A lot of it is precisely ‘doing more with less’.  How do we make the same quality of parts at prices low enough to compete with foreign competition?  It’s not easy when the typical pay scale for manufacturing labor is $8 a day in some parts of the world.

There are a couple of obvious components to price competition that don’t get a lot of attention.  Scrap rates and delivered cost.  When a US company buys parts from offshore, any defective parts are very costly.  The direct shipping cost, duties and processing fees are additional and can be 10-15%.

During my years at Rockwell Automation, we investigated the cost of selling US products in different parts of the world.  Depending on where in the world we are talking about, the shipping and logistics can accumulate between 25 and 40% additional cost to the product being sold.

So the cost of scraps and logistics are the minimum cost hurdles for companies seeking to export their products to the US.  Low cost producers have to make parts cheaply enough that the landed cost and scrap rates cost out less than the price of producing them in the US.

Doing more manufacturing in the US requires finding creative ways to lower costs.  That is the second area that is undergoing change.  American manufacturing technology is finding ways to reduce machinery and process costs.  And this area of effort may provide key strategies that will help the US gain back ground in the pursuit of more world class manufacturing.

Innovation processes like additive manufacturing allow fabrication of metal parts with no machining.  For higher levels of precision there are new machine tools that can do final machining to less than 0.001″ accuracy and the costs of machine tools are lower than ever.  These are the keys to producing high quality parts at lower costs.

There are unique mechatronic solutions that can improve machinery performance across a wide range of applications.  The Acme screw which is very inexpensive, has limited accuracy but plenty of torque handling capability.  What happens if you can add a very inexpensive linear feedback technology to the simple low cost Acme screw?  You get a really high resolution linear motion system that is very inexpensive.

The great news is that these products are currently available.  And that means that making better machines that make better parts at lower cost is practical, achievable and there are no technical challenges.  Common off the shelf parts will get it done.

Some people define servo’s as closed loop versus drives which are open loop.  The term servo does require that there is a feedback device to provide the loop closure.  But there are many AC drive vendors making closed loop inverters to enhance the performance of the motor.  AC drives with feedback are generally used where positioning is required.  So the feedback element is not the determining factor for defining if an application is AC or DC.

The overall power level may define one versus the other, but not always.  Brushless servo motors are generally limited to 7″ or 8″ diameter and an equivalent horsepower rating of 20-30 horsepower.  There are frameless motors with even higher horsepower ratings.  But  the size and power rating are strictly a function of manufacturing and marketing constraints.  For a major manufacturer, the question is really, how many motors of a given size are we going to sell?  Based on the high cost of Neodymium permanent magnets, a larger servomotor is going to be very expensive.

But overall power ratings are not limited when you consider products from specialty companies like Powertec.  Powertec takes standard AC motor frame designs and increases the power density by adding embedded permanent magnets on the rotor.  Since the magnets are Ferrite, which aren’t as expensive, they are much more economical and allow designs as big as 400HP.  So power level by itself doesn’t determine what technology to use.

The real answer is in the load conditions.  What is the dynamic response required for the target application?  The rate of change of the load is the key.  Most AC drives are specified in terms of the frequency response or dynamic response of the power electronics.  This important parameter is expressed in Hertz.

Dynamic response is the ability of the drive to regulate speed when the load varies.  The load torque can change significantly, usually 90-100%, and the drive will recover the set speed within the time defined by the dynamic response.  Typically, an open loop AC drive has a 10 hertz dynamic response, which means that it will regulate to 1/10th of a second.

AC drive technology has improved to the point where dynamic response can reach 200 Hertz when a rotary encoder is added to the motor.  This means the drive can regulate load variations wiithin 5 milliseconds.  Which is pretty fast when the load mass is high enough to require a motor of 25 horsepower or larger.

The basic physics are simply that the bigger the load, the slower the dynamic response.  You just can’t make a ton of rotating mass change speed really quickly.  And that’s how the controls should respond.

