Machine Building

A matter of some gravity: maxon drives fly to Mars

Sometime soon NASA will send its fifth rover to Mars, where its main mission will be to collect soil samples that will be analysed on Earth once they have been collected by a future mission. Interestingly, n this mission the rover will also carry a helicopter that will perform the first flights on the Red Planet, and maxon's precision DC and BLDC motors are being used for numerous critical tasks on the project.

8th July 2020

Flameproof motors for mine ventilation

WEG Electric CIS, a subsidiary of WEG based in St Petersburg, has been awarded a contract to supply flameproof motors for the primary ventilation system of the Chertinskaya Koksovaya mine in Russia.

7th July 2020

Flow sensors analyse energy consumption

Dairy cooperative Arla Foods has, for the first time, offered transparency over the amount of energy consumed in cottage cheese production at its Falkenberg location in Sweden. To help them establish the numbers, the company has been using Baumer Flex-Flow sensors, which are able to measure the temperature of the medium itself as well as its flow rate.

3rd July 2020

DC motors lead the way in "˜Smart' farming

Martin Leahy is maxon's agricultural applications expert for Eire and Northern Ireland. Here, he looks at some applications for small DC motors in the sector.

3rd July 2020

Festo's new bionic bird concept

The BionicSwift, the latest bionic concept from Festo, demonstrates what is possible with robotics. Lightweight structures are at the heart of the artificial robot bird because in engineering (as in nature), less material, less weight and the least energy consumed makes for a successful design.

2nd July 2020

Food producer uses Tsubaki chain for cool solution

An ice cream plant in Germany was experiencing chain failures on its pallet lifters. For obvious reasons ice cream plants rely on equipment that can operate in an environment that in many places is well below freezing and laden with moisture.

1st July 2020

Ready-to-install cable carrier systems for coolant filling

Kabelschlepp Metool has supplied "˜ready-to-install' cable carrier systems to SAT STERLING as part of a package manufactured for the automotive sector. They are employed to carry the flexibles as part of coolant filling systems used in vehicle production and consist of two modules, a base unit and a mobile unit.

29th June 2020

New drives are a breeze

You don't have to be fan of parachuting to experience why this skydiving simulator has fans of its own.

26th June 2020

DC-UPS keeps a wireless network alive

Progetto8 is an Italian company that manufactures radio routers which are used in a number of independent transmission networks in remote, rural parts of Italy as well as other similar isolated areas in Europe.

22nd June 2020

Linear position sensor takes the biscuit

When the UK subsidiary of a multinational food and beverage equipment manufacturer sought to upgrade and simplify an automated dough thickness adjustment process across its range of biscuit baking machinery, it turned to Positek and its P103 series LIPS short-stroke linear position sensor to provide precise measurement of the gauge roller gap position.

19th June 2020