oPetrol, a China-based supplier of cutting machines, announced it is offering a Portable CNC cutting machine to its Reference Program winners from all over the world..

The Reference Program, with the breath-taking low price offer and a limited quota set for each country, is aiming at establishing references global wide for the portable cutting machine, which is the first of its type in the market.

The quota set for the USA and Canada is one reference only for each state. Applicants who wish to join this Reference Program have to be quick to win the special offer. Applicants have to be end-users who will set up the machine in their own workshop.

The winners will enter a few simple obligations, such as to let their contact information published on the reference list; giving comment to people who might contact them; and so on. The portable CNC cutting machine can cut complex plane figures designed with AutoCAD software. It looks very much alike a semi-automatic cutting trolley but with the same functions as those of the large-size CNC gantry cutting machines. With its USB port, the data transmission from a PC to the cutting machine is as easy as downloading photos from a digital camera. The machine is compact and rational in design. It is light, small, ease to operate, supports both flame cutting torch and plasma cutters.

A CNC Plasma Cutting Machine Manufacturer Offers Breath-Taking Low Price to First Buyer in Every State

Beijing ESS Ltd., a China-based supplier of cutting machines, announced it is offering a Portable CNC cutting machine at a very striking low price to its Reference Program winners from all over the world.

The Reference Program, with the breath-taking low price offer and a limited quota set for each country and state, is aiming at establishing references global wide for the company’s portable CNC plasma cutting machine, which is the first of its type in the world market.

The quota set for the USA and Canada is one reference only for each state. Applicants who wish to join this Reference Program have to be quick to win the special offer. Applicants have to be end-users who will set up the machine in their own workshop.

The winners will enter a few simple obligations, such as to let their contact information published on the reference list; giving comment to people who might contact them, etc.

What is more interesting, according to the company, they are going to offer a very attractive commission to all of their reference users whenever they introduce more customers to the company. This program seems warmly welcome by the market and very likely many of the reference users will turn into the company’s dealers in the end.

“Our reference users are mostly from the business of machinery or metal art. They were all very impressed by the portable CNC plasma cuttign machine by its price and performance.” Said Flora Miao, President of the company.

Motivated also by the big margin offered, some reference users decided to set up a business selling this portable CNC plasma cutting machine.

“People did not trust us at the beginning. We did everything to establish our credibility. We got ISO 9001:2000 certified. The portable CNC plasma cutting machine is nearly finished CE Certification by SGS. The CSA certification is also on-going. “ Said Miao.

CAD/CAM provider accentuates web presence Camtek has launched a major redesign of its worldwide online presence at its website to provide enhanced services and information to its customer and dealer network. The website has undergone a complete transformation, and now boasts a new navigation system as well as access to a comprehensive search facility on every page. New video content has also been included, with high quality video case studies now streaming directly from the site.

Product information has been enhanced, with more high resolution screenshots available for viewing/download.

A dealer download centre is also available, allowing Camtek resellers and OEMs immediate access to the latest software applications, help documents and ancillary files.

Commented Martin Bailey, Group marketing manager, site designer and author of ‘Marketing your Business’ said that the website receives a considerable amount of traffic.

‘I therefore wanted to optimise it to ensure that visitors can locate the content they want quickly’.

‘There are several ways to get to the same content, and you are never more than three clicks away from a page.’ Added Terry Antrobus, director of sales and marketing; ‘We applied these changes in response to our customer feedback’.

‘People wanted to see more product information, and with broadband now commonplace they also wanted richer media content’.

‘We plan to increase the number of product and customer videos online over the next few months, and to regularly refresh the content with new material.’

A long-standing furniture and kitchen manufacturer in New Zealand has teamed with Australian software supplier Planit to streamline its design and manufacturing processes.

Funnell’s, a family business for 55 years, is renowned for designing and manufacturing bedroom furniture for retailers and small commercial kitchens and domestic kitchens across New Zealand.

But operating on a predominantly manual programming, company management needed to change to accommodate the proliferation of AutoCAD drawing technology in the industry with its own manufacturing processes.

