Night Train bound for Australia
18 February, 2010Shamic Sheetmetal has now become the first in Australia to sign for delivery and installation of a completely automated ‘lights-out’ materials handling system.
Precision motion control for plasma cutters
27 January, 2010Four high-definition precision plasma cutters used to help build new aircraft carriers for the British Navy use the latest in four-axis motion control.
Motion control development system
29 September, 2009 byNational Instruments has announced the LabVIEW NI SoftMotion Module, which simplifies the development of advanced single- and multi-axis motion applications, and new NI C Series modules, which expand the connectivity of the NI CompactRIO programmable automation controller (PAC) platform to hundreds of servo and stepper drives.
The application of IEEE 1588 to industrial automation
07 August, 2009 by Ken HarrisOne trend in discrete part manufacturing is towards faster and higher precision part production — more parts per minute and better quality. Traditional control solutions can be stretched to their limits. By replacing traditional control solutions with time-based control, higher spped and precision can be realised.
Kinematics control solution
09 June, 2009 byCombining kinematics control with conventional motion control, the MOVI-PLC Kinematics motion controller now provides manufacturers with six degrees of freedom controllability — comprising three-dimensional positioning and three planes of orientation.
Plug-in machine controller
15 March, 2009 byThe Mint Machine Module plugs into a hardware expansion slot in any of Baldor’s MotiFlex range of Powerlink-compatible three-phase AC motor drives. This controller module allows machine builders to eliminate the need for a separate external network controller, along with all of the cabling and panel space that would normally be required.
RS485 master control card
12 March, 2009 byThe PCM-3202I PCI-104 interface card supports two independent AMONet (Advantech Motion Network) RS485 master rings with each ring controlling up to 2048 I/O points, 256 axes, or a combination of I/O points and axes for motion control. The PCM-3202I allows direct data transfer between master and slaves without any operations in between. This customised solution saves wires, covers long distances and supports high-speed real-time communications.
Powerlink motion control network for unique winding machine
20 January, 2009Swiss company Carbo-Link creates carbon fibre components for challenging applications such as rigging for racing yachts.
Behind the scenes: protecting the world’s largest machine
16 January, 2009 by Nipun Mathur*Hotter than the sun and yet in one of the coldest places on earth, the largest machine in the world is 27 km long, lives 100 m underground and spans two countries. The European Organization for Nuclear Research, more commonly known as CERN, has designed the machine, known as the Large Hadron Collider, to reveal the secrets of the universe.
Micro-assembly station
08 July, 2008The Micro-Assembly-System from Deprag Schulz is 450 x 802 x 680 mm in width, depth and height and is lightweight, allowing uncomplicated transportation. The working range is 176 x 176 x 80 mm with a position accuracy of ±1 µm.
