Finalists announced in Mechanical category for the 2019 LEAP Awards

Winners in the second annual LEAP Awards, celebrating the best components and services across the mechanical and electrical engineering design space, were unveiled on November 5, 2019. Across 13 categories, the judging panel awarded Gold, Silver and Bronze recognitions, as well as Honorable Mentions for certain submissions. The awards program is supported by three leading publications in the design engineering space: Design World, Fluid Power World and EE World.

Paul J. Heney, Vice President, Editorial Director, Design World, said, “Our judges, all of whom are independent engineering industry professionals, did a remarkable job in quickly turning around the scoring this year. We had a combination of judges from last year and several new judges.”

This year, the program changed from having a single declared winner in each category to a medalist concept, with the potentials for a Gold, Silver and Bronze winner in any category, as well as Honorable Mentions. Depending on the scoring ranges, not all categories will necessarily have all medals awarded, and Honorable Mentions are also optional — and tied to how close an entry came to the medalist scores.

The winners will be recognized at a ceremony in Santa Clara, California, in conjunction with the Healthcare Robotics Engineering Forum and DeviceTalks West events, on December 9th. Information on how to register for the ceremony will be posted shortly.

The medalists for the Mechanical category are:

Gold • Emerson • Branson GSX Ultrasonic Welding Platform

The Branson GSX Ultrasonic Welding Platform from Emerson is a highly configurable joining system specifically developed to support assembly of medical, electronic, and other products that use thinner, lighter plastic components with more delicate and intricate internal designs and embedded electronics. It incorporates an advanced electro-mechanical actuation system (patents pending) that combines software, servo controls and a proprietary “dynamic follow-through” feature that can provide instantaneous weld adjustments based on real-time feedback. With it, the Branson GSX platform provides unprecedented control and position accuracy, as well as delivering and controlling ultra-low weld actuation forces. This enables remarkable consistency, even across multiple welders in the same line, with post weld tolerances and part variabilities measured in microns.

The overall results are faster production start-ups, savings of up to 60% in operator set-up times and the assurance of weld quality and production efficiency.

Silver • Ametek • BGA 22dGo, EC motor (brushless) with integrated commutation electronics

The motor series BGA 22 dGo are EC motors (brushless) with integrated commutation electronics. Apart from the ball bearings, the motors have no wearing parts and are well suited for applications requiring continuous operation.

The basis for the motors is the innovative BGA 22×22 axial flow technology motor from Dunkermotoren, which was the first motor manufacturer to implement the axial flow principle in a motor with several discs arranged one behind the other. The bipolar motor can be connected to any supply voltage at the two connecting wires. This only changes the direction of rotation of the motor.

The new motor BGA 22×22 (where A stands for axial flow – for differentiation from the other EC motors of the BG series) has an ironless design. This design offers the well-known advantages of no detent torque and quiet, low-vibration operation. The motor is permanently excited by means of rare-earth magnets and commutation is electronic (brushless).

Bronze • Bosch Rexroth • Smart Function Kit

The new Smart Function Kit from Bosch Rexroth is an electromechanical kit for easy joining applications, allowing for faster, more productive and smarter pressing. The Smart Function Kit combines preselected mechanical and electrical components to create plug and produce solutions designed for forces between 2 kN and 30 kN. The modular system consists of perfectly synchronized hardware and software components: an electromechanical cylinder and force sensor, servomotor, drive controller, industrial PC and browser-based HMI software based on HTML 5.

The installed software with auto-parametrization requires no programming knowledge for commissioning and operation. Thanks to integrated motion control, preinstalled operating software, and auto-parameterization of the servo drive matched to the mechanics, fast commissioning is possible. This saves up to 95% engineering time and can significantly reduce time to market.

The Smart Function Kit is a versatile solution and can be used as a standalone or integrated into superior systems via field bus, setting new cross-industry standards for easy pressing and joining applications.