Features of Nippon Pulse’s Green Drive include:

• Acceleration (peak) force of up to 600N for 40 seconds
• Effective stroke lengths between 10mm and 1540mm
• Cooling systems that can increase rated force up to 20%
• Rated force between 13N and 150N
• Position repeatability of ±0.05mm
• T-slots for easy and quick integration into applications
• Position sensors, temperature sensors, interpolation electronics
• Four different feedback output types: analogue SIN/COS, Digital Bus BISS-C, Digital A/B TTL Linedrive Incremental, and Absolute SSI
• Color coded quick connectors
• High-performance slide bearings

The Green Drive currently is available in two sizes, the G16x series and G25x series. The G16x series features a shaft (magnets) with a 16mm diameter and the G25x a 25mm shaft diameter. The G16x series is 66mm wide and high, while the G25x series is 88mm wide and high. Each has varying lengths depending on the required effective stroke.

Nippon Pulse will be highlighting the Green Drive at the ATX West tradeshow in Anaheim, CA in mid-February. Those interested in the Green Drive can visit booth #4348 to learn more about the actuator.

Nippon Pulse America, Inc.
www.nipponpulse.com

“We are very pleased to add Kaman Industrial’s selling capability and the value added approach they brings to their customers to our already strong distribution channel.” said John Hegel, President of Minarik Drives.  “Kaman’s penetration into the user and OEM markets will open doors for us that had been previously inaccessible and will help us serve a greater cross section of business across the U.S.”

Minarik Drives is an independent company that specializes in low to medium power electric drive and power applications.  It has been a standard, and a leader, in the DC drive business for almost 60 years.  With design engineering and manufacturing headquartered in S. Beloit, Illinois, it provides standard and customized solutions at a globally competitive price.  More information about Minarik Drives is available at www.minarikdrives.com or by calling 815-624-5959.

The traditional metal cutting machine tool has been around since the 1800′s and was entirely manually operated.  Since the machines were manually operated, the dexterity of the operator became a major factor in accuracy and repeatability of part manufacturing.  Because of the skill required, we still have the term “master machinist” in circulation, even though most machining today is automated.

During the Second World War, the Air Force was confronting the difficulty of manufacturing airplane parts.  Through the work of John Parsons and MIT, the first “punch card” controlled machine tool was built.  Parsons’ company was using early punch card computers to generate a larger number of points along the curve of a wing brace.  The numerical information was then used directly by machinists as a look up table for manually positioning a milling tool.  Parsons realized that if they could motorized the manual process, it could greatly increase the speed of the machining process, lowering costs dramatically and increasing accuracy at the same time.

Gordon Brown’s Servomechanisms group at MIT has recently been working on early forms of closed loop dc motor control for the gun turret on B-29 bombers.  By combining these recent technologies to numerical punch card calculation approach the first Computer Numerical Controlled Machine Tool was demonstrated.

The rest, as they say, is history.  The lessons learned in computer numerical control have been instrumental in every major field of manufacturing.  Cars, electronics, robotics, would not be feasible or cost effective without the underlying control technology of CNC.

Which brings me to a 2 major points as we contemplate the next generation of manufacturing.

Additive manufacturing is maturing rapidly with a wide range of materials, steels and titanium are now available, and precision is improving at the same time.   The surface finish requirements for a large number of parts cannot be achieved with a strictly additive process.  The new wave of additive manufacturing requires a complementary subtractive technology at complementary prices.

Secondly, while there are an increasing number of machine tools at low cost, they are not CNC.  This will likely be the next “breakout” technology.  There are a number of technical hurdles that have to be addressed in terms of reducing the cost to a level comparable with the Makerbot.  With the current generation of dedicated motion controller chips, lower cost step motors and low cost feedback technology, this should be a slam dunk.

Get your pencils out and get after it!  There’s some serious money to be made here.

Alternative energy in the US has failed to produce the return on investment or to create new jobs in any significant numbers.  Car sales have picked up significantly over 2011, but not nearly at the rate of 16 million cars/year as in the heyday of that industry.  The real estate bubble has burst after a decade of speculation and bad lending practices that continue to depress new construction.

