The open-source Productivity®Open platform provides all the great features of a standard Arduino plus the added power and reliability of an industrial controller. The processor circuit of the P1AM-100 Arduino-compatible CPU is designed to mimic the Arduino MKRZero microcontroller. The P1AM-100 is compatible with most available Arduino MKR format shields, and/or the industrially-hardened ProductivityOpen shields, and can utilize most Arduino sketch programs found on open-source websites.
Having all the parts on hand may make the difference between quickly completing a project, or delaying the work and incurring additional costs. This article shows how to address this issue by examining often overlooked pneumatic components when creating a pneumatic system bill of materials (BOM). Read more
A “one-size-fits-all” approach might be acceptable for some types of clothing, but for technical projects one always wants the right component for the task at hand. This is especially important for electric motors as these must be specified for the environment, the load, and efficient and reliable operation.
Using the wrong motor will be inefficient at best, and unworkable at worst. On the other hand, not every design requires a high-end motor, and exceeding specifications can result in excessive costs.
Every automation system uses significant amounts of wire and cable. Good design practice is to minimize the variety of types and colors to simplify ordering and reduce waste, but consolidation efforts can actually cost more when cables are over-specified to handle more situations. Therefore, many OEMs, end users, and system integrators are shifting to cut-to-length cable services so they can economically obtain exactly what they need, when they need it.
Greg Lieberman is the founder and owner of 26° Brewing in Pompano Beach, Florida. He started out as a homebrewer making 10 gallons per batch in a variety of locations such as the garage, the kitchen, a sibling’s backyard and in a barn. Greg’s homebrew career saw about 100 batches in four years, totaling one thousand gallons of beer.
Dutch Harbor power plant in the remote Aleutian Islands of Alaska operates several diesel gensets to generate electrical power. Electrical rates there are some of the highest in North America, about four times greater than the U.S. national average of $0.12/kWh.
To take advantage of the previously untapped genset waste heat, the City of Unalaska and the Alaska Energy Authority purchased three organic Rankine cycle (ORC) generators in 2014. Continue reading the article
