November 16, 2021 | Volume 17 Issue 43 |
Manufacturing Center
Product Spotlight
Modern Applications News
Metalworking Ideas For
Today's Job Shops
Tooling and Production
Strategies for large
metalworking plants
Aitech Systems' solutions can meet the growing demands for shorter development times and lower costs among satellite buses, subsystems, and payloads. Using a Space Digital Backbone (DBB) approach, which provides a flexible, scalable communication pathway for the increasing number of Internet of Things technologies being implemented into space missions, the company provides a selection of space-rated subsystems for common space platforms including: Earth observation, communications, power control, navigation, and robotics.
Learn more.
SCHURTER has upgraded its 2-pole classic TA35 and TA36 thermal circuit breaker models with an additional, optional magnetic module. From now on, no additional fuse is required when using a thermal-magnetic type. Depending on the application, the magnetic modules are available either with a slow- or a fast-acting characteristic. Both models are designed for snap-in mounting and with finely graduated rated currents. A variety of colors and lighting options make the designer's choice easier.
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The precision and reliability offered by modern rotary encoders are essential in many product categories. These include robotics, machine tools, printing presses, motion control systems, medical equipment, aerospace, gaming and entertainment, and automotive. Learn all about magnetic rotary encoders -- and important developments in the technology's future.
Read the full Avnet article.
OMNIVISION has expanded its TheiaCel™ product portfolio with a new OX12A10 12-MP high-res image sensor for automotive cameras. This sensor, with the highest resolution in its line, improves automotive safety by eliminating LED flicker regardless of lighting conditions. It is ideal for high-performance front machine vision cameras for advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous driving (AD).
Learn more.
Novotechnik's new RSK-3200 Series angle sensors are designed for harsh automotive and off-highway applications. Measurement range is 0 to 360 degrees, and the temperature range is -40 to 125 C. This unit's built-in coupling accepts D-Shaft, with shaft customization available. The sensors are sealed to IP 67 or IP 69k depending on version. RSK-3200 Series sensors are extremely durable with MTTF of 285 years for each of the two channels! Applications include throttle control and EGR valves, transmission gear position, and accelerator position. Very competitive pricing.
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Signaling and indicator lights, switches, and buttons -- elements that hardly any machine can do without. The new JW Winco cabinet U-handle EN 6284 integrates all these functions into a single, compact element. The new U-handle is designed to enhance the operation of systems and machines. It features an integrated button and a large, colored, backlit area on the handle. These elements can be used individually or in combination, providing a versatile tool for system control and process monitoring that can be seen from across the room.
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Offered in two benchtop and two floor-model options to handle nearly any size part, the SmartScope M-Series systems from Optical Gaging Products usher in the next generation of enhancements in image accuracy, optics, and throughput to the world's most popular 3D multisensor video measurement platform. SmartScope M-Series features fixed optics with a 20-megapixel camera and proprietary Virtual Zoom, combined with advanced sensors, illumination, and accessories, to achieve class-leading optical measurement speeds. Lots more features.
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SOLIDWORKS Elite Applications Engineer Alin Vargatu demonstrates his top tips for focusing on your model: finding planes the easy way inside your assembly with the Q key, breadcrumbs, and a better way to use the component preview window. Very helpful. Lots more tips on the SOLIDWORKS YouTube channel.
View the video.
Nexperia's AEC-Q100 qualified, push-pull transformer drivers (NXF6501-Q100, NXF6505A-Q100, and NXF6505B-Q100) enable the design of small, low-noise, and low-EMI isolated power supplies for a range of automotive applications such as traction inverters and motor control, DC-DC converters, battery management systems, and on-board chargers in EVs. Also suitable for industrial applications such as telecommunications, medical, instrumentation, and automation equipment.
Learn more.
H. G. Schaevitz LLC, Alliance Sensors Group is now offering a miniature, lightweight LZ SERIES linear position sensor product line utilizing LVIT Technology™. These sensors are designed for tight spaces that require excellent stroke-to-length ratio. They are contactless devices for use by drones, OEMs, aerospace, robotics, factory automation, or assembly machinery applications where precision in position sensing is crucial.
Learn all the specs.
According to Parker Hannifin, "A Printed Circuit Heat Exchanger is a robust, corrosion-resistant, high-integrity plate-type heat exchanger manufactured using diffusion bonding." Learn about the technology and why Heatric, a Parker brand, "can manufacture a unit up to 85% smaller and lighter than traditional technologies such as shell and tube heat exchangers."
Read this informative Parker blog.
Mastering bend calculations in sheet metal design is a key skill that can impact the accuracy and manufactur-ability of your designs significantly. Explore the various options available to become a pro in this Onshape Tech Tip: K Factor, bend allowance, and bend deduction, with guidance on when each should be used. You may learn something even if you don't use this software.
