Follow the below link on how Servo Technology can Improve you're Companies Productivity !! 

http://www.motioncontrolonline.org/files/public/Improve_Application_Perfomance_Servomotors.pdf

 There’s a saying that old machines never die, they just get moved to another factory. Okay, maybe there isn’t a saying, but there should be. It’s a testament to the talents of OEM machine builders that for applications ranging from ketchup packaging to lumber processing, machines can last 20, 30, even 50 years. That’s some tough steel and some good design. It does raise a problem that doesn’t perhaps get talked about as much as it should, though—obsolescence mitigation.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m a hardware geek from way back. As a technology writer, I’m trained to perpetually look for the latest and greatest. That’s where the excitement is—unless you’re an OEM with dozens of machines in the field under warranty, based on components from the previous generation. That’s when things start to get complicated, especially as the years go by. Remember, we’re talking about machines that operate for decades. Sure, vendors support a product line after it’s been discontinued, but as the parts begin to near end-of-life (EOL), that support begins to wane. Suddenly, the leadtime stretches out from a couple of weeks to multiple months. For an OEM supporting customers for whom an hour of downtime can cost thousands of dollars, that kind of delay is simply not feasible. Sure, an easy solution would be to upgrade to the next-generation, but they may not want to. More to the point, their customer may not want to.

EOL affects everyone in the food chain. After all, it’s not as though motion vendors are immune from the challenge. Try being a controller or drives vendor and having a critical COTS chip go EOL (give me a moment and I’ll figure out a way to stick yet another acronym in that sentence, just see if I don’t).

It’s an unavoidable problem, but one for which the industry can take a cue from the military and aerospace sector. There, obsolescence mitigation has become a big deal, as the industry increasingly incorporates commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) products. COTS components provide low-cost, high-availability solutions—but only for a limited time, not nearly long enough to meet military timelines. After all, when it comes to COTS components, the 10-ton gorilla known as the consumer electronics industry drives product lifecycles. Vendors can’t afford to support a product for 30 years to satisfy a minor market when their primary customer needs a new chip every six months. Gradually, though, the market has begun to figure it out. Some IC manufacturers who are preparing to stop production of a chip will call their customers and offer to pattern a certain number of wafers and store them in a controlled environment, undiced and unpackaged, waiting until the customer needs them. Meanwhile, an entire cottage industry has sprung up around manufacturers who will fabricate COTS products that have been discontinued by other vendors.

In the motion control industry, vendors do provide EOL notices and extend opportunities for last-time buys. It’s a delicate balancing act, however. Order too much, and you’re tying up capital and warehouse space unnecessarily. Order too little and you may find yourself scouring spec sheets trying to find a replacement product so you can make good on your customer support.

The point is that even while the motion industry focuses on pushing the technology forward, vendors need to remember to also have an obsolescence mitigation policy for their customers. Just as important, OEMs need to understand the EOL policies of their vendors—assuming they exist.

Does your company have an obsolescence mitigation policy in place? Do your vendors? Some potential questions for your key suppliers include:

• What previous product lines have they obsoleted?
• What is their EOL policy?
• What is the typical life cycle for new products?
• At what stage is the product that you’re considering for my new design?
• Is there a replacement product under development that still may meet your design schedule?

Plan for the long term. Make sure that the product you designed today can be supported tomorrow…and for a lot of tomorrows to come.

 Nov. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Machinery stocks may outperform the market through the end of the year as new orders rebound, helping to defy concerns about another U.S. recession.

American manufacturers booked $32.6 billion in new orders for machinery equipment in September, the most since July 2008, according to data from the Census Bureau released Oct. 26. The Standard & Poor’s Supercomposite Machinery Index, which includes Caterpillar Inc. and Deere & Co., has gained 26 percent since Oct. 3, while the S&P 500 has risen 13 percent. The machinery index lagged behind between July 7 and Oct. 3, when it fell 35 percent, compared with a 19 percent decline for the S&P index.

