Motion Control Tips

Battery-powered motor applications need careful design work to match motor performance and power-consumption profiles to the battery type. Optimal motor and battery pairing relies on the selection of an efficient motor as well as a battery with the appropriate capacity, cost, size, maintainability, and discharge duration and curve. By Scott McMillan • Senior Applications Engineer […]

Servo motors are used in applications where precise control of position, speed, or torque is required. But many different types of motors can be considered servo motors — the defining feature of a servo motor is that it incorporates or reads feedback in a closed-loop system. In fact, although many servo applications use synchronous AC motors, […]

Motion Industries, Inc., a leading distributor of maintenance, repair, and operation replacement parts, and a premier provider of industrial technology solutions, has completed the purchase of Kaman Distribution Group (“KDG”) for a purchase price of approximately $1.3 billion in cash, effective January 3, 2022. The strategic addition of KDG to Motion will significantly boost the […]

We cover a wide variety of topics here at motioncontroltips.com — from Industrial Ethernet and networking to springs and shock absorbers. So, naturally, our most-read articles typically span a wide range of subjects. But 2021 was a bit different, with all but one article being related to motors, and more than half of the articles […]

Aerotech Inc. has released the HEX150-140HL, a miniature hexapod six degree-of-freedom (DOF) positioning system that provides precise translation in the X, Y and Z directions and rotation around each of these axes. The HEX150-140HL delivers significantly better minimal incremental motion and more linear travel than its competitors — all within a compact yet stiff platform. “This hexapod’s combination of small […]

Negative-Stiffness vibration isolation has played an integral role in supporting systems for ground testing and development of spacecraft and components, both inside and outside of vacuum chambers. Steve Varma Operations Manager Minus K Technology Spacecraft ground testing is sensitive to the smallest vibrations, can be caused by a multitude of factors. Every structure is transmitting vibrations from […]

Worm gears are often used for their ability to provide very high reduction ratios (and high torque multiplication) in a compact, single-stage design. But traditional thinking says that these benefits come at the expense of efficiency. Here, we’ll look at the factors that determine worm gear efficiency and how to get the benefits they provide […]

Moticont has introduced an open aperture linear motor featuring a 2.250 in. (57.2 mm) stroke. The HVCM-051-038-019-01 DC Voice Coil Servo Motor has a continuous force rating of 4.2 lb (18.8 N) and a peak force of 13.4 lb (59.5 N) at a 10% duty cycle. Capable of high acceleration, deceleration, high speed, and zero […]

AutomationDirect has added a host of new motors from Regal Rexnord to its existing portfolio, including two new series of Marathon motors and Leeson specialty motors. The new Marathon Globetrotter motors are high-quality 3-phase general-purpose motors that can be controlled by an inverter and are rated up to 200 hp. Globetrotter motors are offered in […]

Functional safety is a fundamental component in drive systems. The SK TU4-PNS, known as the PROFIsafe module, provides comprehensive safety for the reliable operation of NORD drive systems. This PROFIsafe module is a drive-integrated solution for decentralized variable frequency drives that implements functional safety within the system to stop operation and avoid potential injuries or […]

Cyclic synchronous control modes — cyclic synchronous position, cyclic synchronous velocity, and cyclic synchronous torque — are standardized operation modes of drives, defined in the CiA 402 profile specification, CANopen device profile for drives and motion control and included in the IEC 61800-7 standard, Adjustable speed electrical power drive systems — Part 7: Generic interface and use of […]

With the new EL7062 dual-channel EtherCAT Terminal, Beckhoff enables the direct connection of two stepper motors in the medium power range of up to 3 A and for a voltage range of 8–48 V. With flexible parameterization and minimized channel costs, the flexible motion interface is ideal as a low-cost drive for a wide range […]

The new EL7062 dual-channel EtherCAT Terminal from Beckhoff enables the direct connection of two stepper motors in the medium power range of up to 3 A and for a voltage range of 8 to 48 V. With flexible parameterization and minimized channel costs, the flexible motion interface is ideal as a low-cost drive for a […]

Most precision stepper motor applications — especially those in automation and motion control — use a control method referred to as microstepping, which creates a sinusoidal (or nearly sinusoidal) current waveform, rather than the square wave of current produced with typical full-step control. The current rating of a stepper motor depends on the amount of […]

The CANopen over EtherCAT (CoE) protocol allows devices equipped with CANopen to be used on EtherCAT-based Industrial Ethernet networks. CANopen: Simple and low-cost CANopen is a communication protocol based on the CAN (Controller Area Network) physical communication standard. In the OSI communication model, CAN specifies the physical and data link layers, while CANopen addresses the […]

Aerotech Inc., a global leader in precision motion control and automation, and Motion Plus, an ecommerce distributor, recently announced a partnership to sell many of Aerotech’s most widely used standard products at www.motionplusmore.com. The Motion Plus marketplace offers a wide range of motion control products, including many in-stock Aerotech products available for immediate shipment. “With […]

ADVANCED Motion Controls has released seven new micro-sized FlexPro servo drives rated to 60 A continuous output. The 60-A continuous current rating is 33% higher than previous models for the same size making these the company’s highest power-density servo drives to date. This offering includes PCB Mount, Machine Embedded and Development Board form factors. PCB […]

Coil springs and wave springs are both types of compression springs, meaning the spring’s force increases as its axial length decreases (as the spring is compressed). But coil springs and wave springs react differently to applied loads, especially in terms of how stresses are created in the material, which in turn, affects their working load […]

Low-voltage dc stepper and servo drives offer innovative and space-saving options for many motion control applications traditionally handled by ac servo drives.  Kevin Wu Product Marketing Manager Siemens Industry In the not-so-distant past, industrial facilities were limited in the motor types they could deploy on production lines. Today, their choices have been widening quickly, however, […]

AutomationDirect has added LS Electric servo systems that provide extremely accurate motion control and include the most requested features — setup wizards, auto-tuning, built-in indexer, and more — in an extremely cost-effective package. The L7S family of brushless servo systems is fully digital and capable of covering a broad range of motion control applications. There […]

Leading conveyor system designer and manufacturer mk North America now offers an all-new version of its online conveyor modeling tool, CAD360! with enhanced design tools and better access to equipment models. The tool makes it faster and easier than ever to design and share custom conveyor systems from the manufacturer. The CAD360! conveyor configurator allows […]

The new AV3650M and AH3650M absolute rotary encoders from SIKO combine precise and reliable position measurement in an extremely compact housing. The absolute position values are transmitted via several integrated analog interfaces, such as 0 to 10 V, 0 to 5 V and 4 to 20 mA. These encoders use the magnetic measuring principal, with […]

Optical encoders such as glass scales are often used for linear position measurements that require micron-level resolution. But applications in industries such as semiconductor and aerospace — especially those that involve optics — require measuring capabilities in the nanometer and even picometer ranges, beyond the resolution of most scale-based optical encoders. For these applications, direct, non-contact […]

Warner Electric, a brand of Altra Industrial Motion Corp. has chosen MTEK’s MBrain, a method-centric software tool, to digitize its high-volume/high-mix manufacturing operations at its plant in Columbia City, Indiana. The goal was to connect a diverse array of machines, including CNCs, hydro presses, delta robots, and testers, to read, visualize and analyze machine and […]

Industrial robots, conveyors, wind turbines, machine tools, packaging machines and pumps are just some of the places you’ll find torque limiters. By Lawrence Kren • Contributing writer Torque limiters actuate on the order of milliseconds to prevent overload, shock, and torque spikes that could otherwise damage components or shorten operating life. They also serve in […]