SPS/IPC/Drives Day 2

Wow! What a show. I thought is was crowded yesterday, but by mid-morning most hallways were so packed, you almost felt you were at a sporting event!

Surprises coming from companies not usually known for having motion products such as motors/drives/controllers/software, are now bringing it out at the SPS show. Pilz, known as a world leader in safety products now has a servo line.

Shown here is their new IEC 61131 PC based solution.

Pilz perhaps is making this move as SAFETY is becoming more and more important in Motion Control.

FESTO has a new line of motors and amps to they are selling with their actuators.

Safety is emphasised at the SPS show and the SERCOS association made an announcement at ODVA meeting at SPS today. SERCOS INTERNATIONAL ANNOUNCES ADOPTION OF CIP SAFETY™ ON SERCOS Nuremberg, Germany SERCOS International (SI) and ODVA announced today that SI will adopt CIP Safety™ as its functional safety protocol for SERCOS.

The buzz about this ODVA press release is that SERCOS is positioning against the motion networks out in the market now for several years such as Ethernet IP, EtherCAT, SynqNet®, Powerlink, etc. SERCOS may still yet have some staying power and the potential to attract more users when SERCOS III is finally released. The issue remains that SERCOS III is late to the game.

Beckhoff debuts their fast motion engine and I/O solution XFC.

Marketing show stopper of the day: Yaskawa OMRON booth with a MOTOMAN two armed robot presenting the new V1000 Variable Frequency Drive. According to Yaskawa over 45% of the worlds’ consumption of mirco drives is in Europe. This product is squarely aimed at the mirco drive marketplace.