Funnell’s entered into a supply and ongoing support agreement with Australia-based Planit for its cabinet vision software.

Manufacturing Manager, Mr Chris Funnell, says that the investment in cabinet vision has allowed the company to achieve several world-class capabilities, among these being the speed, accuracy and flexibility to profitably do ‘one-off’ kitchens at a domestic and commercial level.

"Because we had been running a predominantly manual system, requests for ‘one-off’ kitchen design and manufacture could rarely be met because the time/cost factor involved was uncompetitive on our high speed line," said Mr Funnell.

"But cabinet vision has all but transformed our business; rather than just being a design software, the technology communicates the designs to our manufacturing systems and executes production quickly and cost efficiently and gives us complete job transparency.

"It is a complete design and manufacturing manager for us; because the data provided is very detailed it also greatly assists in reverse engineering for whenever quality assurance stipulations are required.

"And the ongoing assistance from Planit with training, technical support and technology upgrades has allowed us to expect even more growth."

Engineered whole and solely for the woodworking industry, cabinet vision is a screen-to-machine software. For those workshops automating their businesses with CNC equipment, cabinet vision is fully integrated with the Planit CNC centre, therefore providing a complete screen-to-machine solution and confirms all parts and part operations before sending data to the factory.

cabinet vision is easy to set-up for the building of cabinets using favourite joinery techniques. Based on a simple wizard, it allows the creation of unlimited set-ups, mixes various settings per job and changes from one style to another instantly and allows saving of the construction methods for use over and over again.

Its simplicity of use is such that the operator simply sketches a room layout, places kitchen objects, and the software auto builds the cabinets, counters, mouldings and anything else that might be required.

An operator can customise cabinet sizes, shape, or any construction to suit the customer’s needs. Colours and textures can be selected for the whole room or for individual cabinets and parts. Lighting and reflections can be controlled to bring these designs to life well before any manufacturing has begun.

TiNives (Fortson, Georgia) produces 5- to 7-ounce knives that feature a blend of balance, precision and innovation. "Our first product, which we call the Zero Play knife, was introduced at the Blade Show in Atlanta in 1998," says TiNives president and owner Scott Self. "While most folding knives feature about 20 parts, ours has more than 100. In addition, our first knife featured more than half a dozen innovations that the industry had never seen before."

TiNives knives are complex to design and machine, Mr. Self explains. "It takes more than 900,000 lines of code to produce one of our knives."

The button mechanism that opens the knife is extraordinarily smooth, pivoting on 84 ceramic balls that have a finish measured in tens of thousandths of an inch. "The nature of ceramic," explains Mr. Self, "is that it burnishes and polishes, so that the knife keeps getting smoother and smoother over time, without any surface removal. While most companies are dealing in thousandths of an inch, we’re dealing in tens of thousandths. That’s a lot more complex."

Material selection is also key. TiNives uses standard blade steel for the body and materials such as titanium and aircraft aluminum for knife handles. The knife handle features blind tapping holes, something that is difficult to do. The titanium knife handle is not only a complex sculpted shape that delivers excellent grip and feel, but it also features a textured surface etched into it, according to the company.

The complexity of TiNives’ products demanded both design and machining software that was on the cutting edge. TiNives looked at a number of CAM systems. "One was priced at $30,000, and we thought it was overkill—after all, we weren’t looking at machining airplanes and automobiles. As for the other, it just appeared to be very complicated program," says Mr. Self. So TiNives turned to SURFCAM software from Surfware, Inc. (Westlake Village, California). "We first saw SURFCAM at a machine shop in Florida," says Mr. Self, "and we knew almost immediately that it was the software for us. We showed them the knife we were working on, and the shop owner got on his laptop computer, imported IGES files from our Microcadam design, and two hours later showed us the texturing we wanted mapped directly onto a sculpted surface, in titanium. It was very impressive. We were literally sold on the spot. We had never seen this kind of texturing program in a CAM program."