“There’s skepticism about the industrial economy and machinery stocks, but robust activity suggests the risk of a double-dip recession is less likely,” said Stephen Volkmann, a New York-based analyst at Jefferies & Co. The sector may continue to rally through December, as it has tended to outperform from November through year-end during the past decade, he added.

There’s “no evidence” of a collapse in North American manufacturing as shipments still are growing, said Ann Duignan, a New York-based analyst at JPMorgan Chase & Co. The total for September was $31.1 billion worth of machinery equipment, up 13 percent from a year ago, Census Bureau data show.

“Companies are still reporting modest growth with no wholesale change in demand,” Duignan said.

Rising Outlook

Parker Hannifin Corp., based in Cleveland, increased its fiscal 2012 outlook for industrial North American-segment revenue growth to about 8.3 percent from about 6.2 percent, as orders “re-accelerated” during the period ended Sept. 30, said Duignan, who maintains a “neutral” rating on the stock. The motion- and control-technology maker’s orders from the region grew 16 percent compared with a year ago, following an 11 percent rise the previous quarter, the company said Oct. 18.

“There’s a lot of activity,” and “order trends here in North America are still very positive,” President and Chief Executive Officer Donald Washkewicz said on an Oct. 18 conference call.

Caterpillar, based in Peoria, Illinois, reported third- quarter revenue of $15.7 billion, compared with $11.1 billion a year ago, the company said Oct. 24. The construction and agricultural-equipment maker’s order backlog was $24.4 billion, up 40 percent.

“Although there is a good deal of economic and political uncertainty in the world, we are not seeing it much in our business at this point,” Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Doug Oberhelman said in a statement. “This was the best quarter for sales in our history, and our order backlog is at an all- time high.”

Strong Demand

The industry is attracting investors because it supplies “key end-markets,” such as agriculture and energy, where demand remains strong, said Zahid Siddique, associate portfolio manager at Rye, New York-based GAMCO Investors, with holdings in machinery-index members Flowserve Corp., Kennametal Inc. and Crane Co.

Machinery companies are a “proxy for global capital expenditures” because almost half their sales come from foreign customers, said Volkmann, who upgraded six of the businesses to “buy” from “hold” last month, including Eaton Corp., Cummins Inc. and Parker Hannifin.

The recovery in capital spending worldwide is “riding on” the U.S., China and emerging markets, said David Hensley, director of global economic coordination at JPMorgan in New York. There’s “strong momentum” in these expenditures, which include machinery equipment, even with the European sovereign- debt crisis and this summer’s protracted negotiations between President Barack Obama and Congress over the budget deficit.

‘Continued Expansion’

JPMorgan lowered its growth estimates for Western Europe, reflecting a mild-to-moderate recession that already may be under way; “still, we think growth will continue outside of Europe, supporting continued expansion in capital spending,” Hensley said.

Illinois Tool Works Inc., which makes fasteners for transportation and construction products, may be a “sign of things to come” in the region, said Duignan, who rates the stock “neutral.” Its European revenue grew 3.8 percent during the quarter ended Sept. 30, and it predicts “modestly lower” revenue there in the fourth quarter, the Glenview, Illinois- based manufacturer said Oct. 25.

Durable-goods production in Germany fell for the second consecutive month, as a Bundesbank index dropped to 98.7 in September from 99.6 in August. This was “a little weaker than expected, and made me wonder if Europe may be headed in a different direction” from the U.S., Volkmann said.

Unfolding Crisis

The unfolding debt crisis in Europe, possible slowing growth in Asia and any prolonged weakness in the U.S. housing market may threaten outperformance in this industry, said Siddique, whose firm oversees $34 billion in net assets. Even so, companies continue to show resilience as “these risks remain potentially manageable,” he said.

Kennametal -- a supplier of cutting tools to Caterpillar and other manufacturers -- remained “very bullish” on its outlook as of the quarter ended Sept. 30, Duignan said.

