The new ELM72xx EtherCAT Terminals from Beckhoff are fully functional servo drives in a robust metal housing that deliver an output current (Irms) of up to 16 A at 48 V dc for the power supply. They expand the company’s portfolio of compact drive technology in I/O terminal format and offer all of the current […]
Drives + Supplies
New integrated servo drives from Beckhoff expand automation beyond control cabinets
The new AMI812x series of integrated servo drives expands the Beckhoff compact drive technology portfolio (up to 48 V dc) with devices for distributed installation in the field. The integration of servomotor, output stage and fieldbus connection in a space-saving design makes the drives suitable for automation outside of control cabinets in the motion power […]
Integrated single, multi-axis stepper motor controller and driver from OES
Optimal Engineering Systems, Inc. (OES) has introduced their new ICAD Series of integrated motion controllers and drivers for 2-phase stepper motors. Available as 1, 2, 3, and 4-axis modules, they’re suited for NEMA 8 to NEMA 42 stepper motors. These compact 6 x 8-in. plug-and-play, integrated controllers incorporate high-resolution micro-stepping drivers for precise positioning. Other […]
Miniature gearing and planetary gearing in haptic feedback
Planetary gearsets offer applications advantages over other gearsets, including multiple kinematic combinations, power density, big reductions from compact setups, and pure torsional reactions. Planetary gearboxes also boost overall design efficiency. Losses never exceed 3% per stage, so the sets transmit most energy for productive motion output. In applications driven by servo systems, gearboxes also reduce […]
What’s the difference between dynamic braking and regenerative braking?
When a motor’s rotor speed is greater than its synchronous, or designated, speed, it can act as a generator, creating electrical energy from mechanical energy. This electrical energy needs somewhere to go, and there are two ways to deal with it — dissipate it as heat, or reuse it. Dynamic braking takes the energy generated […]
What are busbars and how are they used in motion control applications?
Busbars are components that facilitate the distribution of power to electrical equipment, supplementing or replacing traditional wiring in applications such as commercial facilities, data centers, and industrial plants. At their most basic, busbars are relatively simple bars, strips, or rods made of copper, brass, or aluminum, but in many cases, they’re constructed in specific shapes […]
What are bearing currents and what causes them?
Pulse-width modulation is a fundamental operating principle of variable frequency drives (VFDs), but the high-frequency switching that delivers pulses of voltage from the drive to the motor can cause bearing currents — high-frequency currents that flow through the motor bearings, often leading to damage and premature failure. To achieve pulse-width modulation, insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) […]
What is cable ringing between AC drives and motors and how can it be avoided?
Variable frequency drives use a technique referred to as pulse-width modulation (PWM) to provide voltage of varying frequency to an AC induction motor. The inverter, or output, stage of the VFD uses insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) that switch on-and-off rapidly, creating trapezoidal pulses of varying width to simulate AC sinusoidal voltage. But the windings in […]
Multi-axis servo system features oversampling technology
The AX8000 multi-axis servo system from Beckhoff now offers oversampling technology in addition to extremely high dynamics and μsec cycle times. Oversampling technology via EtherCAT enables process data scans several times within a communication cycle. This significantly boosts performance for precision processing machines and other systems that require evaluation of high-resolution measured values. With the […]
What are drive isolation transformers and how do the differ from line reactors?
A variable frequency drive alters the speed of an AC induction motor by rectifying incoming AC power to DC, storing the DC power in a bus, and then converting the DC power back to AC at the voltage and frequency required to meet the load demands. Although this matching of the motor speed to the […]
