Tom Scanlan discusses how Surplus Record connects buyers with sellers of machinery and equipment. The company was founded 97 years ago after World War I by Thomas P. Scanlan, who went door to door down "manufacturers row" in Chicago. Now, it's one of the leading business directories for new surplus and used capital equipment, listing metalworking and fabricating machine tools, chemical and process equipment, cranes, air compressors, pumps, motors, circuit breakers, generators and turbines.
CNC Machinery
CNC machines are computer-operated, which allows engineers to use a CAD program to create an ideal design. The machine then takes this plan and replicates it in the material being worked on, saving time and effort.
The programmability of CNC machinery means that it can be used to produce a wide variety of parts. For example, a CNC drilling machine can drill holes of different sizes into materials like metal and plastic. It’s also possible to use CNC machines to bend tubular materials like pipes. A CNC tubing bender, for instance, allows manufacturers to create curved metal products with accuracy. For example, the oil and gas industry relies on New and used machinery to manufacture equipment components that can withstand high and low temperatures and pressure. Similarly, the defense industry needs durable materials that meet government regulations. Using a CNC machine, designers can quickly and easily prototype their products before mass production. They can then make changes to the design as needed.
Boring Mills
Boring mills are used in a variety of work shops including oil and gas production, windmill manufacturing, printing, mining, chemical processing, aerospace, ship building, communications and construction. These large machines can enlarge already drilled holes, straighten pre-cast holes and rectify casting defects.
Unlike drilling, boring machining requires a single point cutting tool that does not rotate but cuts into the surface of the material. As a result, it cannot produce as fine tolerances as turning and can be limited by the hardness of the material being machined. The new and used boring mills are available in a variety of shapes, sizes and speeds. The type of boring mill depends on the needs of a particular shop. A few of the most popular types include jig borers, horizontal boring mills and vertical boring mills. The newest versions of these machines incorporate CNC controls which have increased productivity and efficiency. They also offer on-machine measurement systems, which reduce the amount of handling a part undergoes, thus decreasing accuracy errors.
Transformers
Transformers are used in electric circuits to increase or decrease the voltage (called stepping up or down) of AC power. They do this by magnetically linking primary and secondary coils to create a controlled pathway for currents to flow through the core.
The core is made from multiple soft iron plates that are laminated together to reduce eddy current losses, a type of resistive power loss. The core enhances the magnetic coupling between the primary and secondary windings, and it helps to minimize the amount of power lost in the device. As we learned in our transformer basics article, a transformer cannot output more power than it takes in without violating the Law of Energy Conservation. This is why most manufacturers design them to operate at specific frequencies that are whole-number multiples of the utility frequency. Often this results in the need for more turns on the primary winding than on the secondary, and it's why we see a variety of different sizes of transformers.
