10th August 2012: In response to customer feedback, we have reduced the weight of our most popular helium bath cryostat - the TK1813 - by over 25%. A TK1813 now weighs just 14.5 kg empty, and 16 kg when full. Despite now being much easier to handle, other aspects of the design, including all safety features and a helium hold time of up to a week, remain the same.
There is quote a nice article from our CADCAM supplier - EdgeCAM - which can be found here - on our activities.
Continuing a tradition of steady and continuous investment, two precision machine toolshave arrive at TK: The first is an ultra precision 8400 CNC moore Jig Grinder, rebuilt for usin the US by 2SQ Industrial supply Inc. It is controlled by a Fagor CNC controller, operatingon a 5 axis basis (X,Y,Z and U & C on the grinding head). Moore 8400 The Z axis feed has been modified to give full Z-axis control, turning the Jig Grinder into an ultra-precise sub-micron resolution milling machine. Huron K2X10 The second machine is a Huron K2X10 1000mm by 800mm table-movement high speed millingmachine with a Heidenhain ITNC530 control. Constructed as a gantry machine, and with heat shrink balance...
The Financial Times in London ran a set of articles on the Queen's Award on Saturday, 21st April 2012and the snippet about TK is here:
Thomas Keating Ltd was delighted to receive a Queen's Award and issued the following Press Release Astro-kit creators receive Queen’s Award From one economic dip and through another, Thomas Keating Ltd is proud to be flourishing, says MD Queen’s Award recognises commercial success of kit supplied to world-leading scientific projects THOMAS KEATING Ltd, a 230 year old company now based in Billingshurst that has transformed from flea powder manufacturer into a creator and supplier of high-tech space kit, has been recognised by the Queen’s Office for its success. Following recent commercial achievements - including the development of 67 pairs of targets to calibrate ALMA, the European S...
7th March 2012: QMC Instruments Ltd. has delivered the final shipment of 80 vacuum windows for "band 10" of the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) telescopes in Chajnantor in the Chilean Andes. These windows are anti-reflection coated and have very challenging requirements for the in-band transmission. We received the following comment from ESO: "The performance of these windows are of a high standard, just like the previous batch, and the non-compliances are minor. My congratulations to you and other QMC staff involved!"