Blog
How 75-Year Old Cambridge-Lee Industries Keeps Employees On Board with Automation
Cambridge-Lee Industries is one of the largest manufacturers and distributors of copper tubing with an estimated 25% of the global market. Headquartered in Reading, Pennsylvania, the global company produces copper tubes for water supply, air conditioning, refrigeration, and a variety of commercial applications.In 2013, Cambridge-Lee added 200,000-square-feet to its manufacturing operations with cast-and-roll processes and an annealing furnace while onboarding its employees to new automation tech
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Jun 4th 2018
Construction Sites Offer Transitional Phase to Unstructured Use of Robotics
With the introduction of machine vision, robots are no longer limited to predetermined paths with tracks; they are now able to roam about areas like warehouses and factory floors using only vision sensors.Collaborative robots on industrial lines use sensitive force torque sensors coupled with adroitness to work outside of traditional safety cells right alongside their human colleagues. Soon robots will be well-developed enough to operated in even less structured environments, such as on the open
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May 24th 2018
Principles of 3-Phase Electrical Systems
Although single-phase electricity is used to supply common domestic and office electrical appliances, three phase alternating current (a.c.) systems are almost universally used to distribute electrical power and to supply electricity directly to higher power equipment.This technical article describes the basic principles of three phase systems and the difference between the different measurement connections that are possible.
Three-phase systems
Wye or Star connection
Delta connection
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May 8th 2018
Collaborative Robot Feeds Laser Marking Machine at PACK EXPO
At the 2018 PACK EXPO East, a packaging trade show held at the Philadelphia Convention Center in April, Automation Distribution teamed up with Precision Automation, which specializes in packaging, processing and material handling systems, for a fantastic display featuring collaborative robots and custom laser engraving equipment.
The Universal Robots UR3 was outfitted with a custom plate to hold a plastic luggage tag which, when detected by a vision system, was fed into the Arca l
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Apr 27th 2018
How the Hard-won Lessons of IT are Helping IIoT Leapfrog to a Better State of Security
Every industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) customer I speak to wants the strongest possible security. But who inside the customer’s organization will execute and own the process? In meeting after meeting with customers building IIoT capabilities, I encounter a natural but sometimes tense uncertainty between IT and OT/LOB professionals when it comes to IIoT security. That uncertainty is itself a security vulnerability because it delays essential security deployment.In a recent blog, I explored si
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Apr 19th 2018