STOBER Inc. recently released STOBER FITS, an online motion-design configuration tool that lets engineers quickly and easily specify and select STOBER power-transmission and control products. The focus of the tool is to improve overall customer experience — expediting selection, sizing and specification processes for engineers through a unified and convenient online process. Determining what STOBER product is needed and ordering it […]
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AEGIS Series UPS
Mitsubishi Electric announces the AEGIS series UPS as the successor to its 9900A Series. Like all other Mitsubishi Electric UPS products, AEGIS is a three-phase, on-line double-conversion system and features Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor (IGBT) technology for improved performance and reliability. The AEGIS series is available in 80, 100, 150, 160, and 225 kVA and […]
Kollmorgen exhibits leading hygienic design solutions at PACK EXPO 2015
Kollmorgen will exhibit its industry-leading motion solutions at PACK EXPO, September 28 to 30, 2015, at the Las Vegas Convention Center. PACK EXPO attendees are invited to register online using Kollmorgen’s complimentary pass code: 79K95. In addition to product demos of the company’s innovative servo motors and stepper motors, Kollmorgen will highlight new enhancements to […]
Confession: Technical education is useless without context
Confession: While in college, I slogged all the way through that classic and dreaded engineering “weeder” course, Materials Science, without the slightest idea of why we were studying it. What’s worse, I wasn’t alone in my cluelessness. You see, the notoriously hard course had little context at our university — so we students sat through […]
Tiny kit-style encoder: New option for linear measurement
A tiny linear encoder from RSF Elektronik is an MS 15 optical kit-style with the smallest mechanical profile in the industry. Available in North America through HEIDENHAIN, the encoder works in machinery for metrology, semiconductor, medical and automation. The MS 15 optical kit-style encoder is 36 x 13.5 x 14.8mm in size, and provides a 40 […]
Arduinos and cheap controllers meet high-performance motion
It’s happening — Arduinos are finding use in high-performance motion applications … even those with industrial-grade motion controls. Recently, I got the chance to sit down and talk with Abe Amirana, director at Teknic Inc., and Teknic’s Brendan Flosenzier, applications engineer, about the evolution of Arduinos, Raspberry Pis, and other low-cost microcontrollers and minicomputers now finding use in industrial […]
Technology Tuesdays: Brian Fortman on Trends in Industrial Drives and Controls
For this edition of Technology Tuesdays, I talk with Brian Fortman, Marketing Manager at Texas Instruments for Industrial Drives and Automation, about designing for the next generation of industrial drive and control systems. However, instead of the individual components like controllers and drives, we talk about the board-level circuits and processors, the electronic brains at […]
Shining a light on our nation’s infrastructure
This week, May 11th through the 15th, is Infrastructure Week. Now in its 3rd year, the aim is to raise awareness of the critical importance of infrastructure to America’s economic well-being. Events during the week aim to bring together business, labor, and public officials, centered on Washington DC but including the rest of the country, […]
Motion trend: Automation expands in off-highway industry
by Michael Jermann, Contributing Editor— Efficiency is key when trying to keep operating costs to a minimum, especially in the off-highway industry. When dealing with mobile machinery that could be remotely located or operating in harsh environments, finding, diagnosing and managing equipment wastes time and money. To cut costs and increase efficiency, there is growing […]
Sercos: 25 years and no slowing down
2015 is an anniversary year for Sercos the industrial automation bus, celebrating 25 years since the founding of Sercos and 10 years since the launch of the first Sercos III devices. The first generation of Sercos supported 2 and 4 Mbit/sec transmission rates and initially was used mainly in demanding machine tool applications. About a […]