The second industrial revolution, Henry Ford’s industrial revolution, was about mass production and cost reduction.  For almost 100 years we have been perfecting the centralized manufacture of almost everything around us.  Economies of scale that enable volume manufacturing of consumer electronics at lower cost year after year are the result of the Ford approach to manufacturing.

So where do we go from here?  We start re-inventing the industrial revolution.

The new wave of manufacturing has begun with the advent of the Maker Bot and a family of low-cost fabrication tools that can manufacture based on 3D printing techniques.  While solid model prototyping has been around for some time, the magic ingredient is a new family of machines that cost less than $2000. and some recent new entries around the $1000 mark.  At these price points, it doesn’t take a lot of volume to justify the purchase of one of these machines.

There are advanced processes that are becoming available to generate sintered metal parts, even titanium parts, using processes resembling the additive manufacturing process.

Amortization cost is the secret.  Lowering amortization costs and minimum order quantity at the same time results in a fantastic breakthrough in productivity.  It also lowers the barrier to entry into new markets.  So if you have an idea for something that’s never been done before, the cost for development may be a lot lower than you think.  And thousands of people have begun to jump into the mainstream economy because of the availability of these new tools.

While the “maker” tools are limited to plastics, there is progress in the metals arena as well.  The computer numerically controlled (CNC) machine tools have traditionally been the domain of 6 figure costs, HAAS has been making $50,000 machines and last year Tormach entered the market with the “Personal CNC”, a high quality machine that is priced at $10,000.

My prediction?  There is going to be a lot of activity at the $10,000 and below price point to come up with low cost machine tools as a complement to the “maker” bot 3D printer technology.  Additive manufacturing will require a complementary subtractive manufacturing infrastructure at a comparable price point.

And creative American engineers and tinkerers will be leading the way.

In the wind energy arena the biggest change has been the shift to direct drive permanent magnet generators.  By eliminating the gear “increaser” to convert the low RPM of the propeller system to a high RPM for a standard high power generator.  This is crucial step in bringing the cost of wind power down. Current systems are weighing in at 100 tons and have to be suspended above water or land 165 feet in order to pick up sufficient wind currents to be economically practical.

There is no single solution that is ideal for wind applications.  One supplier has a generator that is made up of 4 smaller units on a single large ring gear.  This system seems to have significant advantages in reducing the size and weight of the generator and makes maintenance more simple in the event of a failure.

Among the major mechatronic challenges driving change in the motor industry, electric vehicle applications are continually pushing the boundary for energy density and efficiency.  The performance demands of electric vehicles and other mobility applications make every percentage point of efficiency crucial to the range of the target vehicle.  This has led to a rash of new motor and drivetrain designs with a variety performance capabilities.

Each new innovation seeks to organize the basic materials of the electric motor in a new way to improve some aspect of performance.  Electric motors are copper conductors, “soft” magnetic steels and many times, permanent magnets.  The basic costs for copper wire at $5-6 a pound, commodity strip steel is about $.50 per pound but has to be punched in precise shapes, coated with insulation and stacked into larger assemblies, and $16. per pound for permanent magnets.  Complex processes associated with motor manufacturing make motor costs considerable.

In a recent development teams in academia in Australia and the US have developed simple low RPM motor structures based on polymer actuators referred to as “artificial muscle”.  While this development is in its early phases, the simplicity and low cost are significant and very appealing.  A demonstration of the new technology can be seen on YouTube at;  www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcCPNJR5PCMand it is very much worth the watch.

The only sure thing is that we continue to meet the challenge of new market needs with innovation.

Why?  First because losses in the sytem result in friction and heat.  Every time energy is converted from one form to another, there are losses.  In electromechanical systems these losses are most often heat.  If the application has high cycling rates, the heat created by the losses need to be considered.

