Robotics-assisted surgery is now mainstream in modern hospitals, with the Da Vinci platform in use around the world. The Da Vinci system isn’t robotic surgery, though. It can’t be programmed, it can’t make decisions, and the surgeon is still at work throughout the operation. The Da Vinci system allows a surgeon to work comfortably at… Read more »
James Watt, as we probably all know, was the first person to invent a servomechanism. A servo is of course a system that uses automatic feedback to regulate aspects of the system. While Indramat was a pioneering participant in motion control in the 20th century, the first servo was James Watt’s steam engine. The Newcomen… Read more »
Rare earth elements were the darlings of industrial motion control in the 1990s and early 2000s, providing the power for permanent-magnet synchronous motors. Then a variety of political and economic factors drove the price of rare earth elements up, leading to the boom and bust in rare earth a couple of years ago. One of… Read more »
Next time you’re driving in your car, remind yourself that without consumer demand for better and safer cars, companies like Bosch Rexroth wouldn’t exist and manufacturing would be years behind where it is now. Car manufacturing has been a huge proponent for manufacturing innovation because of the heavy demands of the industry on manufacturing technology…. Read more »
Lately we have had a spate of calls from frantic customers who have suffered control or power failures which wiped the memory of their control system or drive. With most systems, we can have a full panel worth of drives and controls on your doorstep in under 24 hours. If you don’t have a Known… Read more »
Rexroth acquired a company called Indramat in the 20th century. This company became the electric drive and control division of Rexroth. There are still legacy Rexroth Indramat machines in service today. Since they rarely have problems, you might see that Indramat name for the first time when something breaks down and you have to open… Read more »
Rexroth and Indramat cabinets are very rarely ever opened. In fact, it’s not uncommon to see cabinets that have never been opened since they were installed originally when your manufacturing started years ago. Very few people actually know what goes on inside these cabinets and can tell you what’s going wrong with your servo drive… Read more »
The largest animals to roam the earth are long gone. Servos, however, are still going strong. Since the 1800s, servo motors have been essential. They started out in ships and they’re still important in that field. Newport News has the world’s largest servo-based pipe bending machine to be made for their shipbuilding manufacturing. Fanuc now… Read more »
A decade ago, the Financial Times made a prediction. “The US is on course to regain its status as a global industrial powerhouse,” Peter Marsh said, based on a study that predicted the industrial renaissance would be in place by 2020. Several factors, from lower energy costs coming our way to increasing labor costs in… Read more »
When an athlete needs to give 110% for the final drive for a touchdown or the jump to get the winning slam-dunk, they turn up the power and succeed when people didn’t think it was possible. Induction motors, however, can’t do this because of the way they’re built. In fact, most induction motors, also known… Read more »
