the cab, the back half of the AT will overturn, leaving the cab upright, if it backs onto a significant cross slope.

Operators have little or no feel for the motion of the unit’s back half because it operates independently of the cab. The unit’s side-view mirrors inform operators of what the rear portion is doing. An alternative is mounting a rear video-vision system. A small video camera on the rear of the unit is coupled to an in-cab screen, allowing the operator good rearward visibility for all hazards.

Multiple Personalities
The AT’s versatility has not gone unnoticed. Because of its range of movement and operating ability in difficult terrain, end users ranging from loggers to the armed forces have investigated the articulated truck for adaptability.

Volvo adapted its AT for military use. The A25C 6x6 Multi Purpose Vehicle is designed with a military grade drop-side flat deck in place of the conventional dump box. The unit also has an articulated crane mounted at the end of the box to facilitate unloading. Another version of the A25C is the 6x6, load-handling-system-equipped AT with armored cab and engine cover. This unit has a tilt-and-load hydraulic ramp system allowing it to drop containerized equipment or pallets in the field.

Hammar Maskin AB of Sweden has a version of the A25 with a side-unloading Hammar SL 20 BH container crane system, allowing off-road placement of containers. In this logistics role, the AT can deploy munitions and supplies or command centers and first-aid stations on almost any terrain.

Domestic applications include liquids hauling. In this application, a high-capacity tank replaces the dump box. These units are used in cleaning/water-spray applications, as fuel haulers to remote sites and as agricultural product-delivery systems and hydroseeders.

The tanker-on-AT combination is emerging as an important market since legislation increasingly is being passed to control dust on mining and construction sites.

As the AT evolves into an ever-increasing number of vocations, look for flat-bed options from manufacturers as well as special log-hauler, stake-and-rack bodies for forestry applications. At the same time, the vehicle will become a mainstay for sensitive environmental locations where low ground pressure is prescribed. Look for high-floatation tire options in this vocation as well as a track system for the tandem rear drive, converting the vehicle into an articulated half-track.

http://www.transportandconstruction.co.za/articles/article10.htm

Articulated enters joint LED development agreement with Grote

2008-02-03T21:20:00.000-08:00

Articulated Technologies has established a joint development agreement with Grote Industries to manufacture robust LED-based lighting for vehicles.

Articulated Technologies and Grote Industries are to embark on a series of technical development programs using Articulated's patent-pending manufacturing processes for building flat, flexible LED lighting.

In particular, Articulated has developed a process for fabricating LED-based light sheets by embedding a grid of LED chips between sheets of laminated conductive substrates (see Articulated Light-Sheet provides flexible lighting).

These processes will be used to design and manufacture LED-based lighting products that will be supplied by Grote.

The development program is expected to involve a 12-month time period to identify and implement cost-efficient manufacturing approaches.

Bill Grote, Chairman and CEO of Grote Industries said, “Grote is constantly seeking new leading edge technologies to deliver quality products to our customers. Articulated Technologies’ LED manufacturing solutions demonstrate great promise which both companies expect to prove during this development program.”

“We are delighted to be working with such a leading lighting company in the transportation industry," said John Daniels, chairman and founder of Articulated Technologies. "The Grote product line is well known around the world for quality and durability."

Articulated Technologies, based in Higganum, CT, creates and develops patented and proprietary low-cost manufacturing technologies related to LEDs and OLEDs. Its business model is to generate revenue from licensing and royalty enhancements of its patented technologies from leading manufacturers in core industries for LED products.

Grote Industries of Madison, Indiana,is one of the world’s leading designers and manufacturers of vehicle safety systems, serving automotive, truck, tractor, aviation and marine sectors, and its products include LED and reflective accessories. The company has manufacturing facilities in Madison, IN, Toronto and Waterloo, Canada, and Monterrey, Mexico.

http://ledsmagazine.com/articles/news/3/5/12/1

Buying File Gallery: Articulated Dump Trucks

2008-02-03T21:19:00.002-08:00

Lost Two Liters, Gained a Ton of Payload

The MT41 introduced at Conexpo-Con/Agg carries 2,000 pounds more payload than the truck it replaced, the MT40B II, and it's Moxy's first use of wet disc brakes. A drop in engine displacement, from Scania's DI14 diesel to its 12-liter DC12, is masked by the fact that the turbocharged and intercooled DC12 carries the same horsepower and torque ratings (429 horsepower and 1,367 ft.-lbs.) as the 14-liter predecessor. The MT41 outweighs the MT40B II by about 3,000 pounds.