Acme screws are a great solution that is inexpensive and widely available.    The design parameters for Acme screws are pitch, diameter, material, surface finish and nut.  The most significant issue is the pitch.  At low pitch ratios, the efficiency can be 60% or higher.   At high pitch ratios, like 10:1 lead, the efficiency of some Acme screws can be very low, 35-40%.  When thermoplastic materials are used for the drive element, the efficiency becomes a critical issue.  The efficiency translates as heat, with high cycling the heat will cause deflection in the material that can make for added difficulty in the actuator.

A recent project I worked on had a screw with 35% efficiency, which means that 2/3 of the power into the mechanism was being dissipated as heat.  Not a good situation when the load is moving constantly or at high speed.  As the parts heat up, the polymer nut finally heated up to the point where it melted.  By changing the drive train to a planetary gear reducer and a screw with low pitch, the screw becomes a low speed actuator with double the efficiency, cutting the load requirement and heating in half.

In ball screw actuators, the circulating ball bearings and lubricant reduce the friction dramatically regardless of pitch.  Some ball screw actuators are 99% efficient, so there are no significant issues to consider in the losses.  The increased efficiency comes at a substantial price, but it also comes with high precision.  So for high precision actuators, the ball screw is a natural choice.

Rolling bearing actuators are another solution to linear motion, which also have incredibly high efficiency.  There are many vendors using rolling bearings of various configurations.  With low coefficients of friction of 0.2%, rolling bearings are an incredibly efficient solution at a very low cost.  Most often the rolling bearing systems are driven by belt and pulley systems which are also very efficient.

Again, frictional considerations become very significant in subtle ways.  Early evaluation can insure higher performance and lower cost in many designs.

This was the case when a friend of mine was designing a material handling system for newspaper bundles.  A very exotic conveyor system with 8 servo driven belts and a design that involved 10 pages of hand calculations of inertia.  We shipped the servos and sent out a field engineer to start up the project only to find out that the motors and drives were too small.  The designer had forgotten to account for friction.  In this case the frictional load was 3 times the mechanical load due to the unique belt and roller configuration.

So the first lesson is; don’t forget to look at friction as 1 of 3 components of the torque load.  The three being; steady state torque, torque of acceleration and friction.

Then there is the fanciful wishing that there wasn’t any friction to worry about.  Kind of like doing experiments in the space station and having no gravity.  It’s fun to think about, but there are few real world situations where this is likely to work.  The only exception is air bearings.  Of which there are a few.

If you have ever played air hockey, air bearings are like that.  Parts in motion tend to stay in motion when there is no friction to worry about.  And that would be good in a lot of applications.  No friction will generally result in smaller servos, so there are savings in the hardware requirement.  No friction means no mechanical wear, nothing to service as the machine runs up cycles.  No friction also means high speed motion is a lot easier to achieve.

Cars coast to a stop because of friction.  That’s a good thing.  Without friction, parts would end up flying off the conveyor instead of going where you want them to go.  In conveyor belt applications there is usually a lot of friction and that helps the system slow down and stop.

So the second lesson is; friction can be your friend.

In between systems with friction and systems with no friction, there are rolling bearings.  Systems like the Bishop Wisecarver “Vee Guide” are among many products on the market are examples of this.  Rolling element bearings have very low coefficients of friction, so losses are low and therefore the energy needed to overcome them is very low.  This also results in very low wear, so maintenance on this type of mechanism is also low.

The are dozens of linear actuators on the market and each vendor has developed unique bearing solutions, whether sliding or rolling, that perform well at varying price points.  There are no universal rules for selection.  The typical criteria are move speed, positioning accuracy, life expectancy and cost.

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to write a couple of small “C” programs in a training class and re-discovered why I don’t like to write control software.  I don’t have much background in C programming.  It’s not that C programming is inherently good or bad, it’s just another language.  What is difficult to deal with is each controller having it’s own library of C language instructions.

It’s not that any particular language difficult, it’s that every language is iterated on different controllers and the instruction set and programming quirks have to be learned on each platform.  Ladder Logic instructions have become largely standardized and the difference from one platform to another are becoming less and less significant.  Turning discrete inputs and outputs on and off is pretty straightforward.  Reading analog signals, doing some mathematical operations and setting analog outputs is also fairly straightforward.   Even when there a lot of I/O to deal with, the knowledge base required to understand the applications of the technology are ultimately very repeatable.

