Documenti di Didattica
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www.productivity3000.com
1-800-633-0405
input #1 at www.controleng.com/information
Your products must perform perfectly, right from the start. And be delivered on time, every time. If those terms dont work for you. You wont work with me. Period.
The ASCO trademark is registered in the U.S. and other countries. The Emerson logo is a trademark and service mark of Emerson Electric Co. 2011 ASCO Valve, Inc.
AUGUST 2013
Vol. 60 Number 8
C OV E R I N G C O N T R O L , I N S T R U M E N TAT I O N , A N D A U TO M AT I O N S YS T E M S W O R L D W I D E
36
28
Features
Courtesy: Siemens UGS PLM Software
40
Traditional IT is moving more onto the plant floor. OT will have to accept a greater level of integration. Is that a problem or an opportunity?
EN4 Take charge of your energy bills EN8 Driving a new generation of power plants EN11 Real-time monitoring is critical for sustaining solar PV energy output
CONTROL ENGINEERING (ISSN 0010-8049, Vol. 60, No. 8, GST #123397457) is published 12x per year, Monthly by CFE Media, LLC, 1111 W. 22nd Street, Suite #250, Oak Brook, IL 60523. Jim Langhenry, Group Publisher /Co-Founder; Steve Rourke CEO/COO/Co-Founder. CONTROL ENGINEERING copyright 2013 by CFE Media, LLC. All rights reserved. CONTROL ENGINEERING is a registered trademark of CFE Media, LLC used under license. Periodicals postage paid at Oak Brook, IL 60523 and additional mailing offices. Circulation records are maintained at CFE Media, LLC, 1111 W. 22nd Street, Suite #250, Oak Brook, IL 60523. Telephone: 630/571-4070 x2220. E-mail: customerservice@cfemedia.com. Postmaster: send address changes to CONTROL ENGINEERING, 1111 W. 22nd Street, Suite #250, Oak Brook, IL 60523. Publications Mail Agreement No. 40685520. Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: 1111 W. 22nd Street, Suite #250, Oak Brook, IL 60523. Email: customerservice@cfemedia.com. Rates for nonqualified subscriptions, including all issues: USA, $ 145/yr; Canada, $ 180/yr (includes 7% GST, GST#123397457); Mexico, $ 172/yr; International air delivery $318/yr. Except for special issues where price changes are indicated, single copies are available for $20.00 US and $25.00 foreign. Please address all subscription mail to CONTROL ENGINEERING, 1111 W. 22nd Street, Suite #250, Oak Brook, IL 60523. Printed in the USA. CFE Media, LLC does not assume and hereby disclaims any liability to any person for any loss or damage caused by errors or omissions in the material contained herein, regardless of whether such errors result from negligence, accident or any other cause whatsoever.
AWK Series
EMS Protection
Industrial IEEE 802.11 Wireless AP/Bridge/Client Look for this white paper on Google to learn more Galvanic Isolation Protection
input #3 at www.controleng.com/information
Moxa Inc. Tel: 1-888-669-2872 usa@moxa.com www.moxa.com
Reliable Networks
Sincere Service
Control System
HART Digital Signal Carrying Primary, Second, Third and Fourth Variable Process Data and Instrument Diagnostic Information
4-20mA Proportional to 3rd Variable (P) 4-20mA Proportional to 4th Variable (T) High Alarm in Response to 4th Variable (T) HART Transmitter Diagnostics Fault Alarm or Additional Process Alarm
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United States info@miinet.com Belgium info@mooreind.be Tel: (818) 894-7111 FAX: (818) 891-2816 Tel: 03/448.10.18 FAX: 03/440.17.97 Australia sales@mooreind.com.au The Netherlands sales@mooreind.nl Tel: (02) 8536-7200 FAX: (02) 9525-7296 Tel: (0)344-617971 FAX: (0)344-615920 input #4 at www.controleng.com/information China sales@mooreind.sh.cn Tel: 86-21-62491499 FAX: 86-21-62490635 United Kingdom sales@mooreind.com Tel: 01293 514488 FAX: 01293 536852
AUGUST 2013
C OV E R I N G C O N T R O L , I N S T R U M E N TAT I O N , A N D A U TO M AT I O N S YS T E M S W O R L D W I D E
Inside Machines
Starts after p. 43. If not, see www.controleng.com/archive for August.
M2
M5
M9
PRODUCT EXCLUSIVE
departments
8 Think Again
Additive manufacturing: Disruption or evolution?