Number of models: 4

New models: MT41

Product-line features: All of the Moxy ADTs route Scania diesel power through ZF drive trains. The MT36 II is the most powerful per ton of gross vehicle weight in the 35-ton class, and the other Moxies rank among the two or three most powerful in their size classes. Moxy claims its unique articulation joint distributes weight to the front wheels in all situations, including sharp turns. The ring that allows front and rear frames to oscillate side to side is in ahead of the swing point. And Moxy says sloping its rear chassis down to the joint also improves weight distribution to each wheel for added stability.

Komatsu

Different by Design

Komatsu is the most recent entry in the competition for articulated-dump-truck sales with a single-source power train. Komatsu ADTs diverge from the only makes that build their own engines, transmissions and drivelines (Cat and Volvo) with the Komatsu K-ATOMiCS countershaft transmission. Cat and Volvo use planetary-type transmissions. Komatsu breaks from all ADTs by speccing hydro-pneumatic struts in its rear suspension — a technology borrowed from its rigid-framed trucks.

Number of models: 3

Product-line features: All models have sealed wet-disc brakes, making the HM300-1 the only 30-ton truck in the world with them (Cat's 735 is the only other 35-ton truck with wet discs). Komatsu relies on the wet-disc brakes as a secondary retarder after the exhaust brake, but a transmission retarder is optional.

John Deere

Light Trucks Move Loads Fast

With one exception, John Deere's trucks are the lightest in each size class — Moxy's MT36II weighs about 500 pounds less than the 350D. Deere uses its own 8.1-liter PowerTech engines in the 250D and 300D, and ZF's Ecomat planetary transmissions. The 35- and 40-ton ADTs are powered by an 11.95-liter Mercedes V-6 diesel, through Allison planetaries. With good power-to-weight ratios, the Deere trucks are nimble even when loaded. Product manager Tim Averkamp says they deliver "haul cycle times in the range of 5 to 10 percent better than the competition."

Number of models: 4

Product-line features: John Deere is working to move production of articulated dump trucks — under license from Bell, which currently builds the trucks in South Africa — to an existing Deere factory in Davenport, Iowa. All four trucks are expected to be built there by year's end, for distribution throughout the Americas.

Volvo

Big Torque Gains from Smaller Diesel

Volvo traded the 9.6-liter Volvo D10 diesel for the 9.4-liter D9 used in the A25D and A30D. Horsepower dropped slightly in the 25-ton truck and increased slightly in the 30-tonner, but the big change is the torque increase. Net torque in the A25D jumped 25 percent, and the A30D saw a 20 percent increase. Volvo says their average fuel efficiency (measured in cubic yards moved per gallon of fuel) improved 5 to 7 percent.

Number of models: 5

Product-line features: The A35D and A40D are now being produced with Volvo's D12D V-ACT engine, which recirculates a portion of the exhaust to the combustion chamber internally. There's no exhaust aftertreatment. The Tier-3-compliant engines will handle high-sulfur diesel fuel. Volvo builds its entire driveline — engines, planetary transmissions, and axles with locking dog-clutch differentials.

Caterpillar

30-Ton Ejector Truck

At Conexpo-Con/Agg, Caterpillar announced the 730 Ejector Truck, a dump-body alternative that Cat applied three years ago to its 40-ton truck. Rather than tipping the load from the cargo box, the ejector's hydraulic ram pushes a moldboard rearward to shove material out. Recent changes across Cat's ADT line include a cab redesign with new instrument cluster and vehicle monitor. Cat also redesigned the elastomer suspension blocks mounted at the rear bogey, claiming they will last more than twice as long as the previous blocks.

Number of models: 6

New models: 730 Ejector

Product-line features: Cat applies its wet-clutch power-transmission technology not only in the planetary transmissions, but also in the ADT's differentials. Interaxle differentials, which divide torque between the front and rear drives, use wet-plate, multi-disc clutches to transfer torque to the slowest turning member or provide 100-percent lockup on demand. Differentials in each axle also use wet clutches, allowing them to be locked on the go as well.

