The world’s largest sustainability tour is coming to Taunton, Massachusetts. The solar-powered butterfly is a 30-ft-long tiny house in the shape of a butterfly that charges the electric vehicle towing it. The SolarButterfly is focused on reaching millions of people, alerting them to the companies and individuals that are integral in transitioning societies away from…
Batteries and DIN-rail battery chargers for uninterruptible power supplies (UPSs)
Backup power systems provide crucial emergency power to critical components whenever there’s a failure in a facility’s main power supply. These backup systems are indispensable at facilities involved in essential life-saving services, automated manufacturing of expensive product, and other critical operations where they help protect vital equipment and prevent expensive downtime, data loss, and time-consuming…
Current transformers and voltage taps in the context of interface electronics
Current transformers or CTs are indispensable anywhere high currents are measured and processed. These instrument transformers effectively diminish high-voltage current flows for a convenient way to securely evaluate and monitor real electrical current through an ac transmission wire relying on a conventional ammeter. CTs perform this task by generating alternating current in a secondary winding…
Overvoltage protection in the control cabinets of industrial automation
Automated facilities commanded by industrial control cabinets rely on the components in those cabinets to work reliably even in the face of power variations. These components include local power supplies, PLCs, data loggers, networking and other communication equipment, and IO — which are all vulnerable to the detrimental effects of voltage surge. Also known as…
Optocoupler modules in interface electronics
Industrial electronics operate in electrically noisy and mechanically challenging environments. The problem is that automation, control, and instrumentation components rely on accurate signals sans electrical interference or distortion to properly operate. So optocoupler modules are often employed by engineers as signal-protecting intermediaries between signal sources as well as power sources and industrial controls and other…
Signal conditioner basics
A top challenge in industrial electronics is the integration of sensing and feedback — in part because their disparate outputs require clean and safe transmission to the installation’s PLC or other primary controller. For these connections, system integrators rely on signal conditioners and isolation amplifiers. While both devices serve as an intermediary point in power…
Integrating uninterruptible power supplies (UPSs)
An uninterruptible power supply or UPS is an electrical device that provides supplementary emergency power to the connected load when there’s a loss in the main power supply. It supplies power via a backup battery until the main power is restored. UPSs install between that regular power source and the load, with the supplied power…
Industrial components served by power supplies
DIN rail-mounted industrial power supplies feed dc power to industrial components for industrial control, assembly, testing, and monitoring tasks — as well as other automation equipment that uses dc power. These power supplies are usually found in electrical cabinets and control panels connected to elaborate power and communication networks involving myriad components. Outside control cabinets,…
Trinamic smart driver IC for battery-powered dc motors
The new TMC7300 drives one or two DC motors from 2.0 to 11 Vdc and employs UART-based control for torque and velocity. TRINAMIC Motion Control GmbH & Co. KG now sells a TMC7300 low-voltage driver for one DC motor (up to 2-A peak) or two DC motors (to 2.4A peak) on a single or dual […]
Panasonic offering primary lithium manganese dioxide cylindrical cell battery with high capacity
Panasonic Industrial Devices Sales Company of America now sells a CR-AGZ cell battery that offers two important and complementary features — superior long-term reliability and high capacity. Panasonic, one of the world’s leading battery manufacturing companies, offers the CR-AGZ for applications that require high safety from a high-capacity cell. This cell utilizes manganese-based cathode…