You raise a good issue issue, Naperlou, about the sustainability and support of these new technologies once developed and deployed. Do they need updating and maintenance to stay in working condition? If so, who's trained to fix and support them and where do they get replacement parts or fixes, if they are necessary. Hopefully the engineers and designers working on these types of innovations look at it from the complete lifecycle, from manufacture through maintinability, and in the context of the remote environments. You have to assume they do, but you never know.
This is a good type of philanthropy. On the other hand, getting it out there in general use will be the big challenge. I know a group that was helping to distribute generators that ran on a tropical plant. These could be self contained units and dropped in to an isolated settlement. I don't hear much about it these days. i wonder if these efforts to put technology in places with none can be effective in the long run. Perhaps if they help people get out of the poverty they live in now they will become obsolete. We'll see.
For 3D printing to make the jump from rapid prototyping to manufacturing, engineers will need to find easier ways to move products from their CAD screens to their printers.
Gigabit and PoE are two networking technologies moving ahead in tandem as industrial users power remote Ethernet devices such as IP security cameras at 1,000 Mbps over existing CAT5 cable.
New versions of BASF's Ecovio line are both compostable and designed for either injection molding or thermoforming. These combinations are becoming more common for the single-use bioplastics used in food service and food packaging applications, but are still not widely available.
From Dell / Intel® New Paradigms in Design Work Scott Hamilton, vertical market strategist for Dell Precision workstations, 5/2/2013 5
Early in my career, I worked as a draftsman and remember the days of drawing on vellum with numbered pencils and Mylar with plastic lead. This was a fun experience in the sense that I ...
I've been using workstations for more than 10 years and love finding ways to get more performance from my system. With demanding professional applications that require more power each ...
A lasting memory from my first job as an engineer in an auto assembly plant is standing on hard concrete at six in the morning, vending-machine coffee clutched in hand, listening to ...
For industrial control applications, or even a simple assembly line, that machine can go almost 24/7 without a break. But what happens when the task is a little more complex? That’s where the “smart” machine would come in. The smart machine is one that has some simple (or complex in some cases) processing capability to be able to adapt to changing conditions. Such machines are suited for a host of applications, including automotive, aerospace, defense, medical, computers and electronics, telecommunications, consumer goods, and so on. This radio show will show what’s possible with smart machines, and what tradeoffs need to be made to implement such a solution.
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