Did You Know?

Applied Motion Products offers a standard range of gear ratios (3:1 up to 100:1) in its complete line of planetary gearheads, compatible with both NEMA and metric motor frame sizes. Planetary gearheads are ideal for high torque motion control applications requiring precise positioning, high efficiency, and low backlash. In applications where there is a large load-to-rotor inertia mismatch, these gearheads are the perfect compact solution.

As a salesperson, I love when I am asked questions. Asking me questions is a great way for me to better understand your needs. There are no dumb or stupid questions - questions are how we learn. Too often, salespeople don’t ask enough questions and we lose opportunities to solve a problem or sell a solution. So here are some questions I would ask Applied Motion Products if I was buying from the website or a sales manager. Some of the answers may surprise you!

Brian Mason, West Regional Engineer

   The Life Sciences industry has seen tremendous growth across many disciplines including scientific informatics, drug discovery devices and nanotechnology. From 3-D printers capable of producing functioning organs, to pumps capable of delivering liquids on a pico-liter scale, the future for Lab Automation is looking bright. Now is the time to collaborate with chemical engineers and scientists that are prototyping the next product that will pave the way to a higher quality of life.

Does your motion control application involve more than 1 axis of stepper or servo? Applied Motion Products multi-axis control, SiNet Hub Programmer™ software and one of our SiNet™ Hubs may be the right solution. SiNet Hub Programmer™ takes our single-axis Si Programmer™ software and augments it to handle up to 4 or 8 axes, depending on whether you use it with the SiNet™ Hub 444-DIN or SiNet™ Hub 8.

Applied Motion Products offers a wide and ever-increasing range of products for your automation needs. That said, we’ve all been in a situation where an exact solution to a particular need simply doesn’t exist. You might need something that simply hasn’t been done before, or maybe an existing product is painfully close to what you would call “ideal” except for one particular feature that you need to have modified in some way.

LabVIEW® software from National Instruments is a powerful tool that is commonly used to control automated processes found in a laboratory setting, test environment, or even an industrial facility. By using the data provided to a LabVIEW program as input variables, the outputs can be automatically adjusted with the use of function blocks to provide closed loop process control. These outputs can be specially programmed to send commands to an Applied Motion Products stepper or servo system that is the foundation of the motion control system for your particular automated process.

Q Programs are normally executed one line at a time. This ensures precise sequencing of events in the program. There are applications however where motion must occur simultaneously with other events and we offer a multitasking mode to accomplish this. Multitasking allows you to launch a move then perform other operations while the motion is occurring. At the end of the move you can re-synchronize motion and program execution with a WM command.

Because we have added innovations like DSP based resonance cancellation and closed loop control, stepper drives and step motors are being used more extensively than ever. This has highlighted a need for ruggedness and reliability step motors have not always been known for. Customers tell us motors need to withstand harsh environments and be easily installed and maintained in factory automation and even outdoor uses.