Pepperl+Fuchs Blog

Are unexpected issues often determining your schedule? Have you recently had to push back a project because of recurring problems? Having to respond to unplanned issues may seem like an inevitable cost of doing business, but it is becoming harder and harder to settle for a reactive approach to plant management and remain competitive at the same time.

The speed of sound depends on ambient temperature. As temperature rises, the speed of sound increases. As it gets colder, the speed of sound decreases. For ultrasonic sensors, this variance can affect accuracy, since a faster or slower echo return will make a stationary target appear closer or farther away.

Automated guided vehicles (AGVs) are used to move product throughout the factory or warehouse floor. Speed and precision are key when moving materials— if you've seen AGVs zipping around in a warehouse, you want to ensure that they stay on track and that they go exactly where they need to, with materials and AGV intact.

The video below discusses the key features and general applications for our PGV absolute positioning system for automatic guided vehicles. The PGV follows Data Matrix codes or colored lines with sub-millimeter precision and is ideal for guidance of AGVs.

From control codes to initiate starts, stops, and turns, to the user-friendly software Vision Configurator, the PGV is packed with the tools you need for any AGV application.

Process automation plants using industrial HMI often place the equipment in remote locations in the field, away from the process control room or maintenance stations. For busy plant personnel, it's much easier to be able to configure these remote monitors from a centralized location or even off-site remote location. In addition, maintenance and technical support for the daily HMI operators can now be done remotely without needing to physically stand in front of the screen, which is often difficult and time-consuming (pharmaceutical clean rooms, large refineries for example.)

Many of the sensors you use have IO-Link capability built in. But you might not know it, because they can still be used like standard sensors. For instance, all Pepperl+Fuchs IO-Link sensors boot up first in digital IO mode; they will only switch to IO-Link mode when an IO-Link master actively communicates with them. 

When working with ultrasonic sensors, programming the sensor is a crucial part of any application. No matter the application, an ultrasonic sensor must be programmed to fit your specific need. Without doing this, you will not be able to use the sensor to its full potential or even set the distance at which it will work. Customers often inquire about how to set a switching distance, incorporate a blind zone, or even change the limits of their analog signal; when questions like this arise, programming is the answer and the cornerstone of any ultrasonic application.

AS-Interface software for troubleshooting and testing has been around for years, but new licensed versions are now available.  This licensing is primarily due to additional software, which is included and added to the suite, and easily pushes new software fixes directly to the consumer.  All new software licenses come with free lifetime software upgrades.  The old software can still be used and is still supported, but the software revision is frozen.  Any new gateway produced will be supported only with the new software.

Industrial RFID systems are not that difficult to use. If you use a UHF RFID system, however, the complexity is increased.  The reason is because of the overall large amount of possible data sets that can be retrieved and sent to the user.  Below is a video on how to integrate our UHF RFID systems into an Allen-Bradley PLC using Studio 5000®.

Safety at Work has been a part of AS-Interface for over 10 years now.  It is a very reliable means of networking industrial safety products.  Very demanding applications need extra configuration in the software to prevent nuisance shutdowns.  These shutdowns can be caused by high vibration on the machine opening up mechanical contacts or high noise sources disrupting network communications.  Here are some software settings to reduce or eliminate these nuisance shutdowns.

A UHF RFID system is a bit more more complicated to configure and set up than an inductive short-range RFID system.  The Pepperl+Fuchs IUH-F190-V1-FR2-02 read head is a UHF head that makes many of the tough decisions for you.  You don’t need to know about anti-collision algorithms, sessions, inventory queries, or select flags.  We use simple concepts and a reduced parameter list to make it easy for anyone to set up an RFID system.