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Motion Control Round-up |
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| Dear Reader, |
Spring has finally come. At least the astronomical  spring: that point in the earth's orbit where the path of the sun passes directly along the equator. In more poetic terms, it is also the time for flowering and growth. (Let's hope the economy is taking note of these meanings as well!).
For our many readers, I'm pleased to announce that  this newsletter has recently received an "All Star Award" recognizing our efforts. This means that we've been good "Internet citizens", by eliminating spam, managing our email lists responsibly and by providing regular, popular content. We will continue to follow these best practices in the future and hope you continue to enjoy the results. Thanks to all of you for reading. |
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SSI in the Air |
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 Well we've done it again. In our quest to continually provide you with ways to improve your processes, we have a new product interface.
Our latest offering uses the popular Swiftcomm wireless interface to transmit absolute position information via an SSI signal. No need to incur the expense and maintenance of long cable runs - go wireless! Click the picture to download a PDF specification sheet.
Using the SSI communications protocol at both the transmitter and receiver end allows you to connect the wireless receiver directly into the SSI port in your controller, just like a conventional wired system. The SSI interface works with any SSI position interface; single or multi-turn encoders, linear scales, magnetostrictive devices or any other SSI sensor.
Ready to try one out? Until the end of April, we're running a contest for the most interesting application that can use our Swiftcomm wireless SSI interface. Click on the link below and submit your application via the contest form. The winner will get a free 30 day trial in their application. Click here to become a winner. |
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| He Did it All |
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To celebrate our March newsletter I thought I'd feature a particular person who was born this month. As it turns out there was a very famous someone who was born on March 6th. He was known for his great works in painting, sculpture and the sciences. He also had a lot to say about accomplishment, hard work and perseverance as portrayed by these quotes.
"Faith in oneself is the best and safest course. "
"Genius is eternal patience."
"I hope that I may always desire more than I can accomplish."
"If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all."
"The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark."
"There is no greater harm than that of time wasted."
If you think you know who this person is, then click his picture at the right and you will be linked to an extensive biography of the man.  And to all of you out there that were also born on March 6th - you have yet another reason to celebrate that particular day. Enjoy! |
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Can You Solve This? |
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 This month's brain teaser is more of a tutorial than a puzzle challenge. Sometimes the job of our applications specialists isn't so much to troubleshoot, but to educate. We had a call from a customer who had an application involving automating a tool changer. Most of the time the tool changer was stationary, but then it needed to rotate to one of several positions to present a new tool to the workpiece. The positioning needed to be precise to within about 1/2 degree at which point a locking mechanism would secure the turret in one of its 8 positions. The customer was looking at the possibility of an incremental versus an absolute encoder. He needed about 12 bits of resolution, but he was concerned about dealing with a large cable bundle if he went with an absolute encoder. What should he do?
Answer: This is clearly an absolute encoder application. The fact that he didn't require continuous information and that the operation was intermittent, indicate absolute as the best choice. This approach has the added advantage that if he was to lose power during an operation, he would not have to reset the tool changer to "find" the home position. In order to save installation costs and reduce the size of the wire bundle, he should use an SSI (Serial Synchronous Interface) option. This only requires a minimum of 6 wires: 1 pair for the clock, 1 pair for the data plus power and ground. If he tried to do this with a parallel output, then he would have a minimum of 14 conductors, 12 data lines plus power and ground. For a more detailed description of SSI, click the link below and scroll to the bottom page of the PDF file.
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Double Take |
 OK, I know this is a little tacky, but I couldn't resist. Wherever there are tourists, there are opportunities to draw them into your business in a unique way. Often times this means resorting to weird or unusual architecture that looks like something else. There's even a name for it: mimetic architecture.
Mimetic architecture has been around for a long time, but the proliferation of such wacky icons of the roadside really took off with the so-called golden age of the automobile after the second world war. So take a click on the doughnut hole at the top of this article and you'll be treated to a tour of some top notch, high quality tourist attractions the likes of which you probably have never seen before. Some of these are really quite clever. My favorite is the duck. | |
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| Thank-you for reading our newsletter. We appreciate your business and appreciate the chance to help you with your automation needs. Call or email us anytime. |
Thanks for reading,
Scott Orlosky
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