Controls & Machine Components

Baldor Electric Company: Motors and drives catalog

A new catalog is available from Baldor Electric (Fort Smith, AR) that contains information regarding more than 6귔 different ratings. Other information describing Baldor’s Standard-E and Super-E Premium Efficiency motors is also included.

May 31, 2002

Trends: Page 648

Controls & Machine Components

ei3 Corp.: Remote machine support

SitePort™ is a new hardware tool that provides machine builders with universal access to customers’ equipment controls and software. Using ei3 Corp.’s (Montvale, NJ) network to connect to customers’ drives and PLCs, machine builders can maximize machine performance from any plant location with SitePort.

May 31, 2002

Controls & Machine Components

Rockwell Automation: Equipment monitoring capabilities

Rockwell Automation (Milwaukee, WI) has announced that its Enshare™ condition-based monitoring software now can exchange real-time information with Maximo® computerized maintenance-management software from MRO Software.

May 31, 2002

Controls & Machine Components

Linux for machine control?

Hard-core techie types won’t want to miss this spirited discussion of whether Linux is ready for industrial machine control. Linux is an open-source operating system that is maintained by a community of volunteer programmers.

May 31, 2002

Controls & Machine Components

Bosch Rexroth Corp., Electric Drives and Controls: Bosch Rexroth Corp., Electric Drives and Controls: Bosch Rexroth Corp., Electric Drives and Controls: Industrial PC platform

Bosch Rexroth (Hoffman Estates, IL) has introduced a new industrial PC platform. It’s designed to work with the System200, which comprises a complete modular system of drive and control components that use universal, open standards.

May 31, 2002

Conveying & accumulation

Frozen Specialties Inc.: Wrapped pizza inspection

Shrink-wrapped pizzas are checked by the first of FSI's two-part pizza inspection system from Cognex. The machine vision sensor is the metal cylinder near the top center of the first video segment.

May 31, 2002

Controls & Machine Components

Hoffman: I/O enclosures

Hoffman (Anoka, MN) has added 10 new enclosure modules for I/O devices to its Inline® Instrumentation Enclosure Series. Full-length mounting brackets welded to the top and bottom of the enclosure provide flexible mounting.

May 31, 2002

Controls & Machine Components

Oriental Motor USA: Brushless DC speed control

AXN Series brushless DC speed control system from Oriental Motor USA (Torrance, CA) develops 125 watts of motor shaft power. The drive and controller are housed in NEMA 4 enclosure.

May 31, 2002

Controls & Machine Components

Rockwell Automation: Rockwell Automation: Integrated motion control

In response to packaging OEM and end-user demands for integrated motion control, the Allen-Bradley Kinetix™6000 servo drive from Rockwell Automation (Milwaukee, WI) is designed to make wiring, programming, operation, and diagnostics faster and easier.

May 31, 2002

Secondary Packaging

PBI-Dansensor Americ: Networked analyzer

PBI-Dansensor’s (Ringsted, Denmark) in-line oxygen and O2-carbon dioxide gas analyzer has built-in wireless networking capability. Designed for gas or vacuum modified atmosphere thermoforming and tray sealing machines, the unit allows troubleshooting and data transfer via “Blue Tooth”—a wireless networking standard—or standard LAN connections.

May 31, 2002

Controls & Machine Components

OMAC gains in Europe

OMAC (Open Modular Architecture Controls) Packaging Workgroup, which is trying to simplify the development, installation, and operation of packaging equipment, reported significant progress at its April meeting at interpack 2002 in Germany.

May 31, 2002

Controls & Machine Components

Q&A: Desperately seeking 'plug-and-pack'

An interview with Andrew McDonald, global automation and control manager for Unilever, maker of food and personal care brands such as Dove®, Suave®, Vaseline®, Lipton®, Skippy® and SlimFast®. McDonald is also the chief architect of an industry-wide “state model,” a term used to describe whether a packaging machine is running, down, on standby, etc.

May 31, 2002

Contract Packaging

Distributors remain big factor in purchases (sidebar)

Survey participants

May 31, 2002