Terex

Boosted Engine and Braking Power

Engine changes in the TA25, TA27 and TA30 to meet Tier 3 emissions regulations upgraded each model's Cummins horsepower (16 percent more power in the TA30). Terex also boosted braking power by choosing dual-caliper dry disc brakes for these trucks, and making an engine-exhaust retarder standard equipment. The TA40 has been upgraded with wet-disc brakes all around.

Number of models: 5

New models: TA25, TA27 and TA30

Product-line features: Terex chooses Detroit Diesel Series 60 engines for the TA35 and TA40. All Terex trucks deliver power through ZF powershift transmissions, a lockable interaxle differential, and limited-slip differentials on each axle.

Case

Powerful New Contender at 40 Tons

Case doubled its ADT lineup in January, adding 35- and 40-ton models to its 25- and 30-ton offerings. The 335 and 340 are powered by a Case-branded Iveco Cursor diesel with variable geometry turbocharger, and ZF countershaft transmissions and limited-slip differentials. The new front driveline has a limited-slip differential mounted on the transmission, which transfers power directly to each front wheel end via a pair of transaxles. This front drive system adds 4 inches of suspension travel. The 340 is Case's only ADT with wet-disc brakes.

Number of models: 4

New models: 335 and 340

Product-line features: Case ADTs, manufactured in the CNH joint venture with Astra in Italy, have the lightest payload ratings in each of their size classes. For example, the 340's 79,366-pound capacity is 4,400 pounds less than the highest-rated 40-ton hauler. But with fairly brawny engines, the Case trucks deliver high power-to-weight ratios. The 340 leads 40-tonners in terms of net horsepower per ton.

JCB

22-Ton 6×6 Is Largest in the Line

Last year JCB introduced its largest ADT and first 6×6 model, the 22-ton 722, with a 5.9-liter JCB diesel engine. Dump angle is increased to 74 degrees to clear cargo faster. The 722 uses a variable displacement piston pump to manage the hydraulic effort, reserving power for the drive train.

Number of models: 3

New models: 722

Product-line features: Like the two 4×4 JCB trucks, the 722 uses ZF's Smoothshift automatic transmission and Super Max Trac limited-slip differentials. With capacities of 14, 18, and 22 tons, JCB has no ADT competitors in North America.

http://www.constructionequipment.com/article/CA605793.html?industryid=23401

Articulated Trucks: Growing into Their Rough-Rider Image?

2008-02-03T21:19:00.001-08:00

Articulated dump trucks exist solely to carry a heavy load fast over rough terrain. They have been in widespread use less than 20 years, and manufacturers are finally beginning to build trucks that will take the punishment a hard-hat cowboy can dish out after he's seen the brochure pictures of these six-by-six contortionists working axle-deep in mud.

"The first thing project managers do when they get articulated trucks is save money by cutting out maintenance on the haul roads," says Todd Perrine, equipment manager with Kokosing Construction in Fredricktown, Ohio. "One of the highest incidences of back injuries among equipment operators come from guys in artic trucks. They're getting thrown around in the cab."

With the guys who live and die by job costs planning to move dirt on rough roads, Perrine says the trucks seldom last as long as Kokosing would like. When he shops for articulated dump trucks (ADTs), he looks for an overbuilt drive train. The selection has been improving.

The ADT market leaders, Volvo and Caterpillar, draw their durability ace from being integrated manufacturers, meaning they build their own engines, transmissions, and other driveline components. Their proposition: If you build the drive system for maximum efficiency and durability, you can do a better job than those who buy components from vendors and assemble a driveline. The reasoning seems sound, but there are still plenty of ADT users who rent trucks for enough hours to justify a purchase. They prefer to rent because they don't know how long the machines will last.

Until Komatsu's entrance with the HM400-1 in 2001, Volvo and Cat were the only integrated ADT manufacturers. Komatsu has marketed its trucks largely from the durability angle, and the tactic seems to be affecting the intensity of ADT competition.

Komatsu's 40-ton truck rolled out on power-train components adapted from rock trucks and wheel loaders. And in a move that asserts its commitment to durability, Komatsu is the only manufacturer that puts the sealed, wet-disc brakes on their 30-ton truck that serious ADT contenders reserve for 40-tonners. (Caterpillar does include wet-discs on its 35-ton 735.) Relying on the sealed brakes as retarders, too, plays into the durability claim. Komatsu says it results in less stress on the drive train than transmission retarders, which transmit brake torque through the driveline out to the wheel ends.
Components improving

Of course, the ADT field is replete with stout trucks manufacturers have assembled from venerable off-the-shelf components to serve buyers who want to save some money up front. Comparing 30-ton models, Deere, Terex, the CNH brands (Case, New Holland, Link-Belt), and Moxy sell trucks whose list prices average nearly $70,000 less than the three integrated manufacturers. The hourly ownership cost of a $310,000 assembled machine is nearly $2.40 less than that of a $350,000 unit, even if the less expensive unit falls 10 percent (700 hours) short of the integrated machine's lifetime usage.

