Controls Go Green: SERCOS and Energy Consumption

With Earth Day approaching this weekend, now is a perfect time to talk about the energy profile aspect of SERCOS III. As you know by now, the latest SERCOS system aims for all-inclusive, “plug-and-play” control, with full integration from the machine level, through I/O, drives, sensors, and controls. An article from Sustainable Planet provides an overview of SERCOS Energy, the portion of SERCOS that outlines energy consumption requirements. In a nutshell, the level of control that SERCOS enables, allows for targeted, intelligent component energy management, and unprecedented energy use optimization.

By planning for both expected and unexpected production circumstances – the former, lunch breaks, and the latter, machinery malfunctions – SERCOS Energy features predefined energy saving states that can be scheduled or manually kicked in. Think of your computer going into Sleep Mode, or fully shutting down after an extended period of inactivity. That’s the basic principle behind SERCOS Energy, with highly targeted and carefully defined events and triggers. For more information, be sure to read the article, or see the SERCOS white paper.

Other FIRST Competitions

FIRST® LEGO® League (FLL) participants. 

We at IIS are primarily involved with the FIRST Robotics Challenge – the competition involving high school students and their mentors (including us!). Besides being a great outlet for mechanically-minded students to expand their skills, the FRC also shows students that careers in manufacturing and automation can be viable, interesting, and fun. What’s more, FIRST gets students involved even before high school with their LEGO Leagues, and also runs a Tech Challenge, putting a different spin on the competition.

FIRST’s LEGO Leagues (FFL)– a Junior league for grades K through 3^rd, and the standard LEGO league for students aged 9 through 14 – let students get involved in envisioning, designing, and building robots, with more age- and skills-appropriate guidelines and challenges. Inevitably, these programs groom and prepare students for the more intensive Robotics Challenges as they get older, building a strong base from which to work. The TechChallenges are also aimed at high school students, but with a more head-to-head, individualized aspect to the competitions. FIRST truly offers something for everyone with their range of choices, and we’re proud to be involved with them!

ODVA’s Optimization of Machine Integration

We’ve talked a bit here about sercos’ continuing goal of providing total integration of communication between machinery and controls. In partnership with ODVA, the Optimization of Machine Integration initiative is a visionary roadmap to meet that end. OMI operates under the principle that the ever-increasing number of machines, controls, automation, and ERPs in existence demands a standardized form of communication between these elements to maximize innovation and productivity.

One of the most important factors in achieving this goal of standardization is the importance of an open-source framework – sort of like UNIX, for those familiar with computer programming – that enables all current and future machinery to be developed and integrated, vendor-blind, into any existing system. Saving countless hours of connectivity upgrades and modifications, the OMI standard can be used for large or small operations, ensures security for remote reporting and supervising purposes, and paves the way for unprecedented efficiency as automation technology continues to advance.

FIRST Robotics, First in Giving Back

It’s a no-brainer for us here at IIS to get involved with the FIRST Robotics Competition each year. Besides the promising future shown by students working day and night on their competition robots, the FIRST organization itself is a shining example of generosity, community involvement, and improving young lives. When we say FIRST gives back, we aren’t referring only to the over $14 million in scholarships that they’ve awarded so far. The values strengthened by participation in the FRC, aside from any financial considerations, are themselves priceless.

Any FIRST participant is familiar with the mantra of Gracious Professionalism. More than any competition, more than winning, Gracious Professionalism is the overriding theme present at every FIRST event. So what is it? It’s the idea that all FIRST participants are a team before they’re competitors. Gracious Professionalism fosters a high enough respect of one another to compete fiercely, but to lend a hand if, say, another team comes up short a few ball bearings on competition day. Most of all, it’s the notion that all competitors are working toward a common goal of excellence, and that while there may be winners and losers on the court, each and every person there contributed in some way to the intellectual and personal growth of the others.

So just by running the competition, FIRST is giving back to the students. It’s giving them the opportunity to work on something outside of their daily cycle of school, sports, homework, and TV. There are few ways to have more fun while also learning invaluable skills – both mechanical, and interpersonal. FIRST’s Lego League and Tech Challenge ensure that as many students as possible – across all ages and talents – have an opportunity to participate in this unique competition. We’re happy just to do our part.

Hydraulic to Electric Conversions: Saving Time and Money

Work with machinery long enough, and you’ll go beyond just knowing how to use the equipment: you begin to understand it, learn its strengths and weaknesses, and figure out ways to improve it. IIS’s extensive experience with indexing equipment led to one such situation, which we were able to act open to improve our customers’ operations, and our own repair services. In fact, our analysis and upgrade led to a whole new service offering for IIS: the electric drive conversion for the Nissei Hydraulic ASB 650 Blow Molding Indexing Table.

For many years, hydraulic-powered indexing drives were the industry norm. As anyone who has worked extensively with hydraulics knows, the technology offers incredible benefits – with some drawbacks. Hydraulic leaks are messy, hydraulic fluid is expensive, and repairs can be frequent and costly. As a well-established repair shop for hydraulic indexers, IIS noticed something in the course of sourcing replacement parts: they were becoming more and more scarce, and costs were increasing commensurately. The machinery was becoming obsolete. 

Rather than continue to subject our customers to increasing parts costs, we rolled out another option: an electric drive conversion. Time-consuming and a major investment in the short term, the savings in reliability and production over the long term have proved attractive to many clients. The key to the conversion is a special adapter for the gearbox, called the KIT-ADT-43. This is a bolt-in replacement for the original HR-205 type hydraulic motor in the Nissei table. With cycle times reduced to 1.3 seconds for a 90° move in a standard precision assembly, or .99 seconds in a reduced backlash assembly, as well as a substantial reduction in energy usage, the benefits of the conversion speak for themselves. What’s more, our clients are typically eligible for state and federal tax credits for energy efficiency improvement investments.

Read more about our upgrade and conversion services on our upgrade packages page, or contact us with any questions.

FIRST Robotics Competition: Hitting the Boards

With development of teams’ FIRST Robotics robots in full swing, we’ll be taking a look this week at some of the details of this year’s Rebound Rumble competition, and how teams will be rising to the challenges presented by the game. But competitors – don’t look here for any team secrets. We’ll only get as close as a general assessment of factors in building the machines. 

Following in the footsteps of 2010’s soccer-themed “Breakaway” game and 2008’s “Overdrive” auto-racing-based competition, 2012 features another sports game: the Rebound Rumble. Just like in regular basketball, teams will be trying to score on one end of the court, and defending the opposite end. The court is a bit smaller than most, measuring 54 ft. long by 27 ft. wide, and there’s no three point line. There are a few other differences, too: instead of one basket at each end, there are four (at different heights, with higher point values for higher hoops), and there’s a raised bridge at mid-court. The biggest difference? The only players on the court will be constructed from metal, wires, and plastics: robots controlled wirelessly from the sidelines.

Incredibly, these robots are built completely from scratch by high school students, with advisement by a team of mentors (on which IIS personnel take part). All design, movement, and control must be planned and carried out to build a fully-functional, robotic Chris Paul (although Michael Jordan might be more likely to come to mind for the mentor teams). Think about everything that goes into a basketball shot: aim, angle of release, velocity/force, distance from the hoop, and countless other factors. Each must be converted into a command for the robot to understand and follow – simultaneously. And then there are other factors: Passing. Blocking. Fast breaks. All need to be accounted for and controlled.

As the competition develops, we’ll have all the details here. Keep reading our blog for updates!