Full coverage E-Stop protection around your machinery We all know the importance of having emergency stop devices near and around machinery. There are numerous regulations (ANIS, ISO, IEC) that define emergency stop device requirements. In short they all state that they are actuated by a “single human action”, should be used to de-energize equipment to ... Read More
Control capability built-in to VFDs are moving machine intelligence to the edge. Jeff Payne, Product Manager for AutomationDirect, wrote an article for the March 2019 issue of Design World, titled VFDs with integrated PLCs for motion and machine controls: Programming and setup considerations. Payne explains how AC drives can be controlled by either an external ... Read More
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
In machine automation a pneumatic system provides a simple and cost-effective means to move, clamp, rotate, grind and screw. A pneumatic system is a collection of interconnected components using compressed air to do work for automated equipment. Examples can be found in industrial manufacturing, a home garage or a dentist office. This work is produced ... 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
Sensible Automation Solutions updated its customer to an AutomationDirect BRX Do-more PLC to add needed capabilities and data reporting to an existing wastewater treatment system.
Machine builders, robot builders and system integrators offer advice for maintaining industrial machines. In the May 2019 issue of Control Design magazine, the cover story focus was machine maintenance. The story, titled Machine design with maintenance in mind, discussed best practices for maintaining machines, with input from numerous sources including machine builders, robot builders and ... 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
System integrator Affinity Energy worked with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to design and install a new temperature control system for their research chambers. By Allan Evora, President of Affinity Energy The University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill was spending too much time and money supporting an existing control system. ... Read More
