Designfax weekly eMagazine

Subscribe Today!

Archives

View Archives

Partners

Manufacturing Center
Product Spotlight

Modern Applications News
Metalworking Ideas For
Today's Job Shops

Tooling and Production
Strategies for large
metalworking plants

What are Onshape Custom Features?

Certified Onshape Professional Too Tall Toby explains how to supercharge your workflow using community-created tools. In this insightful tutorial, he dives into the world of FeatureScript -- the powerful coding language behind Onshape. Learn where to find new scripts and how to use them. Save time. Learn new skills, shortcuts, and maybe even better ways to do things. Incorporate Custom Features into your everyday work. Very useful.
View the video.

What can you do with touchless magnetic angle sensors?

Novotechnik has put together an informative video highlighting real-world applications for their RFC, RFE, and RSA Series touchless magnetic angle sensors. You may be surprised at the variety of off-highway, marine, material handling, and industrial uses. You'll learn how they work (using a Hall effect microprocessor to detect position) and their key advantages, including eliminated wear and tear on these non-mechanical components. We love when manufacturers provide such useful examples.
View the video.

What can the new Autodesk Inventor AI Assistant do for you?

Autodesk Assistant brings industry-specific context to help execute tasks and orchestrate actions across your 3D models -- not just answer questions. Designed to understand your workflows, Assistant appears as a dockable panel alongside your Inventor workspace and includes the ability to perform complex tasks or gather information from your designs without writing a single line of code. Find out what this new AI "colleague" can do for you.
Watch this informative Autodesk video.

Useful! Snap-together LED enclosure lighting

Seifert StripLite SL 4000 Series LED enclosure lighting provides bright illumination to 700 lumens. On/off switch and motion sensor models are available. Easily daisy chain up to 16 light strips. Magnetic or clip mounting. See video/info on website or contact Bristol Instruments for more information.
Learn about snap-together lighting.

Next-gen multi-touch panels

Beckhoff's Next line of multi-touch control panels and panel PCs is engineered for demanding human-machine interface and control tasks. These panels offer convenient operation with advanced multi-touch technology, a high-quality look and feel, anti-glare and anti-ghosting effects, and a wide choice of formats (from 7 to 23.8 in.) and options. A main draw is the line's attractive pricing.
Learn more.

Most powerful handheld 3D laser scanner on the market

Creaform, a business of AMETEK, has launched HandySCAN 3D|EVO Series, the most powerful handheld 3D laser scanning solution on the market. This innovative series features a built-in touchscreen display and an integrated high-res 12-MP photo camera, incorporating augmented reality (AR) and advanced on-scanner visualization. Users can streamline repetitive inspections and enhance quality control processes using the new auto-alignment feature. Powered by 46 blue laser lines with accuracy of 0.020 mm. The Creaform Metrology Suite includes four application software modules: Scan-to-CAD, Inspection, Automation, and Dynamic Tracking. So many more features.
Learn more.

Continental develops first sensor to measure heat in EV motors

Global automotive supplier Continental has developed a new sensor technology that measures the temperature inside permanently excited synchronous motors in electric vehicles directly on the rotor for the first time.
Read the full article.

LEDs with highest output power available

The new OCI-460 SWIR LED series from EPIGAP OSA Photonics features markedly improved output power compared to the company's previous OCI-480 package and all competitive SMD SWIR LED devices. For example, model OCI-460 ID1550-XS operates at 1,550 nm and features drive current up to 1.5A to deliver approximately 13% higher output efficiency over EPIGAP's OCI-480 package. This impressive advancement features 96% higher output power compared to any other SWIR SMD LED currently on the market. Ideal for use in sensing, machine vision, and more.
Learn more.

AI and collaboration in SOLIDWORKS

Discover AURA, the new AI assistant built into SOLID-WORKS, in this informative video from TriMech Group. What can AURA do for you? It can streamline workflows and make collaborating on and tracking projects even easier, for starters. Other top features of SOLIDWORKS Design 2026 are also covered. Some good tips here.
View the TriMech Group video.

Solutions for weighing and force measurement

Automation-Direct now offers Sensy 2172L series single point, 5510 series shear beam, and 2782 series tension/compression load cells that deliver flexible solutions for weighing and force measurement. They are ideal for applications ranging from small packaging scales to rugged industrial tanks and conveyor systems. Built from aircraft-grade aluminum or stainless steel, these models feature built-in overload protection, accuracies down to 0.03% of full scale, protection ratings up to IP67, and capacities up to 2,000 kg.
Learn more.

Top Product: Future-proof enclosure cooling

Seifert's new SLIMLINE NEO ushers in next-generation industrial cooling with natural refrigerant R290 (GWP 0.02) and high-efficiency inverter technology. It cuts energy costs with EER up to 3.6, reduces refrigerant charge by 75%, and extends electronics life. A fully redesigned, lighter, smaller enclosure delivers lower vibration, better component protection, and easier handling. Available in two elegant surfaces: stainless steel and mild steel, powder coated.
Learn more.

Coin cell supercapacitors: High capacity, quick release

Coin cell supercapa-citors are compact, high-capacity energy storage devices that rapidly charge and discharge and endure far more cycles than rechargeable batteries. They're ideal for high switching loads such as real-time clock and battery back-up power, battery-swap ride-through, and LED or audible alarms. SCHURTER's latest versions support up to 5.5 V and 100 to 1,500 mF.
Learn more.

