Delta Group says its AS300 Series compact PLC is available to the North American market.

The AS300 joins Delta's Robotic Cell Workstation and the MS300 VFD with IP40 and Rugged Conduit box as what the company says are smart manufacturing enabling technologies.

Delta says its products are suitable for machine, line, and factory automation for a variety of applications, including material handling, automated warehousing, food and beverage packaging, and automated assembly spaces.

The AS300 provides advanced control at a machine and line level, according to a company statement to coincide with the 2017 Automate exhibition in Chicago. The company says the product features integrated motion control with six axis via pulse control (200kHz or 4MHz) and built-in encoder feedback. Up to eight of Delta's ASDA-A2 Series servos can be controlled with the addition of a CANopen network module for "pick-n-place" applications. Delta's 32-bit System-on-a-Chip (SoC) is used in the AS300's design for enhanced speed at 40k steps/ms and supports up to 32 extension modules or up to 1,024 outputs.

The AS300 includes a built-in Ethernet port with EtherNet/IP and Modbus TCP communication and OPC server connectivity, SMTP email server connectivity for alarm notification, an integrated light-webserver and database connectivity via eServer tool when combined with Delta HMI. The company says it also provides multi-layer password protection for system security. The AS300 includes a Micro SD card with up to 32GB additional storage.

The AS300 is modular and uses a rack-less design with Delta's "Slide-Lock," a feature that the company says allows for quick connection and easy expansion without moving other modules.

Delta has deployed this technology within one of its production facilities for finished product detection, gluing tracking, automated screw tightening as well as soldering and other processes. On Delta's fan rotor assembly line, the Robotic Cell is used to support the pick-and-place of fan blades via a suction device to streamline operations and increase production capacity per hour by 20 percent without sacrificing quality. In a different application, the solution has been able to achieve a zero-human error rate and reduce a 68-minute testing time to 18 minutes – a 74 percent increase in efficiency.

The Robotic Cell Workstation encapsulates Delta's extensive IP, which comes from being the largest manufacture of power supplies in the world, and the Industrial Automation team's in-depth knowledge of production, dispensing processes and IIoT tools.

MS300 Series Compact Drives with IP40 and Rugged Conduit Box

The MS300 Variable Frequency Compact Drives utilize rugged metal conduit boxes for on-conveyor mounting and drive vent covers to achieve IP40 NEMA1 protection against falling objects. An internal PLC allows for localized processing and standalone control with sensors directly connected to the on-board I/O, eliminating the need for additional external controls. The Safe-Torque-Off function ensures operator safety and the Traction Energy Control feature allows for quick deceleration to reduce production cycle time and overall energy usage. These features extend into the new MH300 Series, a high-performance version of this compact VFD series, and come with two option slots, one for PG, I/O extension and external DC 24V power cards and the other is for fieldbus communication including EtherCAT, to achieve determinism on a single high-speed network - ideal for centralized control architectures.

"With Delta's comprehensive line-up of integrated automation solutions for industrial machinery, we are ready to help machine builders and system integrators improve the robustness of their machines, reduce their overall control system footprint and create lean architectures for superior engineering," said Bill Faber, Director of Delta Products Corporation's Industrial Automation Marketing.

For more information and to learn about Delta's full range of automation technologies, including Programmable Logic and Motion Controllers, AC Motor Drives (VFD), Servo Motion Systems, Human Machine Interfaces (HMIs), Temperature Controllers, Ethernet Networking Modules, Communication Devices, Sensors, Power Supplies, Power Quality Devices, Actuators and Robotics