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Motion Control Round-up |
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| Dear Michelle, |
 July is often the hottest month of the year for north-of-the-equator dwellers (January for you Australians). It's a time to hit the beach or swimming pool, run through the lawn sprinklers, drink a tall glass of lemonade or iced tea and generally find ways to keep cool.
And when it comes to hot and cold - we've got you covered. Certain encoder models can operate up to 105
°C and as low as -55
°C. So whether you're concerned about beating the heat or keeping cool under pressure - BEI can help.
Read on and enjoy our monthly newsletter. You'll find the latest hot news along with some really cool stories and web links. Stay cool. |
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Radio Active Containment |
 Many of you will recall last year when we introduced the first wireless data interface for real-time control using encoders: our SwiftComm 2.4 GHz data radios. This has proven to be a popular interface particularly for those of you operating heavy equipment or in harsh environments that have expensive cable runs or high maintenance requirements. In response to your needs we're previewing the latest addition to the Swiftcomm family: an explosion proof version of the SwiftComm transmitter module. Any tough environment that requires the transmitter be protected can use this ruggedized version, up to and including Class 1 Division 1 Zone 0 hazardous environments. If you have a particularly challenging environment for your encoders, then check out our newest addition to the SwiftComm line by clicking the picture, above. Give us a call and we'll help you determine if SwiftComm is right for your application. |
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| Step Right Up |
 Summer time is when the circus comes to town and one of the most famous of circus men was P.T. (Phineas Taylor) Barnum. He has been called the "Greatest Showman of All Time" and is famous for his quote, "There's a sucker born every minute."
Before his circus success this Connecticut born showman also spent time running the American Museum of New York (a museum of oddities), acting as an impresario for Jenny Lind (his first real financial success) and serving as mayor of Bridgeport Connecticut.
Despite the somewhat cynical underpinnings of his business ventures, he understood very well that a paying customer is something to be nurtured and respected. And, as revealed by these lesser-known quotes, he also understood the value of hard work and perseverance.
"Money is a terrible master but an excellent servant."
"Engage in one kind of business only, and stick to it faithfully until you succeed, or until your experience shows that you should abandon it."
"The truth is, the more kind and liberal a man is, the more generous will be the patronage bestowed upon him."
"Politeness and civility are the best capital ever invested in business. Large stores, gilt signs, flaming advertisements, will all prove unavailing if you or your employees treat your patrons abruptly."
To read a more comprehensive biography of this famous promoter and circus icon, click on his picture, above.
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Can You Solve This? |
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 Here's a little puzzler that show how easy it can be to get into "hot water" in an installation. This was brought to our attention by a customer whose installation turned out to be on the edge of the design envelope. These situations are tricky because they often show up as intermittents in a particular installation, or worse yet, five installations may appear to work just fine and then the sixth just seems to be fraught with problems. At any rate this customer was using an encoder with the 28V/5 option meaning that they could supply the encoder with any voltage between 5 and 28 volts and it would return a regulated 5 volt output as the data voltage. They were operating at 24 volts and they were seeing intermittent signal drop-outs, especially with time and temperature. We asked that they check the current draw of the encoder and once we got the answer, the problem was clear. What was going on?
Answer: Since this seemed to be time and/or temperature related we were suspicious of excess current draw and the customer confirmed this. Typically an encoder signal feeds into a counter or PLC with an input impedance which limits the current to about 10 mA per channel. With 3 channels (A, B and Index) we would expect a 30 mA load plus the 85 mA to run the encoder circuitry for a total of about 115 mA. The reported value was almost 400 mA since they had a configuration that drew about 100 mA per channel. This meant that the regulator was attempting to dissipating 400 X (24V-5V) = 7600 mW of power in the form of heat. The thermal protection circuitry in the encoder was being activated, shutting it down. There were several options available to solve this problem. First, and most desirable would be to increase the input impedance on the PLC to reduce the current draw, a second choice would be to operate at a lower voltage to reduce the heat load or the third option would be to use a different regulation scheme internal to the encoder which would reduce the sensitivity to this condition - a more customized design.
No matter what your situation, contact our applications specialists and they'll help you get to the root of the problem and will usually have a couple of solutions available. Click THIS LINK to contact our specialists. |
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Where Hot is Cool |
 In keeping with our hot and cold introduction, let's close this newsletter with some hot and cold news. Have you ever wondered about the temperature extremes in your part of the world? Well wonder no more. A click to the picture in this article will send you off to a summary of extreme weather records. Sure, you'll find that the hottest temperature on earth was 57.8 °C (136 °F) in Libya and the coldest ever was −89.2 °C (−128.6 °F) in Antarctica. But did you know the coldest temperature ever recorded in Hawaii was −11.1 °C (12 °F) or that the hottest temperature ever recorded at the South Pole was −14.0 °C (7.5 °F)? How about the highest snowfall in a year: 31.1 meters (1224 in), on Mt. Rainier, Washington State or the heaviest hailstone: 1.0 kg (2.25 lb) in Bangladesh, India. So if the heat is getting to be too much, just remember in a few months time, you'll probably be wishing for summer all over again. | |
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| I hope you had a little fun with this month's newsletter and also got a chance to learn something new. Drop me a line if we can be of service at any time. |
Thanks for reading,
Scott Orlosky
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