The automation and electrical system on a large, 82-year-old cylinder honing machine was replaced with a variety of AutomationDirect hardware to improve cycle time, safety and quality. Andrew Marks, Maintenance Foreman and Master Electrician at Exline Leasing Inc., wrote an article for the January 2019 issue of Control Design magazine, titled Honing in on Machine ... Read More
Do you ever think about all those marks and logos on electronic equipment? You should, they’re your assurance of product quality. Bill Dehner, technical marketing engineer at AutomationDirect and Tim Dunn, design engineer at Host Engineering, wrote an article for the November 2018 issue of Design News titled Why Product Testing and Certification Really Matters, ... Read More
Process skids are used in many industries and present a host of automation challenges, each of which can be met by using the right controller hardware and software. Jeff Payne, the Automation Controls Group Product Manager at AutomationDirect, wrote an article appearing in the September 2018 issue of Processing magazine titled Effective Process Skid Automation. ... Read More
The tried and true industrial data collection methods of the last several decades will expand into the future as Big Data and IIoT technology developments lead to more data, analytics and related benefits. Bill Dehner, Technical Marketing Engineer at AutomationDirect, wrote an article for the September-October issue of IEN titled Data-Driven Trends. Dehner says many ... Read More
The capstone senior design project is the crowning achievement for seniors at the University of Connecticut School of Engineering. In this two-semester course, senior students are mentored by faculty and industry engineers as they work to solve real-world engineering problems for their corporate sponsor. Students learn about the principles of design, how ethics affect engineering ... Read More
Many years ago my father was working on a new shop behind his house. The insides were left for us to finish. We needed to build work benches, shelves and racks. To save money, he bought the longer 2×4 sized lumber and we’d cut it to whatever size was needed. This worked out great but ... Read More
When selecting the right shampoo, what factors do you consider? Scent, ingredients, cost? How about packaging? That’s right, packaging. For the follicly-challenged, like myself, packaging may be a real decision maker. After all, luster, sheen and volumizing abilities are kinda lost on me. For most, packaging is an afterthought, if it is a thought at ... Read More
Ridgeline Machine made extensive use of pneumatics when building a low-cost, small-footprint, portable traymaker to replace a manual process for one of their customers. Ridgeline Machine Design, LLC (RMD), founded in 2012, is primarily a packaging machinery producer, and the company’s owners have over 40 years experience designing and building custom machinery. RMD builds packaging ... Read More
Once upon a time, individual machines were stranded on an island, or just linked to other machines using a few discrete I/O and dry contact relays. Then came machine-to-machine data links such as a proprietary PLC-based network. Today, and certainly in the future, machines are being linked to IT systems.
Several years ago I purchased a Wadkin lathe made in England in late 1964. It is equipped with a very special motor that is 220V, three-phase and 50Hz. Because of the special design of the motor, it has a long extended shaft that carries the four sheave pulley, and because I do not have three-phase ... Read More