The variations of how to do motion control on different platforms are very significant.  Each controller company has to come up with a complete programming environment that defines how to command the controller to execute motion tasks.  The creation of commands and processor executables requires coding and testing the code over man years of development.  This is a complex form of knowledge capture and there are a lot of nuances as programmers come up the learning curve before good effective programming environments can be created.

This is part of the reason why the motion control field hasn’t progressed as much as other control disciplines.  There is no agreement on any standard programming methods past trapezoidal move profiles.  The situation becomes more complex because each motion control vendor develops its own programming environment based on the selection of processor platforms and what its programmers come up with for the programming suite.  This creates a barrier to entry for new companies, and makes improved code solutions problematic.

Many of the PLC programming suites include dialog boxes that provide scripting for the motion commands in the ladder logic program.  The technology is readily available to make a high level motion programming suite that is processor independent and capable of addressing 80-90% of all motion control applications.  This will make motion more accessible to a wider audience and simplify the programming aspects of motion and machine control.

We need to bring the industry into the 21st century and make everyone’s lives a little easier.

Considering the possibilities of improved personal transportation, the consequences of a major change in transportation technology are significant and should be carefully considered as we move forward.

The major impact of all the technology being promoted these days is increased efficiency and reduced fuel consumption.  Whether your motivation is reducing emissions and cleaning the air, or you are interested in reducing your cost of transportation, the requirement is the same; get more miles out of a gallon of gasoline or eliminate gasoline usage altogether, as is the case for a pure electric vehicle.

Across the entire population of cars in the US, the average fuel efficiency is around 20 miles per gallon. Despite the demand for higher fuel mileage from consumers, this situation hasn’t improved much in the last few decades.  A dismal thought in contrast to the claims being made these days for the new solutions.

The US consumes 383.25 million gallons of gasoline and diesel fuel per day.  This all goes into transportation.  The only fuel going into electrical generation is in diesel gen-sets for backup and remote power, just in case anyone is thinking about the barrel- of-oil-to-electricity energy equivalency.

Imagining a future in which gasoline usage declines is not difficult.  I drive a Ford Fusion for work which is averaging 30 mpg combined city and highway.    If the US fleet average is 20 mpg, increasing that average to 30 mpg implies decreasing the amount of gasoline sold by 1/3.  Currently, gasoline retails for $3.25/gallon, or $453 Billion annually at the pump.

So a sharp change in usage due to efficiency or an increase in the number of electric vehicles, is cause for concern from oil & gas exploration companies, gasoline refiners, distributors and dealers.  Unless gasoline prices continue to go up.  In which case there would be less gasoline solid at roughly the same total revenue, which suggests that higher profits might be the side effect if the true cost doesn’t go up.

What about tax revenues?  The direct state and federal tax on gasoline is about 40 cents per gallon.  This does not include large excise taxes collected by the states, taxes paid by refiners and distributors, etc.  In fact, it would be hard to calculate how much of gasoline pricing is taxes and how much is the cost of the product.  Regardless, at 40 cents/gallon, the daily revenues are $153 million and the annual is above $55.8 billion.

Given the current economic picture, is there any level of government that is willing to give up the tax revenue from gasoline?  Probably not.  Is this any different than “Dollars for Oil” at the UN a couple of years ago?  Probably not.  But we thought that was a scandal.

American buyers will be able to buy American hybrid cars.  The Chevy Volt will be flanked by the Ford Fusion Electric scheduled to be released for sale in 19 US markets in March of 2012.  The Nissan Leaf might be the first production electric, so most commentators will make comparisons regarding driving range, speed and recharge time based on the performance of the Leaf.  At present, the claimed performance of the vehicles is very comparable.

It’s all speculation until there are a few units out there and the actual life cycle of the batteries can be measured.  100′s to 1000′s of vehicles will have to be built and consumer experiences cataloged in order to get a handle on how the batteries really work.  With all due respect to the development and testing efforts, it’s educated guesswork until there is real world experience.

