HEADLINE PRODUCTS

Progressive Eases Year-End Changeovers 

Progressive Components has made year-end date stamp changeovers even more convenient with the development of its new online order form, located at www.procomps.com/date.  

The company announces this straightforward new order process and emphasizes that it also offers the widest selection of competitively priced daters and date plugs in the industry.  In addition, Progressive provides customers with easy-to-use templates, making it easy to retrofit its date stamps and plugs with other brands.

Ewikon HPS III-MH Nozzle Advances Side Gating for Medical, Packaging 

The new HPS III-MH nozzle from EWIKON has been designed for demanding applications in the medical or packaging industry and allows gating with a heat conductive tip insert directly onto the parts surface. This avoids cold slugs in the gate and guarantees a high quality gate vestige. 

In the conception stage, EWIKON engineers focused on the most economic integration into the mold as well as easy maintenance. The result is a completely new installation system for the tip inserts. This allows for easy integration in a standard one-piece mold insert and therefore a cost-efficient mold design. The tip inserts are installed from the parting line of the mold in the last assembly step after the nozzle body and the manifold have been installed. Thus, if required they can be exchanged easily without having to dismantle the mold.  

The HPS III-MH nozzle is available in two versions. The radial version allows for gating of up to 8 parts simultaneously. The linear version has two rows of four tips with a minimum distance of 11 mm between the cavities. For example, an inline arrangement of three linear nozzles gives 24-drop gating in two rows with a length of less than 180 mm. 

CNC Software Unveils Mastercam X3  

CNC Software announces the release of Mastercam X3 with expanded machining flexibility and an increased emphasis on speed and automation – all intended to improve shop floor productivity.  

The most significant highlights and new functionality are: 

• Feature Based Machining – FBM evaluates a part’s features and automatically designs an effective machining strategy.

• 2D High Speed Toolpaths – Offers many additional benefits including superior finish and longer tool life.

• Faster Multiaxis Toolpaths – Substantially faster multiaxis toolpaths combined with enhanced control.

• Mastercam in SolidWorks – Designers who work with the world’s leading CAD system can now program those parts with the world’s leading CAM toolpaths in the same interface. This package will be released after the general release of Mastercam X3.