The Latrobe, Pennsylvania-based company “continued to experience growth in customer demand,” President and Chief Executive Officer Carlos Cardoso said on a Oct. 27 conference call. “This supports our continued expectations of a manufacturing-led recovery, at least in the United States.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Anna-Louise Jackson in New York at ajackson36@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Anthony Feld at afeld2@bloomberg.net

 Machining highly accurate parts presents extremely tight performance specifications. There was a time the technology was more art than science and users were prepared to be patient for the results. No more. Today, a wide range of commercial applications put job shops under pressure for high-volume production even as performance requirements tighten. Motion control provides the best solution for economically producing sophisticated components from a variety of materials ranging from aluminum, brass, copper, and nickel to optical crystals and other exotics.

Machine tools typically feature a cutting tool on one axis and positioning equipment on the other two. In a lathe, typically used to produce rotationally symmetric parts, a high-speed spindle rotates the work piece while the cutting bit is translated on additional axes. The cutting tool can translate parallel to the spindle to remove material from the outside of the shaft or cut threads into the shaft. It can move perpendicular to the spindle to cut material from the face of the work piece, or in line with the spindle to drill holes. A milling machine can produce non-rotationally symmetric parts by combining a rotating cutting bit on the z axis with a positioning table along the x and y axes.

Computer-numeric controlled (CNC) machine tools leverage motion control to produce far more sophisticated three-dimensional profiles rapidly and repeatedly. A CNC diamond-turning machine, for example, can rapidly and economically fabricate spherical metal lenses for infrared imaging applications. CNC designs can include horizontal and vertical spindles, as well as multiple-spindle versions. The machines can produce parts with tolerances ranging from a few hundred micrometers to a few nanometers RMS. Because of the emphasis on accuracy, they leverage speed rather than torque to remove only small amounts of material at any one time.

With these designs, axes counts can mount up quickly. CNC machine builder Murata Machinery USA, Inc. integrates the basic turning machine with an x, y, z gantry loader, also driven by motion control. A typical twin-spindle machine, for example, will feature x- and z-axis cutting motions on each spindle, plus a gantry loader with x-, y-, and z-axis capabilities for a total of seven axes, all positioned by servo motor. Add a second gantry, and the total number of axes jumps up to 10.

The load/unload capabilities are essential because today machine tools are part of a production environment. “The diamond-turning industry has basically evolved over the last 10 or 20 years from a laboratory environment where time really did not matter to a situation where many of these systems now are used in a production setting," says Pat Hurst, Engineering Manager at CNC diamond-turning machine builder Moore Nanotechnology Systems LLC.

“The customer is not making money if the cutting spindle is not moving," says Jeff Kalmbach, Engineering Manager, machine tools division, at Muratec. Cycle times can range from eight seconds to several minutes, depending on part size, which can run from a fraction of a kilogram to more than 100 kg. “If we have a cutting time of 30 s on a single-gantry machine, the gantry is constantly moving during that cutting cycle. So the focus is to optimize the gantry loading with the cutting spindle.”

Part of the optimization includes safety technology, especially for systems featuring more than one gantry. "There are safety zones that can be set up and customized depending upon what is being done," says Kalmbach. "There is quite a bit of communication done internally with the control system to make sure that there is never any overlap between the two gantries.”

Designing for tight tolerances
Torque ripple or cogging effects in motors can compromise quality of parts produced by CNC machines. Varying spindle speed can help with this, as can high-pole-count motors.

For truly demanding applications, controls and feedback may provide the best solution. Moore produces machines that are used, among other things, to machine optical components of glass, for visible-wavelength applications, and more exotic materials like zinc selenide and germanium, for IR applications. The machines can deliver parts with surface finish requirements as tight as 1 nm rms.  Achieving that level of results requires ultra-smooth motion on all axes, coupled with high-spatial-resolution feedback. For x, y, z motion, the machines use air bearings or hydrostatic bearings driven bylinear motors. The air bearings help smooth out any cogging introduced by the motor and the feedback loop does the rest.

“The linear motors have some cogging but they’re sinusoidally commutated, which means we map out the theoretical force curves in the motor very close to what is provided," says Jeff Lowe, senior controls engineer at Moore. “Beyond that, it’s up to our servo loop to close the loop and linearize a nonlinear system.”

