The ac drives manufacturer Vacon has introduced one of the smallest drive families in the market today, the new Vacon 10. Pointers that should help non-specialists make the most of precision motion systems The ac drives manufacturer Vacon has developed an ATEX-certified thermistor input which is fully integrated in the drive. Smoothness and very high performance for a wide range of brushless motor applications are available with the new MDrive17Plus Motion Control unit from IMS that combines a highly integrated microstepping driver with an intelligent motion controller and a Nema17 brushless high-torque motor. Since the introduction of JVL’s integrated ac servo motor – the MAC motor – several years ago, there has been a great deal of interest in integrated stepper motors due to the numerous benefits associated with integrating the driver and controller in the motor unit. A hot topic in engineering magazines around five or six years ago was integrated ac induction motors and inverter drives. Rohde & Schwarz has launched what it claims is the only instrument that combines a spectrum analyser and a phase noise tester up to 8 GHz, 26.5 GHz or 50 GHz. Users will profit from simpler and more flexible test sets at a considerably lower price. The new Vacon NXL is a powerful and compact ac drive for industrial and building automation in the power range from 0.25 to 30kW. Astrosyn International Technology has delivered the first of an advanced design of permanent magnet dc motor designed for operating at very high efficiency. Electric motors are such an integral part of the world that it is not surprising that continual efforts are made to improve their performance. Energy efficiency is more important than ever. Vacon introduces a comprehensive range of products for common dc bus systems covering three different types of front-end units, inverter units and brake chopper units in the whole power range from 1 kW to 2 MW at 380 V to 690 V. For one unusual application, ball bearings, roller bearings and spherical roller bearings all proved suitable, so an innovative concept was developed that incorporated both balls and spherical rollers. Jon Severn reports on this and other out-of-the-ordinary bearing developments. Back in October 2002 European Design Engineer carried an article about superconducting motors, reporting on developments from both American Superconductor in the USA and Siemens Automation and Drives in Europe. At that point American Superconductor had built and tested a high-temperature superconductor (HTS) motor with a power of around 3700kW (5000HP), while Siemens had been running trials on what was claimed to be Europe's first HTS motor, rated at 380 kW, which is order of magnitude smaller. Anyone who has ever seen inside a personal stereo or simply pressed the aeject' button on a camcorder will be impressed by the miniaturised mechanisms therein. It seems that there is no limit to the desirability of small, powered, devices, whether they are consumer products such as these, toys, or incorporated within less obvious applications such as door locks. While the cost and size of miniature electric motors has continued to drop, there are some tasks for which these are not ideal. A team of researchers at the department of physics at the Public University of Navarre, Spain, is undertaking a three-year research project to develop new aintelligent' materials with the capacity to change shape when a magnetic field is applied to them. next