To protect against internal moisture buildup, many NEMA wash-down motors have weep holes in the mounting face. But when a motor is in a wash-down environment, those weep holes become a liability. The gearbox can retain liquids when water and other cleaning chemicals enter through the weep holes. Over time, this will rust the internal components and affect the lubrication within the gearbox, which results in premature failure.
Palletizing solutions are mission-critical components for end-of-line packaging operations at manufacturing plants around the world. They can range from lightweight – food, beverage, consumer packaged goods – to heavyweight, such as bulk goods like concrete bags. Some specific application examples include breweries, water filters, diapers, and many more packaged items for retail or industrial use that require palletizing and/or shrink wrapping prior to shipment or warehouse storage.
Together, shipping, receiving, and storage count for less than half of all warehouse activity costs. The lion’ share of expenses – a whopping 55% – is bound up in order picking. Breaking down the various activities associated with order picking, Omron finds that over 60% of time is spent walking, with writing, searching, and picking tasks comprising the other 40%. Omron’s Logistics Strategic Account Manager Yaqing Sun recently discussed some strategies for using autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) for this purpose at Automate 2022 in June.
Well-made protective packaging is key to ensuring that foods such as fresh fruit and vegetables arrive on supermarket and grocery shelves in peak condition. Keeping pace with demand means that this packaging needs to be produced as quickly as possible without compromising either quality or strength. Orora Fresh Packaging Solutions is achieving this at its Canada HQ using an ABB robot cell to help assemble, load, and lift its protective cardboard packaging products for the fresh food industry.
The introduction to SEW Eurodrive’s Innovation Lab was a big success. With Ontario reopening earlier this year, SEW Eurodrive has been excited to present their technology and automation solutions with customers, students, and the public again. Konrad Kurylo, P. Eng., was on site with other SEW Eurodrive experts to welcome an enthusiastic and engaged audience, who were eager to see what products and solutions SEW Eurodrive has to offer for Industry 4.0.
Breweries are known for transforming malt, hops, and yeast into beer in gleaming brewing kettles and large fermentation tanks linked by numerous pipes. Over the centuries, the equipment for mashing, lautering, boiling, and fermenting beer according to carefully guarded recipes has been steadily perfected. One of the most important parts of the brewery, and perhaps the least visible, is the chiller.
As machines become more connected, the need to service equipment remotely is escalating. Production is often running 24/7 and manufacturers expect immediate action from machine specialists. Not having a remote solution creates challenges like high travel costs, whereas some remote solutions cause a loss of data control and increase vulnerability. Omron’s secure remote access IoT gateway is one of the most advanced, turnkey solutions you will find on the market today, and it addresses multiple weak spots in competing solutions Omron looks at some of the concerns that this technology can help.
What’s the secret to providing superior service and staying competitive in a changing market? Well, you might learn something from ALTA Refrigeration’s experience. Over ten years, it transformed itself from a custom engineering services company into a scalable industrial equipment manufacturer, using an edge-oriented control architecture to efficiently manage a growing installed base. Read this case study to learn more.
The Danish manufacturer of highly efficient ventilation fans and systems called on aworld-class specialist in electrical motors for driving the largest fan in their ZerAx range of axial fans. The fan was specially designed for the extraction of the carbon dioxide in a German backfill mine. The objective was to supply the most climate-neutral solution. Thanks to its IE5 highly efficient synchro-reluctant Dyneo+ motor, Nidec Leroy-Somer has brilliantly met the challenge.
When the Swiss engineering company Peter Huber AG won the order to upgrade and convert the control and safety technology on manual-feed bending machines – to include an additional sheet metal feed via robot – alongside the requirements for economy, flexibility and efficiency there was also one key condition in the requirement specification: wherever possible, the envisaged solution should continue to use the existing controllers.
Engineers often face challenges when incorporating servo motors into a new machine design, such as choosing between a conventional housed motor or a frameless design. Let’s take a look at the components of a frameless motor and review three key design considerations that would indicate a frameless solution is the best fit for your machine.
Gems Universal Level Sensor not only encapsulates the best of what existing sensor types offer in a single sensor technology, but also eliminates or reduces the inherent limitations experienced when using the very same sensors. The sensor types covered in this article include capacitive (CAP-300), electro-optic (ELS-1150), ultrasonic (XLS-1), and float (LS-7).
When HELUKABEL receives a request for a custom cable from one of their customers, the work begins in their cable design department. Their task is to develop solutions that meet unique and often technically complex requirements. For this, a lot of know-how and expertise are essential.
IEC 62061 / EN IEC 62061 represents a sector-specific standard under IEC 61508. It describes the implementation of safety-related control systems on machinery and examines the whole lifecycle from the concept phase through to decommissioning. The new edition of IEC 62061 was published in 2021. This new edition is not just an update of the existing standard. For a start, the standard is no longer limited to electrical systems but can be used for all types of technology, such as hydraulic or pneumatic systems for example.
What will the factory of the future look like? This is the question that many professionals in the automation and manufacturing industries are seeking to answer. While most proposed descriptions are lofty yet lacking in concrete details, there are also many attempts to extrapolate from cutting-edge technologies that already exist. What we need to do is connect the grandiose vision with the minutiae, and its sweeping (and yet unrealized) capabilities with today’s real-world applications that sit right on the boundary between practical and experimental. Omron’s “three I’s of automation” – integrated, intelligent, and interactive – offer us a way to do this.
NSK is a global manufacturer of ball and roller bearings, precision linear motion and integrated automation solutions, and automotive components and steering systems. Their linear components are found in everything from high-load industrial applications to surgical robotics. Drives & Controls Solutions recently had the opportunity to sit down with Jon Lorello, Linear and Mechatronics Specialist at NSK Corporation, to ask him about the basics of bearings. We gained better understanding of bearings – and the awareness that NSK is more than just a bearing manufacturer. They are subject matter experts in motion and control for virtually any industry.
This project is funded [in part] by the Government of Canada.
Ce projet est financé [en partie] par le gouvernement du Canada.