Tech Tip: Mastering sheet metal bend calculations in Onshape

Mastering bend calculations in sheet metal design is a key skill that can impact the accuracy and manufactur-ability of your designs significantly. Explore the various options available to become a pro in this Onshape Tech Tip: K Factor, bend allowance, and bend deduction, with guidance on when each should be used. You will probably learn something even if you don't use this software.
Read the Onshape blog.

Digital Engineering: How a private jet gets a high-end refurb

Ever wonder how private jets get overhauled from standard OEM layouts to exotic, artful interiors? It takes engineering expertise, specialty design skills, and true craftspeople. Increasingly, it also takes automation provided by middleware to weave a digital thread through CAD, BOM, ERP, and PDM software.
Read the full article.

How AI is quietly transforming simulation

Is AI really useful, or is it just a passing trend? Balavignesh Vemparala, an R&D Engineer II at ANSYS, lays out a compelling case for how artificial intelligence is already hard at work in the simulation world with real results for users. From faster solves to accelerated workflows, improved quality and traceability, generative models, and more, discover what you might be overlooking when it comes to real-world AI application. Worth the read.
Read this informative ANSYS blog.

Scientists discover surprising new way to control light

Scientists at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in England have uncovered a hidden property of light that allows it to twist, spin, and behave differently -- without mirrors, materials, or special lenses.

In a breakthrough that could transform medical testing, data transmission, and future quantum technologies, researchers from the UK and South Africa have shown that light can be "programmed" simply by exploiting its natural geometry.

The discovery overturns decades of scientific thinking and reveals that light can develop chiral behavior, meaning it can act like a left or right hand, while travelling freely through space.

This, the team says, could ultimately lead to a world where light carries information, probes biology, manipulates matter, and protects quantum signals.

Why "handed" light matters
Chirality, or "handedness," is a crucial concept in science. Many molecules, including those used in medicines, come in left- and right-handed forms that look almost identical but can behave very differently inside the human body.

To tell them apart, scientists often use special forms of light that spin either clockwise or anticlockwise. Until now, creating and controlling this kind of light required carefully engineered surfaces, exotic materials, or extreme focusing using powerful lenses.

But the new study shows that none of that is necessary.

"Our work shows that light can naturally develop this handed behavior all on its own," said Dr. Kayn Forbes from UEA's School of Chemistry, Pharmacy, and Pharmacology. "You just have to prepare it in the right way."

Light that twists like a corkscrew
"Most people think of light as traveling in straight lines, but scientists can also create structured light -- light whose brightness, shape, and direction are carefully arranged.

"One extreme example is light that twists as it travels, forming a corkscrew shape known as an optical vortex. Each twist can carry information, making this kind of light valuable for high-speed internet, secure communications, and advanced sensors.

"Light can also spin as it travels, depending on how it is polarized. This spin can be left-handed or right-handed -- another form of chirality."

A hidden feature finally revealed
Until now, interactions between the spin and twist of light were thought to be incredibly weak -- so weak that they could only be detected under special conditions. The UEA team, however, found that if light is prepared in a carefully balanced state, its spin can appear naturally as it moves through empty space.

"It starts off with no spin at all," explained MSc student Light Mkhumbuza, who carried out key experiments, "but as the beam travels forward, spinning regions appear and separate out -- almost as if the spin was hiding and then revealed itself."

No mirrors. No special materials. Just light propagating freely.

The "topological fingerprint" of light
According to Dr. Isaac Nape at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, the reason this happens lies in topology -- a branch of math that focuses on properties that stay the same, even when objects are stretched or reshaped.

"To explain it, imagine a mug and a doughnut," he said. "You can morph one into the other without tearing it, because they both have one hole. That hole is a topological feature."

Light, it turns out, has its own version of this "hole count" -- a hidden topological fingerprint buried in the way its polarization is arranged. This fingerprint doesn't disappear as light travels. Instead, it quietly guides how the beam evolves.

As the light moves forward, the hidden structure forces the spinning behavior to emerge, giving scientists a powerful new way to control light using geometry alone.

"This gives us a completely new tuning knob for light. By adjusting its topology, we can decide how and where chirality appears," said Nape.

Wide-ranging implications
"The implications are wide ranging," said Forbes. "This work could lead to simpler and more sensitive medical tests, especially in drug development. It could also be used to pack more information into laser beams -- boosting data capacity for communications, including future quantum networks. And because the effect doesn't rely on fragile materials or precision-engineered surfaces, it could be easier and cheaper to use in real-world technologies."

"This research could lay the foundations for a new generation of light-based technologies," he added, "by showing that light's behavior can be controlled using its own internal geometry."

Key future applications include: simpler medical and pharmaceutical tests, compact optical sensors, more powerful communication technologies, advanced tools for biology and nanotechnology, and more robust quantum technologies.

The researchers said their work challenges long-held assumptions about what light can and cannot do on its own. "For something so familiar, light is proving to be far richer, stranger, and more powerful than anyone imagined," said Forbes. "And astonishingly, this new behavior has been there all along -- just waiting to be seen."

Source: University of East Anglia

Published May 2026

Rate this article