Ask a Bishop-Wisecarver Engineer: How do I protect my linear guide wheel bearings? Alex’s Answer: The environment always determines the type of guide wheel bearing protection you should choose so let’s discuss the 4 main options: Sealed, Shielded, Seald and Shielded, and Special COnfiguration. In this blog article, he examines each in turn.
POSITAL has compiled some expert troubleshooting tips to get your encoder back up and running. Check out their instructional Encoder troubleshooting video!
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.
Corks are so light they float, but when shipped in bulk to wineries around the world, they tend to be big space-takers. In order to save energy and CO₂ emissions during transport, Portugal’s ESI (Engenharia, Soluções e Inovação) has developed a system for packaging corks that reduces packaging volume by 30% and dispenses with plastic bagging.
If a product is scratched by a robot but nobody was there to see it, how do you know what exactly happened? Intermittent problems in manufacturing lines (such as die casting) can cause millions of lost $$$ when repair workers are forced to troubleshoot without any idea of what may have caused the problem or when the problem will occur again. Omron’s Factory Drive Recorder addresses this issue by letting you monitor machines or areas within your facility and capture what happened just after or prior to a triggering event. Whether your application involves progressive die casting, machine tooling, bottle inspection, high-precision welding, or something else, this solution can save troubleshooting time
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.
Limitations on the electrical power system make it important for the customer to reduce harmonics in their system to avoid voltage disruption and overheating of the mechanical and electrical components within the industrial plant. There are several ways to reduce harmonics, each with its costs and benefits. Mechatronics Canada had the opportunity to hear from Martin Royer, local Division Manager for System Drives at ABB Canada, to discuss why Ultra-Low Harmonic Drives (ULH) with an active front-end are a preferred choice for businesses and utility owners.
At Omron, they are always working to expand the limits of what is possible with sensors. Presence detection – whether through proximity, photoelectric, or fiber optic sensor technology – is crucial for all manufacturing industries, and Omron’s goal is to be able to cover the unique requirements of any application.
A collaborative robot (cobot) can be utilized in hundreds of ways. Whether you’re looking to automate a tedious task, increase efficiency or free your workers up to complete more technical work, cobots will be a transformative addition to your operations. Here, Universal Robots explain in more detail 10 cobot components and how they can be used within your business.
The global wire and cable market worldwide is estimated to grow from $335 billion in 2021 to nearly $427 million by 2026 according to a report by Research and Markets. The market is expected to grow annually by about five percent over the next five years. This continued growth is being driven by the increasing demand for electric vehicles, industrial automation products and infrastructure cables.
One of the easiest ways for manufacturers to transform their operations with IIoT capability is to use IO-Link. This internationally accepted platform allows sensors to go beyond a simple ON/OFF reading and communication details about default detection, condition monitoring, and component indemnification, and more throughout the system.
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. Mechatronics Canada 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.
The world is changing. Every day. In many ways. The fourth industrial revolution, Industry 4.0, has fundamentally changed the way we live, work, and relate to our world. Three terms from Industry 4.0 warrant further attention: the Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Artificial Intelligence of Things (AIoT). But what do they mean, and perhaps, more importantly, what do they mean to industry? Mechatronic Canada had the opportunity to ask Ozge Karadag, the AIoT Corporate Influencer and Data Analyst at Bosch Rexroth about the AIoT. This article helps to demystify these concepts and explores their applications in use today.
One of Omron’s main focuses with respect to sensor innovation is to incorporate more “intelligence” – that is to say, more ways to gather meaningful data – into their latest sensor lines. Smarter sensors mean better insights into what’s really going on at the machine level, and these insights lead to better decision-making and less downtime. Setup, predictive maintenance, and reconfiguration are all great ways to use IO-Link. In this blog , Omron takes a look at what IO-Link is and how you can use this powerful protocol in your applications.
It seems like IT leaders everywhere want the flexibility to run workloads wherever it makes the most sense; in an on-premises data center, public clouds, edge environments, and increasingly, in multi-tenant data centers (MTDCs). Whether it’s to provide an optimized user experience for remote workers, or to take advantage of cutting-edge technologies, or to meet regional regulatory and compliance mandates, or simply to reduce management costs, MTDCs have become a critical part of highly distributed architectures. Panduit outlines three steps providers can take to get on the path to significant savings.
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.