The Rexroth Linear Motion Designer has been updated to offer a more intuitive user interface. Enter dynamics, mass, force, and other process data, and the Designer uses an updated algorithm to calculate maximum torque drive and the correct dimensions for your linear motion system. At that point, you can download a CAD model without entering information again. It’s a far cry from Henry Ford’s assembly line. Ford took the idea of the assembly line, which was used in canning, mining, and a few other industries, and revolutionized car manufacturing. His new methods brought the time involved in building a car [&hellip

Friction. This word doesn’t always mean what you think it means. As an engineer, you have a certain understanding of the word “friction.” But it’s also used to describe human interactions and transactions. Specifically, a transaction that flows smoothly without requiring attention is a transaction without friction. You’re heading in to work with a lot on your mind. You know you want a tall half-caf matcha no sugar, you’re paying with a debit card, and you don’t want to have to spell your name. Stop at a kiosk and punch in the order, and the robo-barista shown above can make [&hellip

You can buy Indramat drives, servos, and controls on eBay, no question about it. I checked just a minute ago and found more than four thousand choices for a simple search on “Indramat.” The question is not, “Can you buy Indramat on eBay?” The question is, “Should you buy Indramat on eBay?” At first glance it might seem like a good idea. There are plenty of items to choose from, and the prices are dramatically lower in some cases than what you would expect to pay for new or factory refurbished Indramat motion control. Who doesn’t like a bargain? Here [&hellip

Industry 4.0 is a reality now, not a dream, and Rexroth is a big part of that transformation. But your facility doesn’t have to rip out all the old machinery and start over with smarter stuff. You can introduce key elements of Industry 4.0 with your current equipment. Start with sensors. It’s practical to add sensors to current machinery. Measure the vibrations, temperature, and other relevant indicators. Gather this data locally and use it to improve your processes. Not sure what to do with the data? Start collecting it anyway. When you’re ready — next week or next month — [&hellip

  Robots are good at a lot of things, but not so good at traveling from one place to another. They fall down. They run out of juice really fast if they have to walk any distance before they get to their actual task. They get confused or completely stopped by things that humans would hardly notice, like reflections or steps or cables on the floor. A lot of effort has gone into creating robots capable of walking, but it’s a continuing problem. Just when you come up with a system where robots have a full-time human watching them and [&hellip

There’s a commercial showing up on TV right now advertising a smart bed. “I don’t actually talk,” this bed remarks, “but I’m smart enough to.” Do you want a sentient bed? A bed that could gossip about you? A bed that chats on video while you sleep? This is not what I want in a bed. But Rexroth has a smart machine bed that could make a big difference in manufacturing. Sensors in a mechanical assemblage aren’t an obvious choice. Machine tools don’t usually need any particular level of intelligence — or so we thought. But Rexroth saw the potential [&hellip

Collaborative robots — some call them cobots — are a growing segment of the industrial robotics market. They’re a game changer in manufacturing, especially for small to medium businesses that aren’t ready for full-scale industrial automation. Rexroth doesn’t use the term “cobots.” Contact-free human-robot collaboration (HRC) is the Rexroth term. Also Automatic Production Assistants (APAS). Special names aren’t the only special thing about Rexroth’s collaborative robots. These new robots use innovative safety technology to make sure that there is no physical contact between the human and robot collaborators. This requires a special sensor skin which can sense the proximity of a human. [&hellip

The global average for industrial robots is 74 per 10,000 manufacturing workers. Clearly, we’ve got the robots comfortably outnumbered. Except that the global average doesn’t work that well in this case. The country with the largest concentration of industrial robots, South Korea, has 631 robots for every 10,000 workers. The lowest number reported, in India, is three industrial robots in use for every 10,000 workers in manufacturing. That’s an enormous difference. Other top countries include Singapore with 488 and the close pair of Japan and Germany, with 303 and 309 respectively. The United States is in the middle of the [&hellip

Made in China 2025 is a ten-year initiative to make China the dominant power in Industry 4.0 and associated fields like robotics and AI. The plan is to become a manufacturing superpower and to be largely self-sufficient when it comes to technology. Rexroth has been part of the plan since the beginning. Rexroth’s support has included implementation of Industry 4.0 processes in China, co-design of robotics factories, and a focus on synergy between China and Rexroth’s native Germany. In the U.S. the Made in China 2025 program has been making enemies. But China is the largest robotics market in the [&hellip

Rexroth error messages are not random strings of letters and numbers. They come in various classes. This is the current run-down: F2xxx Error messages beginning with F2xx are non-fatal error messages.  That means your machinery won’t automatically shut down. If you ignore these warnings, though, they’ll escalate. F3xxx F3xxx shows non-fatal safety technology errors. These errors are still non-fatal, but they are also safety issues. These should be higher priority. F4xxx F4xxx errors are interface errors. These errors are” areas.  in the “PROFIBUS-DP”, “Ethernet interface ” or “serial interface F6xxx A travel range error means that the parameters are set [&hellip