The team uses interpolation to convert a 137-nm signal pitch to a measurement resolution of 34 pm. “In the world of linear motors, it’s very hard to get a good velocity signal for loop stabilization," says Lowe.  “The way we work around that is by interpolation of the feedback encoder to derive a velocity signal. This improves system damping and disturbance rejection, and helps us to get measurements in the 1 nm range.”

The machines typically process parts ranging in size from less than a millimeter to 450 mm.  Fabricating spherical components requires purely rotational motion. Fabricating spheres, which reduce optical aberrations, requires not just rotation but an oscillatory motion. In the case of a large spherical part, fabrication can take as long as 10 hours.

All that oscillation tends to introduce vibration which can create significant problems for jobs with ultra-high smoothness requirements. The starting point to address this is striking a balance between rigidity and compliance in the initial machine design. Here, mechatronic modeling techniques can provide a big assist. Various system elements such as hydrostatic bearings and even the chassis material can act to damp any surviving vibrations, as can the control system. Mounting the machine on vibration-isolation components further improves performance.

Machine designs can also be adapted to grinding applications, primarily to produce molds. When it comes to grinding, the amount of material removed is directly proportional to the force applied. Depending on the material and the peak-to-peak surface variations being tackled, a surprisingly low amount of force can be used to adjust surface figure and finish. A skilled optician, for example, can remove a ridge from the edge of an optic just by pressing lightly with a fingertip as the glass turns. In the case of millimeter-scale optics, the sensitivity to applied force jumps dramatically. Mounting the 3 mm to 10 mm grind wheels on air-bearing spindles allows the degree of force to be tightly constrained and adjusted with each pass.

Heat is a perennial concern in motion control applications. Given the tolerances involved in producing these parts, thermal management becomes essential. Motors have to be undersized so that they do not generate heat that might change the physical parameters of the part. “When you're trying to maintain 50- to 100-nm surface profile - ?/10 [or you can say “a 10th of a wavelength” if you can't do Greek symbols] - on parts that are up to a couple hundred of millimeters, thermals are the killer in the whole process,” says Lowe. “If we can avoid heating [by over driving] the motors, we do that. In addition, maintaining a thermal envelope in the machine becomes critical.”

Motion control becomes ever more sophisticated, providing the machine tool community with a variety of sophisticated platforms to easily produce multi-functional machine tools (see figure 2). As CNC fabrication penetrates into more and more application areas, demand for performance and throughput will continue to rise. With the help of motion control, OEMs and end-users will have no problem keeping pace.

EMP engineer Cormac O'Sullivan was the main proponent of EMP transitioning to Solid State Disk (SSD) Hard drives in all Industrial Touch Screen applications. Recent studies have shown just how right he is! 

This article from ZDNet's Robin Harris sums it up nicely, but basically you can expect a 50% performance improvement with a SSD over your traditional mechanical hard drive. These tests were done in a server environment, so one can only speculate as to the actual improvement in a high-speed industrial environment. So next time you go to order a system, remember, all EMP Touch Screens come standard with SSD Hard Drives! Does your PanelViewPlus?

 FROM THE U.S. COMMERCE ASSOCATION

The following article discusses the role of industrial Ethernet in manufacturing today.

EMP has been incorporating Ethernet connections into our systems for over 2 years, for many of the reasons discussed in the article.

Motion Control Online - "Ethernet Gains Ground"

The following article from the Motion Control Association covers many of the finer points of general motion control as well as registration control.

www.motioncontrolonline.org/i4a/pages/Index.cfm

Welcome to the new Electronic Machine Parts website.  We are excited about our re-engineered site and more importantly, our improved ability to provide you with EMP's signature service.

Please take the time to browse our revamped Product and Application pages, where we offer videos, images, and detailed information as you search for your ultimate EMP solution.

The following article from the Motion Control Association does a great job of explaining the issues associated with tuning servo motors. 

http://www.motioncontrolonline.org/i4a/pages/Index.cfm?pageID=3654