18 Tech Update
Online mass customization for electronic design
10 Product Exclusive
Touchscreen PLC; entry-level micro PLC
20 International
Smart Factory 1.0 is helping Chinas industry to upgrade
12 Application Update
PRODUCTS Combine old and new wireless industrial networks
22 News
Invensys for sale; machine tool optimization; economic gains
14 Machine Safety
NRTL certified convergence of machine control, safety
86 Products
PC for hazardous areas; motion controller
16 Application Update
Robotics boost accuracy, flexibility for automated test machines
88 Back to Basics
Radiating cables can solve tricky wireless communication
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Lowering cost, increasing productivity, and shortening design times are just some of the challenges industrial engineers face. The graphical system design approach combines productive software and recongurable I/O (RIO) hardware to help you meet these challenges. This off-the-shelf platform, customizable to solve any control and monitoring application, integrates motion, vision, and I/O with a single software development environment to build complex industrial systems faster.
NI LabVIEW system design software offers ultimate exibility through FPGA programming, simplies code reuse, and helps you program the way you thinkgraphically.
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editorial
THINK AGAIN
Additive manufacturing: Disruption or evolution?
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Mark Mark T. T. Hoske, Hoske, Content Content Manager Manager 630-571-4070, 630-571-4070, x2214, x2214, MHoske@CFEMedia.com MHoske@CFEMedia.com Peter Peter Welander, Welander, Content Content Manager Manager 630-571-4070, 630-571-4070, x2213, x2213, PWelander@CFEMedia.com PWelander@CFEMedia.com Bob Bob Vavra, Vavra, Content Content Manager Manager 630-571-4070, x2212, x2212, BVavra@CFEMedia.com BVavra@CFEMedia.com 630-571-4070, Amara Amara Rozgus, Rozgus, Content Content Manager Manager 630-571-4070, 630-571-4070, x2211, x2211, ARozgus@CFEMedia.com ARozgus@CFEMedia.com Amanda Amanda McLeman, McLeman, Project Project Manager Manager 630-571-4070, 630-571-4070, x2209, x2209, AMcLeman@CFEMedia.com AMcleman@CFEMedia.com Brittany Merchut, Project Manager Chris Vavra, Content Specialist 630-571-4070, x2219, x2220, CVavra@CFEMedia.com BMerchut@CFEMedia.com 630-571-4070, Ben Taylor, ProjectContent Manager Brittany Merchut, Specialist 630-571-4070 x2219, 630-571-4070, x2220,BTaylor@CFEMedia.com BMerchut@CFEMedia.com Chris Vavra, Content Specialist Ben Taylor, Project Manager CVavra@CFEMedia.com 630-571-4070 x2219, BTaylor@CFEMedia.com
Either way, 3D printing (additive manufacturing) needs controls, materials engineers, and technologies to increase speed and quality of these rapidly advancing machines.
D printing, also called additive manufacturing, is going to change every aspect of our lives, said Hod Lipson, associate professor, Cornell University. 3D printing technologies can build with stainless steel and titanium, plastics (where 3D printing began), paper, and other materials, including living tissues (still in development), such as printing a new heart valve and a spinal disc. 3D printers use automation and controls, although they could integrate more. Many machines do not have feedback devices, so do not provide closed-loop control. Speed and accuracy of future machines will benefit from skillfully applied automation.
Lipson, author of the recent book, Fabricated: The New World of 3D Printing (John Wiley, publisher) hosted the Inside 3D Printing Conference & Expo in Chicago. Additive manufacturing whether disruptive or merely an evolution, will have farreaching changes, Lipson said. At present, 3D printing, especially useful for product design and prototypes, increasingly is used for custom end products and production runs up to a few thousand. Huge material savings can result. In aerospace machining, perhaps 85% of a titanium block is cut away. Forming the 15% that is needed could save a lot in time and materials. S. Scott Crump, chairman and chief innovation officer, Stratasys Ltd., one of the largest 3D machine companies, said digital part manufacturing produces completed end-user assemblies. He cited a McKinsey Global Institute report from May that said 3D printing could generate an economic impact of $230 billion to $550 billion per
year by 2025 in certain applications, the largest from consumer uses, followed by direct manufacturing, and use of 3D printing to create tools and molds. MGI said additive manufacturing revenue increased four-fold in the past 10 years. 3D technologies provide an idea engine to advance the design power of prototyping and provide production without a production line, Crump said. Delta Airlines uses 3D printing to make spare parts. Anyone who makes anything can use 3D printing. We churn out thousands of parts and assemblies daily with a couple of operators. It is clean, efficient, and flexible. We can make a toy in the morning and an airplane part in the afternoon. Bre Pettis, CEO of MakerBot Industries, helped make 3D printing affordable and accessible. On MakerBots Thingiverse.com site, creators have shared 80,000 designs there, half added in the last 90 days. MakerBot users include the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab for a spacecraft heat shield prototype, and an inventor who lost fingers made a Robohand with less hardware, easier cable installation, and easier sizing. Think again, manufacturing is changing quickly; 3D printing is turning our understanding of manufacturing upside down. ce
Marek Marek Kelman, Kelman, Poland Poland Editor-in-Chief Editor-in-Chief marek.kelman@utrzymanieruchu.pl marek.kelman@utrzymanieruchu.pl Luk Luk Smelk Smelk, , Czech Czech Editor-in-Chief Editor-in-Chief lukas.smelik@trademedia.us lukas.smelik@trademedia.us Andy Andy Zhu, Zhu, Control Control Engineering Engineering China China andyzhu@cechina.cn andyzhu@cechina.cn
Ekaterina Ekaterina Kosareva, Kosareva, Control Control Engineering Engineering Russia Russia ekaterina.kosareva@fsmedia.ru ekaterina.kosareva@fsmedia.ru
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At www.controleng.com/archive August, this article has a video interview with Cornell Universitys Hod Lipson on 3D printing advances, photos, and banter from Crump and Pettis quizzing each other, with humor, on multiple topics.