Will the batteries be able to cycle enough times to make them cost effective?  When will they require replacement?  What will the price tag be for the battery pack?  Hopefully less than the $13,000 Tesla battery pack.

EV’s are coming.  But they are, like all the alternative energy technologies, still not cost competitive with Internal Combustion engines.  Most vehicles carry a $39,995 starting price tag with a $7,500 Federal rebate.  The basic purchase price puts EV’s out of the price range for many people, which fundamentally defeats the purpose.  The point of alternative energy technology is that it must become widespread in order for any impact on the environment to take place.  High prices are a major barrier to broad adoption.

Meanwhile the internal combustion engine is seeing some revival.  New approaches are being built and tested that offer dramatic improvements in efficiency and engine weight.  The EcoMotors opposing piston engine has been under DARPA development since 2007.  EcoMotors technology has been demonstrated to 40% efficiency, more than double that of traditional ICE.  In addition, it weighs less, takes up less space and gives of dramatically less heat.

Recently, the University of Michigan announced a new breakthrough called the wave engine that is expected to increase combustion efficiency to 60%.  And the rotor only turns in one direction like a scroll compressor instead of a piston, so there are no reciprocating motions to deal with.  This will also lower vehicle weight substantially, so the engine efficiency improvement leads to further overall efficiency in fuel required per transportation mile.

If these ICE improvements translate directly into miles-per gallon, then based on average 20 mpg cars today, we are talking about 53+ mile per gallon in town and possibly 70 mpg highway for EcoMotors solution.  At these levels, the equivalent energy cost per transportation mile is at parity with electricity.  If the wave engine proves successful, in town ratings of 80 mpg and 100 mpg highway become feasible, making electric options more expensive.

The future is what we make it.  Let’s make it the best we can with choices that make sense economically and environmentally.

Control systems can be described as “open loop” or “closed loop” depending on the whether or not the system being controlled is well characterized.  Many forms of motor control seek to be “open loop”, that is, without the use of a feedback device.   However, this notion should be modified to open loop meaning without an explicit feedback device. This is because great effort is expended to “infer” what is going on in the motor through various means. The most common of which is current.

In the world of electric motors, the alternating current motor of Nicola Tesla is well understood, and rarely requires a feedback device.  Motor speed is derived from the frequency of the power being supplied minus losses depending on the details of rotor construction and how a specific load affects the motor.  The standard ac motor has a small amount of rotor “slip” from 1800 rpm to 1750 rpm which reflects the magnetizing current losses in the motor and magnetic features in the rotor that would be needed to maintain perfect synchronism with the line frequency.

Load variations can be measured by sensing the current in the line going to the motor.  So there is a feedback element available from which a great deal of information can be derived.  This is where the ambiguity about feedback comes in.  The current needed to run the motor with no load is fixed value, so more current read on the motor leads is load, until the motor reaches locked rotor current or stall.

In brushless dc systems a similar approach is used.  Detecting the zero crossing point of the phase current establishes precise timing of the rotor speed and is used to regulate timing of current pulses to all three phases of the motor.  In this way even the brushless dc motor can be operated without an explicit feedback sensor.    However the tradeoff here is very poor low speed regulation of the motor which makes this approach unsuitable for many applications.

From a control system standpoint, feedbacks are the last, slowest loop in the control scheme of the motor.  This makes sense in the context of position control as it is normally executed in a PLC or motion controller.  However, this makes load regulation more of a challenge since the actual error detection of the control system is being done a level removed from the actual load.

A host of mathematical tools from the signal processing domain have traditionally been employed to characterize the lag created by the control system and the interaction of the controls at varying speeds. All of which works well, but has also lead to “rules of thumb” that are not very clearly understood and which are sometimes misleading.

Many of the constraints of the work are environmental.  If work is being done outdoors, then temperature and humidity are a factor.  Felling trees and in the forest requires extremely high forces due to the work needed to cut through a tree and drag it to a truck to be hauled off for processing.  Processing trees, even in a plant environment, requires some serious hardware, 125 horsepower band saws are not unusual.