Read the Onshape blog.
Automation-Direct has added new high-quality and efficient stainless steel Seifert 340 BTU/H thermoelectric coolers with 120-V and 230-V power options. Thermoelectric coolers from Seifert use the Peltier Effect to create a temperature difference between the internal and ambient heat sinks, making internal air cooler while dissipating heat into the external environment. Fans assist the convective heat transfer from the heat sinks, which are optimized for maximum flow.
Learn more.
Raspberry Pi's Pico low-cost, high-performance microcontroller board with flexible digital interfaces is now being offered as a full second-generation product, complete with twice the on-board flash memory, higher performance, lower power consumption, and greater security.
Read the full article.
Linear Variable Differential Transformers are electro-mechanical devices used in many industrial applications to measure the displacement or position of an object. They convert the linear position or motion of a measured object into an electrical output that is displayed on a local readout or input into a programmable logic controller as part of an automated process control system. LVDTs come in two core configurations -- free-core and spring-loaded -- but do you know what the differences are?
Read the full NewTek Sensor Solutions article.
Inspired by a concept for discovering exoplanets with a giant space telescope, a team of researchers is developing holographic lenses that render visible and infrared starlight into either a focused image or a spectrum. The experimental method, detailed in an article that appeared Oct. 21 in Nature Scientific Reports, could be used to create a lightweight flexible lens, many meters in diameter, that could be rolled for launch and unfurled in space.
"We use two spherical waves of light to produce the hologram, which gives us fine control over the diffractive grating recorded on the film, and the effect it has on light -- either separating light with super sensitivity, or focusing light with high resolution," said Mei-Li Hsieh, a visiting researcher at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and an expert in optics and photonics who established a mathematical solution to govern the output of the hologram. "We believe this model could be useful in applications that require extremely high spectral resolution spectroscopy, such as analysis of exoplanets."
A lightweight flexible lens can focus light or separate it into its constituent colors. [Credit: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute]
Hsieh, who also holds a faculty position at National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University in Taiwain, along with Rensselaer physicists Shawn-Yu Lin and Heidi Jo Newberg, worked with Thomas D. Ditto, an artist and inventor who conceived the idea of an optical space telescope freed of conventional, and heavy, glass mirrors and lenses. Ditto first worked at Rensselaer in the 1970s and is currently a visiting researcher in astrophysics.
Telescopes that must be launched into space (to benefit from a view unimpeded by Earth's atmosphere) are limited by the weight and bulk of glass mirrors used to focus light. These mirrors can realistically span only a few meters in diameter. By contrast, the lightweight flexible holographic lens -- more properly called a "holographic optical element" -- used to focus light could be dozens of meters across. Such an instrument could be used to observe an exoplanet directly, a leap over current methods that detect exoplanets based on their effect on light coming from the star they orbit, said Newberg, a Rensselaer professor of physics, applied physics, and astronomy.
"To find Earth 2.0, we really want to see exoplanets by direct imaging -- we need to be able to look at the star and see the planet separate from the star. And for that, we need high resolution and a really big telescope," said Newberg.
The holographic optical element is a refined version of a Fresnel lens, a category of lenses that use concentric rings of prisms arrayed in a flat plane to mimic the focusing ability of a curved lens without the bulk. The concept of the Fresnel lens -- which was developed for use in lighthouses -- dates to the 19th century, with modern-day Fresnel lenses of glass or plastic found in automobile lamps, micro-optics, and camera screens.
But while Fresnel holographic optical elements -- created by exposing a light-sensitive plastic film to two sources of light at different distances from the film -- are not uncommon, existing methods were limited to lenses that could only focus light, rather than separating it into its constituent colors.
The new method allows the designers to either focus light onto a single point or disperse it into its constituent colors, producing a spectrum of pure colors, said Lin, corresponding author and a Rensselaer professor of physics, applied physics, and astronomy. The method uses two sources of light, positioned very close to one another, which create concentric waves of light that -- as they travel toward the film -- either build or cancel each other out. This pattern of convergence or interference can be tuned based on the formulas Hsieh developed. It is printed, or "recorded," onto the film as a holographic image and, depending on how the image is structured, light passing through the holographic optical element is either focused or stretched.
"We wanted to stretch the light, so that we could separate it into different wavelengths. Any Fresnel lens will stretch the light a little, but not enough," said Lin, an expert in photonic crystals and nano-photonics. "With our method, we can have super resolution on one end, or super sensitive -- with each color separated. When the light is stretched like that, the color is very good, as pure and as vivid as you can get."
Source: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Published November 2021