What do oil refining, rail and transit systems, outdoor water parks, wastewater treatment plants, and breweries have in common? They are environments that need high-quality, watertight, corrosion resistant enclosures to protect critical equipment such as electrical connections, wiring, control panels, and sensitive measurement systems. In harsh places like these, non-metallic enclosures protect against moisture, dust, dirt, UV radiation, temperature extremes, and impact.
Electric motors, when implemented properly, are an efficient way of providing motion for machines and equipment, whether coupled directly or used with gearboxes and other mechanisms. There are many makes, models and styles, with AC motors being a popular configuration and the focus of this article. Designers can’t just bolt on the cheapest version that fits or inefficiencies and operational problems will result. This article examines how to size AC motors for an application based on environmental conditions, operational requirements and available power.
AutomationDirect operator interface (OI) hardware and software were recently recognized in Control Design 2019 Readers’ Choice Awards. This awards program invites readers with buying influence or authority to vote by writing in their preferred automation product manufacturers for many categories, without any other prompts. As in preceding years, AutomationDirect has been among the top finishers in the Control and Software categories! This year, AutomationDirect OIs took fifth place and configuration software took fourth.
Beyond the standard sensor types
used in machine automation—such as photo eyes, limit switches and DC proximity sensors—are a wide range of color, contrast, AC proximity and area sensors. All of these sensors, as well as optical rotary encoders, are used to enable sorting, detection, error checking and positioning for machine automation.
As with many industries, automation has provided the key to advancement, and that is true even in the case of rock crushing. In this video, we visit one of AutomationDirect’s long time customers who uses automation in their rock crushing operations to simplify the process and speed up production.
