Southern Manufacturing building on success

02Jan

Southern Manufacturing & Electronics returns to Farnborough from 5th to 7th February 2019. With its venue – the 20,000m² Farnborough International Exhibition and Conference Centre – expected to be fully booked by the time the doors open, Southern 2019 is on course for a record-breaking year.

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With an anticipated 800 or so participating firms, Southern Manufacturing retains its position as one of the best marketplaces for industrial equipment and engineering expertise in Europe. Aided by its growing attraction to non-UK firms – 26% more overseas exhibitors for 2019 – Southern Manufacturing offers visitors the chance to connect with a broader array of businesses than normally expected at a regional or national exhibition. This potential to tackle a number of sourcing requirements at one show is one of Southern’s best features, and it’s one that continues to be top of the checklist for most visitors.

As well as a record volume of exhibitors anticipated, the event has formalised links with several important industry organisations, including Composites UK, the Confederation of British Metalforming, Farnborough Aerospace Consortium, the British Gear Association, Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders and the Gauge and Toolmakers Association. The partnerships will enable the roll-out of brand new show features and access to well-respected technical expertise by way of the show’s extensive free technical seminar programme, open to all visitors. Some of the new topics being tackled in the 2019 programme will include an examination of incremental sheet forming processes, automated mould design and large scale 3D printing.

As usual, Southern provides visitors on the hunt for components with an extraordinary range of options. The majority of the show’s many regularly exhibiting component vendors return for 2019, including Easby Electronics, Sinclair & Rush, Schurter Electronics, Optimas Solutions and Wurth Electronics. Rapid Electronics returns to Southern Manufacturing for the first time since 2008, and are joined by a significant number of new exhibitors such as Canvys, a specialist in OEM and custom display engineering, designing and manufacturing display products.

New products to be seen at Southern 2019 include a TFT LCD from Craft Data incorporating HDMI connectivity, enabling fast integration into an application. There will also be “stretched” or “bar-type” TFT LCDs. The versatile letterbox format displays have high brightness LED backlights, a wide operating temperature range and wide viewing angles. There will also be the company’s System-on-Module embedded devices, featuring the latest ARM Cortex-A7 microprocessor for industrial embedded applications. RJS Electronics will demonstrate its Q5 RGB LED backlit programmable LCD switch which boasts a 64 x 32 pixel graphic display and what is claimed to be the largest viewing area on the market. (17.26 x 12.78 mm²). This switch interface uses the SPI protocol, with each pixel individually addressable by the user. The switch has the potential to display 65,536 backlight colours via programming supplied with the product. Also on show will be a new range of SPA switches and the current anti-vandal switch range, which is sealed to IP67 and protected against the effects of immersion in up to one metre of water.

Nexus Industrial Memory will be showcasing two new products from Datakey; the Read-Only DFX PC Adapter is the latest addition to the DFX RUGGEDrive Series of Secure Digital (SD) memory devices. The Adapter functions much like an SD card reader, except that it works with Datakey DFX RUGGEDrive memory tokens, which are SD cards moulded into Datakey’s proprietary RUGGEDrive token form-factor. When plugged into a computer’s USB port, the adapter prevents modifications or deletions to the data stored on the inserted memory token. Nexus will also be showcasing the latest addition to the secure memory line, a microchip crypto-authentication IC moulded into a Datakey rugged removable memory token.

Southern Manufacturing is also an excellent marketplace for sub-assemblies and bespoke components such as cabling systems. Luso Electronics will be exhibiting a wide range of power supply solutions. Amongst the options on show will be the latest modular configurable units from Excelsys including the leading edge fanless design CoolX range. The complete range of Efore industrial and medical products will be on display covering power requirements from 200W up to 1200W and also its ultra-compact modular RCB series. Cabling specialists exhibiting include K. Lacey Cables, Helukabel and Industrial Electrical Wiring.

Farnborough International Conference and Exhibition Centre offers free car parking for 3,500 vehicles and is well-served by road and public transport links. A regular free shuttle bus service operates from both of Farnborough’s mainline railway stations directly to the show. The venue itself offers a high standard of facilities including a free WiFi service in the foyer area and high quality catering outlets.

Southern Manufacturing & Electronics 2019 opens from February 5th to 7th. Admission to the show is free. More information and tickets are available from www.industrysouth.co.uk