Bill Walton – a 7 foot tall anomaly from the annals of basketball history who wears tie-dye shirts, listens to the Grateful Dead and, according to his own outlandish proclamations, hasn’t taken an indoor shower in 35 years – is well-known for looking at average accomplishmentsand being overcome with extreme fits of emotion.

Happy New Year! I am pleased to announce that I will be your new blog writer for PTE. If we haven’t been introduced, my name is Norm Parke...

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.”

With two armed conflicts underway impacting economic performance in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, we continue our investment stance of “Buy on the Sound of Cannons — Selectively” — but readers of Power Transmission Engineering should not be sanguine. Geopolitics is beginning to exert significant pressure on several end markets: I specifically refer to oil price. West Texas Intermediate or WTI has dropped from its $95-105 trading range in late spring to about $75 — about a (25%) drop despite wo ongoing conflicts because of excess supply.

EDITORS’ NOTE: “The Applications of Bevel Gears” is the excerpted third chapter of Dr. Hermann Stadtfeld’s latest book — Gleason Bevel Gear Technology (The Gleason Works, Rochester, New York, USA; All rights reserved. 2014; ISBN 978-0-615-96492-8.), which appears here unabridged through the kind graces of Dr. Stadtfeld and Gleason Corp. Future installments will appear exclusively in Power Transmission Engineering and Gear Technology magazine over the next 12 to 18 months.

He was out. Nine years ago, Ross Rivard left the coupling industry for the shimmering new world of luxury automotive components at Lacks Enterprises, where he was immediately enveloped by platinum trim systems and chrome composite wheels. It was glitz and glam and as sparkly clean as the fresh-fromthe-dealership cars his products were embellished onto.

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.

In the Stott household, we love math. Well, maybe not everyone in my household loves it equally, but since they were in kindergarten, whenever one of my children asked me for help with math homework, my reply has been an instant and cheerful “We love math!”

The Calendar for events happening in the industry

The complete Industry News section from the September 2014 issue of Power Transmission Engineering.