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What can you do with touchless magnetic angle sensors?

Novotechnik has put together an informative video highlighting real-world applications for their RFC, RFE, and RSA Series touchless magnetic angle sensors. You may be surprised at the variety of off-highway, marine, material handling, and industrial uses. You'll learn how they work (using a Hall effect microprocessor to detect position) and their key advantages, including eliminated wear and tear on these non-mechanical components. We love when manufacturers provide such useful examples.
View the video.

What can the new Autodesk Inventor AI Assistant do for you?

Autodesk Assistant brings industry-specific context to help execute tasks and orchestrate actions across your 3D models -- not just answer questions. Designed to understand your workflows, Assistant appears as a dockable panel alongside your Inventor workspace and includes the ability to perform complex tasks or gather information from your designs without writing a single line of code. Find out what this new AI "colleague" can do for you.
Watch this informative Autodesk video.

Useful! Snap-together LED enclosure lighting

Seifert StripLite SL 4000 Series LED enclosure lighting provides bright illumination to 700 lumens. On/off switch and motion sensor models are available. Easily daisy chain up to 16 light strips. Magnetic or clip mounting. See video/info on website or contact Bristol Instruments for more information.
Learn about snap-together lighting.

Next-gen multi-touch panels

Beckhoff's Next line of multi-touch control panels and panel PCs is engineered for demanding human-machine interface and control tasks. These panels offer convenient operation with advanced multi-touch technology, a high-quality look and feel, anti-glare and anti-ghosting effects, and a wide choice of formats (from 7 to 23.8 in.) and options. A main draw is the line's attractive pricing.
Learn more.

Most powerful handheld 3D laser scanner on the market

Creaform, a business of AMETEK, has launched HandySCAN 3D|EVO Series, the most powerful handheld 3D laser scanning solution on the market. This innovative series features a built-in touchscreen display and an integrated high-res 12-MP photo camera, incorporating augmented reality (AR) and advanced on-scanner visualization. Users can streamline repetitive inspections and enhance quality control processes using the new auto-alignment feature. Powered by 46 blue laser lines with accuracy of 0.020 mm. The Creaform Metrology Suite includes four application software modules: Scan-to-CAD, Inspection, Automation, and Dynamic Tracking. So many more features.
Learn more.

Continental develops first sensor to measure heat in EV motors

Global automotive supplier Continental has developed a new sensor technology that measures the temperature inside permanently excited synchronous motors in electric vehicles directly on the rotor for the first time.
Read the full article.

LEDs with highest output power available

The new OCI-460 SWIR LED series from EPIGAP OSA Photonics features markedly improved output power compared to the company's previous OCI-480 package and all competitive SMD SWIR LED devices. For example, model OCI-460 ID1550-XS operates at 1,550 nm and features drive current up to 1.5A to deliver approximately 13% higher output efficiency over EPIGAP's OCI-480 package. This impressive advancement features 96% higher output power compared to any other SWIR SMD LED currently on the market. Ideal for use in sensing, machine vision, and more.
Learn more.

AI and collaboration in SOLIDWORKS

Discover AURA, the new AI assistant built into SOLID-WORKS, in this informative video from TriMech Group. What can AURA do for you? It can streamline workflows and make collaborating on and tracking projects even easier, for starters. Other top features of SOLIDWORKS Design 2026 are also covered. Some good tips here.
View the TriMech Group video.

Solutions for weighing and force measurement

Automation-Direct now offers Sensy 2172L series single point, 5510 series shear beam, and 2782 series tension/compression load cells that deliver flexible solutions for weighing and force measurement. They are ideal for applications ranging from small packaging scales to rugged industrial tanks and conveyor systems. Built from aircraft-grade aluminum or stainless steel, these models feature built-in overload protection, accuracies down to 0.03% of full scale, protection ratings up to IP67, and capacities up to 2,000 kg.
Learn more.

Top Product: Future-proof enclosure cooling

Seifert's new SLIMLINE NEO ushers in next-generation industrial cooling with natural refrigerant R290 (GWP 0.02) and high-efficiency inverter technology. It cuts energy costs with EER up to 3.6, reduces refrigerant charge by 75%, and extends electronics life. A fully redesigned, lighter, smaller enclosure delivers lower vibration, better component protection, and easier handling. Available in two elegant surfaces: stainless steel and mild steel, powder coated.
Learn more.

Coin cell supercapacitors: High capacity, quick release

Coin cell supercapa-citors are compact, high-capacity energy storage devices that rapidly charge and discharge and endure far more cycles than rechargeable batteries. They're ideal for high switching loads such as real-time clock and battery back-up power, battery-swap ride-through, and LED or audible alarms. SCHURTER's latest versions support up to 5.5 V and 100 to 1,500 mF.
Learn more.

Tech Tip: Mastering sheet metal bend calculations in Onshape

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 will probably learn something even if you don't use this software.
Read the Onshape blog.

Digital Engineering: How a private jet gets a high-end refurb

Ever wonder how private jets get overhauled from standard OEM layouts to exotic, artful interiors? It takes engineering expertise, specialty design skills, and true craftspeople. Increasingly, it also takes automation provided by middleware to weave a digital thread through CAD, BOM, ERP, and PDM software.
Read the full article.

