Better by Design
Best by Design
As part of our annual Best by Design contest, we hereby invite you to peruse the following innovative componenets highlighted throughout 2011, consider whether you could find practical use for the components in an actual design, and then vote on your favorites....
Better by Design: Hollow-shaft encoder
Noncontact magnetic rotary encoders are hard to beat when it comes to measuring rotary motion in machinery, as they are relatively small, strong, and...
Better by Design: Microstepping drives
Stepmotors or steppers are used in myriad industries today, because they're affordable and reliable. The advent of microstepping drives in particular...
Better by Design: Industrial gear drive
Industrial gear drives operating in hostile environments such as coal mines and aggregate plants must be rugged enough to withstand dust, grit, and moisture,...
Speck-sized motor encoder
A standard reflective encoder module contains two digital output channels for direction sensing, but needs another module for indexing. Similarly, motion...
Better by Design: Flange with feeling
Most robotics with tactile force feedback require extensive setup. Their response times can also introduce significant delays. Now, a touch-sensitive...
Best by Design 2010 contest winners
Here you have it the best products of 2010 as determined by you. Following are the winners of Motion System Design's inaugural Best by Design and Motion...
Interface ingenuity
The human-machine interface or HMI is one of the most important components of an automation system, making communication possible between machinery and...
Better by Design: Worm gear workhorse
Worm gearboxes are the workhorses of modern manufacturing, increasing motor torque and acting as speed reducers in myriad industrial applications. Their...
Better by Design: Planetary gear unit packs a punch
For applications with inflexible torque demand, sometimes designers specify oversized and less efficient gearsets. Other times, manufacturing engineers...
Better by Design: Robotic joint
Design engineers tasked with custom robot development must often piece together scores of individual components. Nowhere is this more complicated than...
Tip-top tap-ready conveyor
Conveyors are no strangers to dust: It's generated by rubbing corrugated boxes during packaging, the conveying of pet food or bakery confectionary, and...
Perfect connect
Industrial cable connectors can be bulky, typically offer only a few contact arrangements, and can be be difficult to fasten by hand tightening which...
Tidy rollers
Bearings face two challenges in dirty or washdown environments: keeping out contamination, and keeping lubricant safe inside. Single and multi-lip designs...
Rugged encoder stands up to shock, vibration
One of the most trusted feedback devices is the tried and true rotary encoder. However, shock loads can easily break these delicate devices: The glass...
Better by design: Think matter
When it comes to putting sensors in a fluid-power cylinder, the most common approach is to gun-bore the piston rod and mechanically fasten positioning...
Copasetic couplings: Flexible couplings
Flexible shaft couplings transmit torque from one shaft to another, and redress misalignment between them. The trick is that flexible couplings must act...
Letting go: Angle sensors
Most rotary position sensors have some effect on the motion they aim to measure. They also tend to complicate design, requiring shaft-to-shaft connections...
Smart seals: Radial shaft seals
Conventional shaft seals are designed to last a certain length of time perhaps 5,000 to 20,000 service hours before the effects of wear begin to emerge....
Sound check: Low-noise gear module
A new low-noise gear module replaces standard stages to turn loud gear whines into low, quiet hums. Increasingly required in medical devices, commercial...
Thin sensor gets the skinny on angles
For countless industrial products that have evolved over time, smaller, better, and less expensive is the name of the game. After designing and manufacturing...
Pulling their weight: Timing pulley
A modular gearbox design integrates gearing into a timing pulley for dynamic linear motion systems, including gantry robots, high-speed packaging machinery,...
Limiters without limits: Torque limiters
Q: Torque limiters and proximity sensors: What's the connection? ...