Doing work on a ship or oil rig has additional constraints because of the presence of explosive fumes and fuels.  Often the need to avoid any possibility of igniting a combustible atmosphere causes engineers to apply pneumatic control systems.  Yes, there is still a compressor somewhere to generate the compressed air supply, but that is usually remote or contained to avoid exposure to the volatile atmosphere.

Environmental constraints come in many forms.  Extremely high temperatures push the limits of what is possible.  Making glass, semiconductors, and primary metal processing are all high temperature environments where engineers have developed whole technologies in order to bring us the materials we use in everyday life.

The simplest action of rolling or sliding becomes a real challenge when environmental constraints are added to the work statement.  Sawdust becomes a potential abrasive in woodworking environments that can introduce severe wear in moving parts.  Corrosive and explosion proof atmospheres as well as food industry applications introduce all sorts of chemical compatibility problems that require special materials and processes in order to meet strict guidelines for safety.

As always, resourceful engineers have worked out solutions for all of these difficult applications.  One family of solutions to rolling applications is the use of all ceramic bearings.  No steel, no lubrication.  None is needed because the ceramics are extremely high purity to start with and have extremely high precision surfaces eliminating the need for lubrication.  No outgassing or contamination to worry about.

Other solutions take the form of air bearings and non-contact material handling devices.  Air bearings have become more readily available for conventional applications, but are particularly compelling in large machinery applications where precision is required.  Large flat screen display glass  presents unique challenges that successfully addressed using a combination of air bearing regions and vacuum regions to move the glass without actual contact and with overall flatness measured in millionths of an inch.

A unique solution in pneumatic material handling takes compressed air driven into a funnel shaped recess and creates a vacuum in the center and an air cushion at the edges where the air is exiting.  This creates a vacuum pickup that never quite comes in contact with the part, leaving no marks.  Perfect for solar cell and some food and beverage applications.

Engineers continue to meet the unique challenges of industry and create commerce at the same time.  And that’s what it should be about.

Start with the big loads.  Plant air handling, building HVAC and lighting are generally a lot more significant in total Watts or equivalent horsepower.  1 Horsepower is equal to 746 Watts.  If you are located in the northern states, winter heating uses a lot more energy than summer air conditioning.  In the southern states, it’s the opposite.  There is one study that puts the northern thermal cycle at a much higher overall cost, so everybody needs to move their manufacturing to the south.

Check all the integral horsepower motors in the plant.  A recent DOE study shows that over time, many motors get replaced with whatever is readily available in the next larger frame size.  This is in reaction to plant failures where the exact replacement motor is not handy or on the shelf.  The result is that the plant power and power factor can be very poor because there is a lot of excess capacity that is not being used efficiently.

Industrial plants also suffer from peak demand billing practices.  The utility company agrees to provide power, but large users get billed extra when they have peaks above their average usage.  Again, look at the large loads, and see if some or all can be put on soft starters or inverters with longer starting profiles.  AC motors try to get to full running speed and spend several seconds at poor power factor and huge inrush currents during starting.  Most motors require at least 4 seconds to get to speed.  So, is there a savings opportunity if you can get by with a 6 to 10 second starting period?  Yes, there absolutely is.

The smaller loads like individual plant floor machines are a little harder to regulate.  Some production machines consist of dozens of individual motors and sub-systems.  In large conveyor installations, newer control system turns off whole zones of equipment if there is no traffic for that section.  Use the same strategy in production equipment.  If there is nothing coming into the machine, turn off as much stuff as possible.

Again, look for the largest loads.  In CNC machines, the spindle is usually the dominant load.  Turning off a 10kW spindle motor will save lots more money than turning off 400 Watt positioning axes.  However, don’t pass up an opportunity if one exists.  If there are a large number of individual axes of motion that have low duty cycles, it may be cost effective to put brakes on the load and turn the motors off when they are not in use.

Prudent planning can be turned into real cash savings.