How AI is quietly transforming simulation

Is AI really useful, or is it just a passing trend? Balavignesh Vemparala, an R&D Engineer II at ANSYS, lays out a compelling case for how artificial intelligence is already hard at work in the simulation world with real results for users. From faster solves to accelerated workflows, improved quality and traceability, generative models, and more, discover what you might be overlooking when it comes to real-world AI application. Worth the read.
Read this informative ANSYS blog.

All about photoelectric sensors

From counting boxes on a conveyor and ensuring precise packaging and labeling to the automatic doors you walk through daily, learn all about photoelectric sensors and the options available from AutomationDirect. Did you know there are four main types? Familiarize yourself with their constructions, capabilities, and their main pros and cons. A good basic primer or refresh.
View the AutomationDirect video.

Particle accelerator magnet sets record using high-temperature superconductor

A team at Fermilab has demonstrated the world's fastest magnetic ramping rates for particle accelerator magnets. Noteworthy, they achieved the record by using energy-efficient, high-temperature superconducting tape.

By Vladimir Shiltsev and Alexander Zlobin, Fermi National Particle Accelerator Laboratory

Cost- and energy-efficient rapid cycling magnets for particle accelerators are critical for particle physics research. Their performance determines how frequently a circular particle accelerator can receive a bunch of particles, propel them to higher energy, send them to an experiment or target station, and then repeat all over again.

A small team of physicists, engineers, and technicians at the U.S. Department of Energy's Fermi National Particle Accelerator Laboratory, led by Henryk Piekarz, just demonstrated the world's fastest magnetic ramping rates for particle accelerator magnets. Noteworthy, they achieved this record by using magnets made with an energy-efficient, high-temperature superconducting material.

What is the best conductor?
Despite the many attractive features of superconducting wire, the fastest-ramping high-energy particle accelerators still use magnets with copper conductors operating at room temperature. Examples include the 3 GeV proton ring at JPARC in Japan, which features a magnetic field that changes at a rate of 70 tesla per second (T/s) and reaches a peak magnetic field of 1.1 tesla, and the 8 GeV Booster ring at Fermilab, which achieves a ramping rate of 30 T/s and a peak field of 0.7 tesla.

Most of the powerful superconducting magnets employed in modern-day particle accelerators are relatively slow when it comes to increasing the magnetic field. Their main goal is to ramp up to a high peak magnetic field to steer particles around a ring while electric fields propel the particles to higher and higher energy. The higher the energy, the stronger the magnetic field must be to keep the particles in their track as they go around the ring.

Fermilab's Tevatron accelerator was the first machine based on superconducting steering magnets. The ramping of the 4.4-tesla magnets to full magnetic strength took more than a minute and a half, while electric fields increased the energy of the particles to 1 TeV. Today, the world's most powerful accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, uses superconducting steering magnets that ramp up to almost 8 tesla in approximately 20 minutes, while the accelerator propels particles to 6.5 TeV. This corresponds to a ramping rate of about 0.006 T/s and is much slower than the ramping rate of conventional accelerator magnets operating at room temperature.

A dual-aperture, high-temperature superconductor accelerator magnet test setup. [Photo: Ryan Postel, Fermilab]

 

 

Now, a superconducting accelerator test magnet is taking the ramping rate lead as Fermilab's high-temperature superconductor test magnet has yielded rates of up to 290 T/s, while achieving a peak magnetic field strength of about 0.5 tesla. The results have been published on the arXiv and reported at the 27th International Conference on Magnet Technology by the IEEE Council on Superconductivity. Piekarz and his colleagues hope to achieve even higher magnetic field strength by increasing the electrical current running through the magnet, while maintaining the superior ramping rate.

The solution: high-temperature superconductor
Two major problems are limiting the magnetic ramping rate in "low-temperature" superconducting accelerator magnets now in common use. The first one is the heating of the superconductor during ramping, due to eddy currents that can create large heat depositions in the superconductor. This heating rapidly increases with the increase of field amplitude and the ramping rate. The second one is the very small margin for temperature variation in the traditional low-temperature superconductors, such as niobium-titanium and niobium-tin, which are used in most modern superconducting accelerator magnets. Even a small increase in temperature can lead to the undesirable transition of a superconducting magnet into its normal conducting, resistive state.

The solution to these problems is to employ the unique properties of a "high-temperature" superconducting material known as YBCO. Using this material, Piekarz and his team designed a magnet and operated it at temperatures between 6 and 20 K and up to 1,000 amps of electrical current.

The peak strength of the magnetic field achieved during the record-setting ramping tests was limited by the electrical current provided by the power supply used in the test. Piekarz and his team plan to expand the power supply capabilities in the future, possibly achieving even higher rates, as they will carry out further studies on the ultimate capabilities of this advanced magnet technology.

The development of these fast-cycling magnets is critical for future neutrino research, featuring rapid-cycling proton synchrotrons, particle injectors for the proposed Future Circular Collider, and the design of pulsed muon colliders.

Published December 2021

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