Black Bros. Co. donation expands IVCC manufacturing, CAD equipment

A $30,000 contribution by Mendota-based Black Bros. Co. has helped Illinois Valley Community College to expand and upgrade its computer-aided design and manufacturing labs.

The six new state-of-the-art Prusa 3D printers for the CAD lab expands the lab’s stable of printers. More students will be able to print and test their designs in the classroom, as the new printers are faster and the supplies more cost-effective, program coordinator Dorene Data said. Previously, students might have had to wait days to complete a design rendering.

CAD detailers sketch everything from simple parts to complex buildings to small electronic components to artificial human body organs. Their skills take them into civil engineering, architecture, electrical engineering, water treatment and building industries, among other fields.

A tabletop water jet will expand and update the manufacturing program’s machinery for subtractive manufacturing.

“We currently have a wide variety of mills and lathes but lacked other forms of machinery for subtractive manufacturing,” said Shane Lange, who was dean of workforce development at the time.

Subtractive manufacturing covers a variety of controlled machining processes, such as turning, milling, drilling, grinding and water jet. The process involves removing material to create a final shape and dimension to match a blueprint.

Manufacturing program coordinator Scott Fox said students will use the new equipment to produce parts – gears, sprockets or name plates – that traditional machines cannot. Additionally, he said, a water jet can cut material such as glass, stone or ceramics that is hard for a traditional machine to cut without specialized and expensive tooling.

Lange said a recent visit to Black Bros. exhibited the machinery maker’s design and manufacturing sides and demonstrated how to narrow a technology gap between the academic facility and contemporary industry.

“The addition of this equipment moves IVCC’s labs closer to what is available in our local manufacturing facilities,” Lange said.

In July, Black Bros. owner Evan Carroll and Chief Financial Officer Megan Kneebone toured IVCC as Data and Fox demonstrated the equipment.