EPLAN has been at the forefront of engineering design technology for many years and much of our sustained success is a result of listening to our customers, to gain an understanding of their needs and pain points. As part of this process, the EPLAN Customer Advisory Board has identified a number of specific issues that panel builders face in their day-to-day work.
The main objective of electrical facilities is to supply reliable power. To guarantee the power supply and the efficient and continuous management of the operations, a highly resistant and secure electrical installation is required. Electrical equipment is potentially hazardous and, in the unfortunate case of failure or anomaly, the consequences can be fatal for both people and properties. This is why it is important to adopt a holistic approach in which personnel, devices, and monitoring systems are integrated.
I think many of us right now are caught at a point where we are either looking back at where we were, or forward in hopes of better to quench the worry and uncertainty of the times. And although we have heard it often, we will come through this, and it is those who are focused forward that we all need to follow.
To put things in perspective and consider how the current situation has affected those working in automation and control markets, Panel Builder US conducted a nation-wide survey to gain insight into how this is affecting your industry.
When selecting a motor, it is important to consider the required duty cycle to ensure the motor can meet the needs of the application. This blog post and the accompanying light board video will provide a basic introduction to motor duty cycles and a few of the most common types of duty cycles.
If your plant is unexpectedly shut down due to the current crisis, you can use this pause in production as an opportunity to review and improve safety procedures. Why should you make maintaining your electrical infrastructure a priority?
It’s that moment you dread: You’re doing controls testing on a new machine as a customer’s start-up date approaches, when you discover a problem. The issue could be almost anything. It could be a functionality problem, like an unexpected stoppage or a missing sensor. Or it could be a last-minute customer concern, like the HMI’s sequence or layout.
If the main power is lost to a VFD while the motor is under load, the DC bus of the VFD drops at an accelerated rate compared to no load conditions. When the DC bus reaches a low level, the VFD would shut down, disabling the output modulation and releasing the motor to coast to a stop. The motor coasting to a stop under the loss of main input power may not be of concern for many VFD applications.
When a machine component fails or operating conditions start to change, the first sign for workers that something is wrong is often an alarm in the HMI. Factors such as how accurate, detectable and informative the alarm is can directly affect how quickly workers see and react to it.
Outdoor kiosks have grown in popularity in a wide variety of applications and sectors, including banking, entertainment, retail, showrooms, industrial and education. You see kiosks everywhere, from banks and airports, to theme parks and train stations. Often located outdoors, kiosks and the sensitive electronics they contain are subjected to extreme temperatures, from the cold of winter to the heat of summer. Ambient temperatures can exceed 40°C or below 10°C. Heat loads for the electronics themselves can range from 20 to more than 200 Watts. These extreme temperatures and heat loads can often exceed the operating temperature limits of the sensitive electronics inside, which in turn can affect their functionality and lifespan.
During these weeks, with the COVID-19 outbreaks, it has been possible to observe how certain facilities (not only hospitals but also hotels, sports centers, libraries …) had to adapt to the emergency state by changing their original design, operation and action protocols, and structural, mechanical, pneumatic and electrical systems. In this following article, we will focus on these three last topics.
Automation is a target that many in the industrial sector are chasing. However, converting existing facilities into smart facilities can be a costly and time-consuming undertaking. For a company to implement smart manufacturing, its machinery and equipment must be able to communicate with each other and across a network.
Climate control is critical to automated systems. Excessive heat and fluctuating temperatures can ruin electronics, impairing their operations and lowering the service life of electrical equipment. Even just a 5–10degree increase in the operating temperature of a device over an extended period of time can affect its speed and reliability, with solid–state devices starting to break down and fail at temperatures exceeding 120°F.
Beyond the basic considerations that are part of an end user’s enclosure selection process for their IT deployment – such as dimensions, weight, and color/finish – are important factors that contribute to the enclosure’s long-term value and performance. If you’re in the market for IT enclosures and want to be confident that you’re choosing the best for your needs – today’s and those you’ll have in the future – you need to first evaluate a manufacturers’ ability to demonstrate their expertise in these areas:
Ask any data center facility manager what keeps them up at night, and the answer is usually the same: fear of downtime. That’s because with each minute of data center downtime, the risk of serious loss increases. Around a third of all reported outages cost more than $250,000, with many exceeding $1 million. The good news? An Uptime Institute report shows that most IT service disruptions are preventable, with 80% of respondents admitting that their most recent outage could have been avoided.
In recognition of Women’s History Month, Rittal recognizes their women in manufacturing. The following is their first installment of Rittal’s “We are Rittal!” mini-series, based off their We are #RittalStrong, #RittalResilient, #RittalWomen campaign. Diane Rudolph joined Rittal 22 years ago as a Safety & Environmental Engineer. In her time she has held various roles within the organization; her current role is Director of Material Services.
Data centers are some of the most energy-intensive of all building types, gobbling up 10 to 50 times the energy per floor space of the typical commercial office building, according to energy.gov. Combined, data centers represent approximately 2% of total U.S. electricity use. Much of that 2% is dedicated to keeping servers from overheating.