Most of the assemblers buy ZF's 6WG260 countershaft transmission, and all of them drive ZF axles with limited-slip differentials in their 30-ton and smaller models. The electronic controller in the new series of this ZF gearbox engages the oncoming gear's clutch before the clutch being released is fully disengaged. The result is uninterrupted delivery of torque. Reduced shock loading and larger clutch discs have stretched the anticipated life of the transmission to 10,000 hours.

Deere and Terex have the only trucks in the 30-ton class with planetary transmissions (both are ZF models). With no countershaft to spin, planetaries transfer more input-shaft torque to the axles. They also tend to be a little lighter and more rugged than countershaft alternates. That's why planetary transmissions are common in 35- and 40-ton ADTs. With the TA30 introduced last month, Terex upped the ante in the 30-ton class significantly by going to ZF's model 310. The same gearbox is used in some 40-ton ADTs.

The key benefits of virtually all engine/ transmission pairings today result from integration of electronic controllers. Linking the two computers allows wonders like simultaneously disengaging one clutch and engaging another, and adapting the clutch performance to manage driveline torque. You have to watch the tach closely to discern when the machine is shifting in the higher ranges.
Traction-control controversy

Virtually all ADTs have a switch the operator can throw to lock up the transfer case that proportions transmission output torque between the front and rear axles. Flip the switch and the drivelines fore and aft lock up to deliver equal amounts of power¡ªit's sometimes called longitudinal differential lock. Only Volvo and Caterpillar continue to offer locking differentials for each axle. That's transverse diff lock.

Caterpillar challenged the long-established dog clutches that Volvo uses for transverse lock-up with wet-disc clutches. Discs allow the Cat operator to throw on 100 percent transverse lock even when the wheels are spinning.

All other truck manufacturers use limited-slip differentials for transverse traction control. The diff switch in their cabs is only for longitudinal lock. Limited-slip is always on, which makes the operator's job easier. It also makes the axles a little less expensive than lock-up clutches. Limited-slip proponents are quick to point out that it saves tires and driveline damage, and is quite effective in wheel loaders and other off-road equipment. But there's no guarantee they'll get your hardhat cowboy out of every quagmire that 100-percent locked axles will pull.
Creature comforts

Articulated-truck designers seem to be using sport-utility vehicles as a benchmark for cab comfort. Lists of creature comforts include power windows, heated mirrors with remote control, air-ride seats with adjustable lumbar support, and beverage coolers. The instructor's seat in the new Terex folds forward so you can use the lunch tray and cup holders mounted on its back (like in minivans). You get the impression the marketers would just love to add a six-disc CD changer and retractable running boards.

It's easy to take shots at the cab refinements because friction clutches and tractor seats were common on equipment as recently as 30 years ago. But the features are clearly intended to make operators more productive by keeping them more comfortable.

Productivity continues to be the articulated dump truck's overriding objective. It keeps material moving when hauls are wet or rough. Manufacturers are competing for share of this market (which has nearly tripled in size over the past 15 years) with more durable transmissions, axles and brakes. And that makes it easier to meet the objective.
30-Ton Articulated Trucks: Wheel-to-Wheel
Make/Model Payloads (lbs.) Top speed (mph) Dump cycle (seconds) Outside turn radium Vehicle weight (lbs) Engine Torque (ft.lbs.) List price
One impressive number doesn't guarantee a productive ADT. For example, Deere's lightweight 30-ton truck has the best horsepower-to-weight ratio in the class, even with the smallest engine. Less-measurable numbers such as how often they get stuck make a big difference in choosing the right one.

http://www.constructionequipment.com/article/CA471255.html?taxid=8101

Self-cleaning ejector articulated truck

2008-02-03T21:09:00.000-08:00

Because the body is not raised, the ejector truck can work efficiently on sites where overhead obstacles or stability issues limit the use of conventional dump trucks.

