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Enhancing production with — and for — less is the standing order in today’s manufacturing world. Speeding up production while at the same time looking for ways, to cut, for example, energy costs, is a tricky equation with no single answer; where and how management goes about achieving that can take several paths.
Hi. My name is Renee. I’m 12.
You might remember me from about a year ago, when my dad wrote about me and the home-made motor project we did together (“Make the Connection,” February 2014).
John Morehead, national
sales manager of Crouzet Motors
(Vista, CA), was bunkered
down in his office in Palatine,
IL surrounded at all points by
ankle-deep snow from an unfortunately
terrible Chicago’s
winter night.
The use of motor current signature analysis (MCSA) for motor fault detection — such as
a broken rotor bar — is now well established. However, detection of mechanical faults
related to the driven system remains a more challenging task. Recently there has been a growing interest for detection of gear faults by MCSA. Advantages and drawbacks of these
MCSA-type techniques are presented and discussed on a few industrial cases.
The motors might be small, but the big-brain technology driving these electrical wonders was on full display at the 2014 Small Motor &
Motion Association Fall Technical Conference, convened November 4-6 in St. Louis, MO. SMMA, the manufacturing trade association (120 members
strong) that tends to the best interests of the electric motor
and motion control industries — including manufacturers, suppliers, users, consultants and universities — played gracious host to a wide array of presenters from an equally diverse range of sources — from academia to the federal government. Like gears, motors are most everywhere, as evidenced by SMMA’s membership (consumer-, public interest-, national defense- and commercial-oriented) demographic
which includes: appliance; transportation; medical equipment; office automation and computers; aerospace; and industrial automation. The association’s mission: To “serve as the principal voice of the electric motors and drives industry” and to provide a forum to “develop, collect and disseminate technical and management knowledge.”
A wide variety of companies displayed mechanical power transmission and motion control technologies at Pack Expo, held in November in Chicago. The event, which is the largest packaging and processing trade show in North America, attracted more than 48,000 attendees, according to show owner and producer PMMI. The four-day event included 2,352 exhibiting companies, an increase of more than 19 percent from the previous show in 2012.
According to the Department
of Energy (DOE), more than
half of all electrical energy
consumed in the U.S. is used
by electric motors. To address
this, several years ago, the DOE conducted
a technical study as to what
could be done to raise the efficiency
levels of “small” motors. After years
of study and litigation, the Small Motor Rule (SMR) was passed that covers two-digit NEMA frame single- and three-phase ¼ through 3 horsepower
motors in open enclosures.