Motors & Pump Repairs in Sarasota, FL

There are a few ancient principles that played roles in automation since the mechanical age. Automation did not have to wait for electronic or electrical systems. The concept of automation as a wish or fantasy dates back as early as 762 BC. In Homer's epic poem "The Iliad," the God of blacksmiths, Hephaestus, was depicted as inventing automatons, self-directed machines, to speed the manufacture of weapons, machines replacing human labor. Human beings have held the idea of automation in our collective consciousness for thousands of years. Inventors were working on mechanical forms of automation for centuries.

The VFD (variable frequency drive) has become the "go to" technology for plant engineers seeking an energy efficient solution for controlling electric motor speed and torque. As this informative article from ABB points out, a VFD can reduce energy consumption by as much as 60% by reducing the amount of energy drawn by a motor. Small reductions in speed result in significant energy savings.

When selecting a micro programmable controller for your manufacturing processes, it can be difficult to sift through the wide range of PLCs that might be right for your applications. Often, process managers look to balance I/O capacity, processing power, and communications architecture - along with cost and ruggedness (or industrial hardening) to arrive at the perfect for specific plant floor control. Here, we will examine two widely used PLC's throughout the process and control industry, the IDEC MicroSmart product line and Automation Direct's DirectLOGIC 06 line of micro PLCs.

IDEC Corporation was founded in 1945 and is one of the earliest entrants into the micro PLC market. The company has always sought to supply PLC technology with specific capabilities to meet their customers demand. By eliminating unnecessary bells-and-whistles, the company offers a cost-effective line of micro PLCs to meet a wide range of automation and control needs.

The PLC, the industry anagram for Programmable Logic Controller, was first developed in the 1960s as a more efficient replacement for bulky banks of hardwired electromechanical relays and timers. Today, they're found in industrial applications for controlling conveyors, assembly lines, pumps, mixers, even wind turbines, and a host of other production machines and processes. They can also be found in other diverse applications such as controlling amusement rides and traffic signals.

A PLC, with its hardened embedded processor, can be thought of as a specialized digital computer built to withstand the demands of tough industrial environments. Any time precise sensing and logical decisions are required, PLCs can meet the demand.

The trend in industrial automation begun by the first PLCs continues to move today toward smaller, faster, and better. Ladder logic programming first used to improve and enhance automation systems based on relays and timers still endures as the most used PLC programming language, making it the reliable industry standard which is expected to continue for years to come.

Since 1903, Mader Electric has been a leader in their industry for providing customers with solutions to their motor, pump, and control needs. In keeping with this tradition, Mader is proud to officially announce that they are IDEC distributors, now offering a competitive control line that adds quality automation to a variety of application processes at an affordable cost.

The modern link between oversight SCADA Industrial Control Systems and front line PLC controllers is the result of evolution taking place since the days of basic relay-based systems and simple wired communications protocols. As techniques for sending and receiving messages developed over time, SCADA and PLC manufacturers created and expanded their own programming and communications languages. While manufacturers of current SCADA and PLC systems are recognizing the need for interoperability, most existing installations contain generations of devices which may "speak" different languages, both in software and via wired and wireless interconnects.