Rated at 38 tonnes, the 740 Ejector produces net power of 309kW (415hp). It incorporates all the features of the 740 articulated truck, including a new electronically controlled engine and transmission, plus a new suspension system, hitch design, rear-mounted cooling system and centre-mounted cab.

The 740 Ejector truck and 740 Articulated truck are sold as separate product lines, and the bodies are not interchangeable.

Both models offer excellent productivity in rough terrain, making them valuable tools for general construction, road building, sand and gravel hauling, land restoration, mine reclamation and landfill operations.

The load ejection concept delivers many benefits. Material can be spread while the truck is moving to cut cycle time, decrease power train loads and reduce the amount of support equipment needed for spreading and dozing.

The ejector also prevents material from adhering to the inside of the truck body after the dump, so payload can be maximised, improving productivity, reducing fuel consumption and lowering cost per tonne.

Ejecting a load without raising the body increases stability, so the truck can work on inclines, side slopes and in very soft underfoot. The truck also excels in tunneling and underground applications and on sites where overhead obstacles such as conveyors, power lines or bridges interfere with dumping.

The reinforced ejector body is made from high-yield, heat-treated steel. Its top rails incorporate the same steel used on the Cat 769D Off-Highway Truck. The ejector mechanism includes a high-strength blade and technology similar to that on Cat Wheel Tractor scrapers, plus a four-stage, double-acting cylinder, specifically designed for horizontal mounting, which is centrally supported and nitrite-hardened for long service life.

The truck is powered by a Cat 3406E ATAAC (air-to-air aftercooled) turbocharged engine with electronic unit injection fuel system.

The engine offers superior acceleration and lugging forces on steep grades and in tough underfoot conditions, as well as excellent fuel efficiency and reduced emissions.

It works in partnership with a seven-speed electronically controlled transmission, based on the design of the Caterpillar 769 Off-Highway Truck.

The integrated system coordinates engine speed, torque converter lock-up and transmission clutch engagements to produce smooth shifting and long drive train life.

Other enhancements include a new rear-mounted radiator that improves forward visibility and service access; a new front suspension system that provides a smoother ride and longer life; a new box-section front frame, designed to decrease stress in the hitch area and optimise suspension geometry; and a new more rugged hitch, a twopiece articulating, oscillating design that ensures all-wheel ground contact in rough terrain.

The 740 Ejector features a spacious, quiet, work environment with exceptional all-around viewing area. The new center-mounted cab delivers a comfortable ride, reducing operator fatigue and enhancing productivity throughout the shift.

A new fully adjustable Cat Comfort air suspension seat, easy-to-read instruments, ergonomically placed controls and an electronic monitoring system further enhance comfort and productivity. A full-size training seat is also included.

To reduce downtime, increase availability and lower cost per tonne, the 740 Ejector offers extended engine and hydraulic oil change intervals, extended life coolant and adjustment-free wheel bearings.

Lubrication points are grouped for convenience, as are service points under the hood. The hood is raised and lowered electrically, with a manual override provided. Test points are behind the cab and accessible from the ground.

The engine can be removed and installed in one piece, reducing service time. The new suspension system eliminates the need to lower the suspension during transport, saving time and effort.

AGCO Present New Fendt 716 Vario Tractor Test

2008-01-29T23:18:00.003-08:00

AGCO, the same company that brings you brands like Massey Ferguson, Gleaner, Iseki, Challenger and Valtra, presents new technology Fendt 716 Vario Tractors.

Tractor technology has come a long way in the past few years, to the point where a modern tractor might have several on-board computers running the show.

Terry Stevenson (of Farm Trader magazine, New Zealand) tests the Fendt’s 716 Vario, a machine that impresses with its electronics.

Marc Diprose is a lower-order sharemilker on his parents’ family farm.

Marc and his father Cliff milk 300 cows through an 18 aside herringbone shed on the mostly flat 70ha farm situated 5 minutes from Matamata.

As well as the main dairy farm, the Diprose family also have a 50ha run-off 4.5km away, utilised to carry their young stock and around half the herd over winter.

Their farm tractor is an 80hp Massey Ferguson 4235 from AGCO, which tackles the feeding out and day-to-day farm work, including travelling to the run-off.

Marc is very happy with the Massey Ferguson, which replaced an old 2WD 265 model, particularly with the sloping bonnet while working with the loader.

The past four years, Marc’s second job is doing contract work in the Matamata area – now with his 10-month-old Fendt Vario 716 tractor.

