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Recent Articles

When is the best time to upgrade your plant lighting?

If you're waiting for new technology to show up before taking on a lighting retrofit, you might be wasting a lot of money.

Change management to change the electrical safety culture in your plant

Educated leadership makes better risk-assessment decisions.

Hello, plastic cooling towers. Goodbye, maintenance costs.

In this installment of What Works, plastic cooling towers keep harsh chemicals under control and processes uninterrupted.

In pursuit of lubrication perfection

Learn how one brewery is implementing a world-class lubrication process.

More Articles »

White Papers: In Depth Research

PEARL standards bring safety and reliability to secondary electrical distribution channels
Posted: 05/23/2012

Just about every product in the world has two main markets: one for new product and a second market for used — sometimes referred to as surplus, reconditioned, rebuilt or remanufactured — product. Cars, computers, jewelry and electronics are just a few examples of thriving industries that trade in used goods. The commercial and industrial electrical supply markets are no exception.

Electrical equipment, like automobiles and industrial machinery, are designed to last decades. However, like other durable goods, electrical equipment can be dangerous to the inexperienced — whether it is new or used product. The confluence of these two facts means that product safety — not just availability — is critical to a healthy electrical marketplace.

In 1908, the National Association of Electrical Distributors was formed to "establish the electrical distributor as an essential force in the electrical industry and economy," followed by the National Electrical Manufacturer's Association (NEMA) in 1926. These venerable associations eventually expanded to include educational programs and standards to help improve the operations and safety of the electrical supply chain with a focus on new product from electrical original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).

Related articles:

Save money with certified used, surplus electrical equipment
Keep business competitive and safe while cutting landfill waste and saving the environment.

Bring them back
How to recondition motor controls.

Reducing servomotor instability
Author: Marcus Schick
Posted: 11/21/2011
Instability in a motor is uncontrolled and unintended motion at the motor shaft and can occur at any frequency. It's caused by excessive gain in the speed controller of the drive, and the gain setting of the speed controller determines how much torque the drive will generate. As servo drives become more prevalent in industry, they are being applied in a wider range of applications. Servo motors sometimes make a "growling" noise, which can be eliminated by reducing the gain on the speed controller, but lower speed controller gains can lead to an increase in position error and a decrease in performance. This paper looks at the methods that can be used to eliminate servo instability.

Seven types of power problems
Author: Joseph Seymour
Posted: 10/18/2011
Many of the mysteries of equipment failure, downtime, software and data corruption are the results of a problematic supply of power. There is also a common problem with describing power problems in a standard way. This white paper will describe the most common types of power disturbances, what can cause them, what they can do to your critical equipment, and how to safeguard your equipment, using the IEEE standards for describing power quality problems.

Distributed I/O and remote I/O solution improves performance and reliability
Author: Jim McConahay, P.E.
Posted: 09/26/2011
In central New York state, recent upgrades at a municipal water plant have provided the means for operators to enhance their process for meeting the water quality needs of customers. As part of the upgrades, the facility modernized its control system utilizing a distributed I/O and remote I/O solution. This technology reduced wiring costs for field instrumentation while improving operational readiness and reliability.

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