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One of the most important standards to know if you're designing control panels for the North American market is UL508A. UL508A is a construction standard for electrical control panels. Also helpful are the National Fire Protection Agency's (NFPA) 79A (Electrical Standard for Industrial Machinery) and the National Electrical Code (NFPA 70).The UL508A standard is used to build Industrial Control Panels. The standard gives panel builders guidance on a variety of topics, including component selectio …

Some of the most frequent comments on our YouTube videos of collaborative robots are that they might be too slow for some applications. But we have to ask - does speed always equal productivity?Previously, while sorting products and packages into pallet loads for warehouse storage and distribution, producers used manual hand stacking. Pallet handling has been a vital logistical function for decades, despite its slowness and high staffing requirements. Pallets are now handled in a signi …

Chiller surge occurs when refrigerant rushes backwards from the condenser to the compressor, causing serious damage to the system. As a result, it begins to flow backwards through the discharge line and into the compressor. Because the compressor's purpose is to pump refrigerant into the discharge line and into the condenser, it will continue to revolve. The refrigerant will flow back through the impeller blades and out through the suction line into the evaporator since the pressure is alre …

The rapid expansion of distribution and fulfillment centers, fueled partly by an increase in eCommerce, has put warehouse automation in the limelight. The focus was sharpened even more in 2020, as COVID-19/work-from-home trends increased e-commerce growth.Warehouse automation will become increasingly vital in order to keep up with rising demand levels, as it contributes to greater productivity, efficiency, order accuracy, and safety. Furthermore, higher automation levels enable warehouses to res …

In 1952, a pair of Drexel Institute of Technology graduate students patented a method for instant electronic recall of product information based on patterns of lines of varied widths. The barcode is still an enduring icon of technology that has endured the test of time seventy years later.In 1948, the president of a grocery store chain visited Drexel in the aim of utilizing the university's technical expertise to develop a method for reading product data during the checkout process. Card reading …