It keeps him busy, but not year-round.

Marc explains what drove him into a Fendt.

“Basically its reputation is what got us looking at it, and the more you look the more you like it. It is very well made.

Aside from its electronics, everything is steel with very little plastic – cast everything, and it’s a solid tractor.

It’s compact – a lot of tractors of that horsepower are quite big and clumsy and for the work I do, that’s an issue.

Around Matamata especially – with the paddock sizes being a bit smaller than elsewhere.”

The 50kph top speed is a great help, too, and Marc raved about how good it was after a long day’s work with the front wheel and cab suspension.

He’s always looking for extra work, he says, as the Fendt is currently mainly used for silage loader wagon work, mowing, undersowing and direct drilling, with only a little bit of cultivation.

Fendt has sold over 35,000 Vario models worldwide as members of the US-based AGCO Corporation, which now includes Valtra, and is the world’s third largest manufacturer and distributor of agricultural equipment.

Fendt tractors are produced by around 1900 employees in a small town near Munich, Germany, and this year it is celebrating 75 years since their original Dieselross (Diesel Horse) tractor, built in 1930 by Johann Fendt.

Marc’s Vario 716 replaced a 135hp Massey Ferguson 6092 and, while he said he doesn’t actually need all of the available 170hp on tap just yet, he certainly hasn’t looked back by choosing an overpowered machine that does the job more easily.

“We use it all on the loader wagon. Probably 150hp is enough, but a little extra is nice for pulling its weight when full, it can weigh a good 10 tonne. It’s plenty for the undersower, but then the undersowers are getting bigger and heavier now. It definitely has plenty of power but once you’ve had plenty, you don’t want to go back!”

With a 2700mm wheelbase, the Vario 716 is a relatively small tractor for its power output. Diprose took it up some steep hills where I thought it would really struggle. Even on wet ground, the Fendt’s wheels hardly slipped as it clawed its way upwards in 4WD. The variable drive definitely showed its mettle and worth, because if it can get up those sorts of inclines, imagine the situations it can get out of in a difficult paddock with a large implement on the back.

The cab isn’t as big or roomy as I thought it would be. Forward visibility was great, although the cab pillars are quite large, perhaps all the better for safety for a tractor of this weight. About the only thing missing inside this F16-like cockpit is that it doesn’t have any sort of storage box, other than a tiny tray for the manuals. If you look hard, you’ll find a couple drink holders, but I guess you’ll have to leave your sandwiches on the dash where they’ll cook! A small kiddy’s seat comes standard, along with nice big mirrors and a ton of outside lights. Near the fully digital dash is a comprehensive diagnostic system and on the easy to understand dash is a basic symbol to let the operator know which range they are in. A bar graph advises the level of wheel slip, when required.

The Variotronic controller is the heart of this Fendt. There are three main elements to the Vario system: the joystick, monitor and the control console. There are multi-functions for everything, some even crossover various control modes. The joystick is the most important driver control, as this is the operator’s main take off, accelerate, slow and stop lever all rolled into one. To get going, the driver has to pull in a safety toggle at the back of the joystick, before pushing the stick forward to signal the computer you wish to move forward. Continue to hold it in the forward position and the machine will accelerate to your pre-set speed, or until you bring the stick into the neutral position. Want to slow down? Just pull it back until you reach your desired speed or, hold it back and the 6200kg Fendt will stop in its tracks.

The real value for the contractor is the Vario system that allows the operator to adjust and control just about everything. From hydraulic pumping flow rates and durations, linkage rise, fall and height, transmission, PTO take-up, rpm and slow down speeds, clutch action, wheel slip, pre-set memories for different implements, an area meter, radar/non radar for ground speed (Marc uses this to gain an accurate area count when drilling and sowing), headland management and a multitude of other functions.

The engine is a 5.7-litre six-cylinder Deutz diesel powerplant with four valves per cylinder and six-hole injection nozzles. It pumps out a fat 169hp from 1800 to 2100rpm, and a whopping 724Nm of torque from 1400 to 1500rpm. That’s one flexible and very quiet running engine.

One of Marc’s biggest surprises was that the Vario 716 uses less diesel than its replacement. “With the gearbox always at the right speed for the job, it’s quite efficient. It uses less fuel than the tractor it replaced, which had 30hp less. So it’s definitely a bonus in that area.”

