New additions to Festo’s electric drives range are all about choice and ease of use, according to electrical drives product manager, Nigel Dawson. The company will be introducing intelligent dc servomotors with their new fieldbus interfaces for Profibus and CANopen, giving designers a versatile and cost effective option for machine format setting. Even at the ‘simpler’ end of the Festo range, user choice is being extended. Pre-wired cable sets will offer a choice of standard, energy chain or robotic cable types, with options of cable terminations that reduce assembly times and save machine build costs.
The Festo ‘Plug and Work’ philosophy continues to expand in the controls area, with the introduction of new, highly flexible CPX valves and I/O options. The configurable terminals can be specified online and ordered as a single pre-assembled and tested module ready to mount on the machine frame. New lower cost I/O modules and additional flexibility in the local CPX bus ensure designers can specify configurations for machine optimisation without constraints being laid down by their I/O and valves supplier. The local bus runs satellite I/O modules and valve terminals up to 10m away.
Festo will also be demonstrating a powerful new web-based monitoring tool called CPX Web Monitor. The software package provides a low cost, ready-to-run remote diagnostics tool that requires no in-house software expertise and only minimal set-up. It facilitates on-line retrieval of digital and analogue statistical data from any Ethernet-equipped Festo CPX series valve terminal or I/O module. Capable of handling static and dynamic data, CPX Web Monitor accommodates a wide variety of process-related functions, including individual pneumatic valve diagnostic and condition monitoring, pressure, temperature and I/O status monitoring, and power supply condition monitoring.