Still digesting all the things I saw and learned at Automation Fair this week. Couple of interesting new products. By the way, anyone who thinks Rockwell Automation is dead should attend one of these things. Jim Pinto sometimes thinks that the company is for sale, but I saw no signs of that in St. Louis.
The first interesting juxtposition came after a conversation I had with Joe Biondo of Bosch Rexroth the week before. I was trying to find out what the hot topics were there, and Joe brought up "motion safety." This is a very interesting and useful technology with safety circuits built right into the motion control system. Joe's take--we're the only game in town. Then one week later as I'm making the "safety tour" at Automation Fair, I spot "Motion Safety." To Joe's credit, this was just being announced, so he didn't know. It's also so new that I haven't had time or information to compare--but both are good news for those designing motion systems.
The second situation involves medium voltage drives. I was an electronics guy, so when I first heard about "medium voltage", I figured it was something between 24 vdc and 600 vac. Boy was I off. Try 4160 vac. I haven't looked into mv drives for several years. Rockwell showed a new drive that is very small as these things go, but has many design features that should endear them to electrical engineers. Meanwhile, ARC Advisory Group released a briefing by Himanshu Shah analysing what Siemens will be doing with Robicon, its recent acquisition. Robicon's parent company was in bankruptcy. Siemens appears to be leaving it alone, a very good thing. Further, Siemens has the capital to invest in Robicon's product development that could allow it to improve its product line.
I always believe that good competition benefits users and suppliers. Here's to a couple of instances.
1:27:43 PM 
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