Even though it has a clutch and a foot throttle, by far the best way to drive it is by setting the engine speed on the dial and using the joystick for forward movement.

Marc has the engine set at 1000rpm for loader wagon and power harrowing work, and 1200rpm for general driving.

For my benefit we electronically swapped forward and reverse control from the joystick to the left hand shuttle, which I’m more used to.

But after a short time I found the joystick was a better system, it just takes getting used to.

There are far too many features on the Fendt to list them all, but I was taken by the build quality and sheer strength of even the over engineered steel plates and bars, which the wide front guards mount onto. Check out the big stabiliser bars and the huge cast chassis.

The rear guards are extended to cover the entire Pirelli tyres while the seven radiators are all easily accessible to clean – one of the best.

http://www.fatcow.com.au/articles/56/0C042D56.aspx

When Ross Cook and his family started Coastal Tipper Hire on the Gold Coast 13 years ago, he had little idea that it would grow into a company employi

2008-01-29T23:18:00.001-08:00

When Ross Cook and his family started Coastal Tipper Hire on the Gold Coast 13 years ago, he had little idea that it would grow into a company employing 80 people and operating 50 trucks, seven wheel loaders, five excavators, mobile crushing and screening plant and sand pits, quarries and recycling yards.

All Coast Recycling started in 2004 as a way to secure supply of raw materials, and it processes skip and tipper rubble and returns from concrete agitators to produce scalps for use under slabs, soils, 20 mm bedding material for pipes and 75 mm material used for drainage behind retaining walls and base course for temporary and permanent roads.

These products are supplied to the Gold Coast and Brisbane, and an operation will soon open on the Sunshine Coast.

Because of his past good relationship with Daewoo /Doosan Construction Equipment Australia salesman Drago Leskarac, Cook agreed to trial a Doosan 300DL loader in his Reedy Creek quarry when he was looking for a wheel loader for his Southport recycling yard. Ross looks for reliability, economy, driver comfort and resale value when considering equipment, and looks to replace equipment after three years so that it remains reliable.

The loader works hard, with 10 hour days during the week and six hours on Saturdays, and over 800 hours have been clocked up in a little over five months. Apart from loading trucks (200 – 250 per day), the loader cleans out under the crushers, pushes up stockpiles and carries slabs of concrete (often too big to fit in the bucket) to the crusher.

Operator Peter Jupe says, “The automatic transmission works well, and the loader gets good power to the ground for pushing up stockpiles. “

The loader’s cab comfort also got a tick, with the quietness, roominess and good vision getting special mention, and detail items like the heated external mirrors and the location of the grease points have also impressed Peter.

http://www.infolink.com.au/articles/26/0C045E26.aspx

Next generation wheeled loader From JCB

2008-01-29T23:15:00.000-08:00

Newly released in Australia, the JCB Series 2 wheeled loaders bring with them new styling, increased cabin space and higher productivity values.

Design styling on the Series 2 models is ultramodern – most noticeably in the cabin area, which now offers 50% additional space over previous models. Operators enjoy significantly improved comfort, seating, working area and visibility. With air-conditioning as standard, the features offered by the new cabin ensure operators have the very best working environment.

JCB’s new 456 wheeled loader model

“Dependent on the model, productivity has increased by between 6% and 12% over the earlier Series 1 models - meaning more tonnage of material can be moved each hour,” Glenn McLeod, JCB Sales Product Manager, Construction Equipment Australia says.

“The styling changes have also enabled the introduction of new levels of serviceability across the range with all daily checks now carried out at ground level – improving safety and reducing time spent by operators on these duties.”

A further benefit of the new styling is the incorporation of a remote cooling system. Besides making it easy to clean both sides of the cleaning pack from ground level, the unit provides reduced noise levels and an improved performance in high, ambient and dusty environments.

Other major improvements have been made with the steering circuit and steer rams that now incorporate ‘end rod damping’ thus improving smoothness and response.

Providing outstanding performance and lower operating costs in a reliable hard working package, both Z-Bar and tool carrier front ends are available throughout the range to maximise application versatility of the Series 2 models.

JCB is on the record as saying it is making a major investment in the development and support of its heavy line product range - as exemplified with the recent released JS Auto excavators. Now, teamed with the new Series 2 Wheeled Loaders, it is clear that JCB is making a serious assault on the big end of the market.

http://www.infolink.com.au/articles/98/0C042698.aspx