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Success Story
Automation Simplied
Precision Rentals. When one of North Americas largest oileld services companies was looking for a solution to automate and integrate equipment at a drilling site, they chose PROFINET.
To learn more, read the complete application story at www.us.pronet.com. Or, simply scan the QR code.
input #6 at www.controleng.com/information
product
EXCLUSIVES
counters and motion detection, along with PWM outputs for motor control, are available with this newest release. These new I/O connectors are compatible with the current 3.5-in. and 5.7-in. models, providing many new possibilities. As with the current HMC models, these new units are easily configurable with MAPWare7000. The graphic HMC with compact form factor, enhanced communications features, and flexible design, make it a cost-effective solution for most small to mid-sized automation environments. Other features include support for connection of additional PLCs, allowing the HMC to scale to meet the needs of many applications; new sizes, with Ethernet, 32,000 colors: 4.3-in. (480 x 272 pixels), 3 expansion slots; 7.0-in., (800 x 480 pixels), 5 expansion slots; easy setup of screens and ladder logic for I/O controls; all-touchscreen; no membrane keypad; and an IP65/NEMA 4X rating
Maple Systems www.maplesystems.com
aple Systems expanded HMC7000 line, Graphic HMCs (human machine controllers), combine a touchscreen machine interface and a programmable logic controller (PLC) into a small robust unit. HMCs can be customized with a variety of I/O connections that allow the HMC to interface with most industrial control environments. The HMC7000 Series is now available in two new sizes, each with an Ethernet connection. Like the current models, these new 4.3-in. (photo on left) and 7.0-in. models are rated for Class 1 Div 2, and are cULus, RoHS, and CE compliant. In addition to the two new screen sizes, nine new I/O units have new features, including 16-bit resolution, and high-speed (25 kHz) data transfer. A newly available analog input/output module has 4 inputs, with individually configurable current, voltage, RTD and thermocouple readouts. High-speed input for
ddressing the demand for high-performance program- Series performance and flexibility traits, built-in high-speed mable logic control in the price-sensitive factory inputs and outputs, available relay outputs, and multiple, builtautomation market, Mitsubishi Electric Automation in communication ports. It has expansion options for commuInc. introduces the FX3S programmable logic controller. The nications, analog, and temperature control. The FX3S can use newest PLC in the FX3 Series of PLCs, the compact FX3S many of the existing programming resources that are available maintains a high level of functionality while offering entry- for other FX3 Series PLCs, reducing setup time. level accessibility, Mitsubishi said. Notable attributes of the The FX3S PLC is designed to handle basic control tasks, FX3S PLC are its flexibility and expandability. It allows users such as simple positioning, analog, and temperature control to choose only the functionality necessary to perform a specific operations. It excels in small, stand-alone applications that application, saving on hardware costs. dont require complex control tasks. The compact PLC is espeExpansion options really set this super flexible PLC apart cially well suited for food and beverage applications, as well as from other entry-level PLCs, said Ben Omura, product mar- material handling, and fan and pump applications for irrigation keting engineer at Mitsubishi Electric Automation Inc. It fills and building automation. Communication options are available a need in the market for a powerful core PLC for RS232, RS485, Modbus, and Ethernet. The with the flexibility to add functionality for a FX3S micro programmable logic controller has Go Online specific application, while meeting budget For more products, see a 3-year warranty and is available now. ce Mitsubishi Electric Automation Inc. requirements, Omura said. The micro PLC pro- www.controleng.com/products www.meau.com vides full function PLC control, with core FX3
10
input #7 at www.controleng.com/information
application
UPDATE
virtually any device can now be integrated into a modern network and transported via the newer media and protocols. Beyond extending the network edge to a volcano, its possible to create network topologies that span the globe. Until recently, cellular networks couldnt serve as a wire replacement in every application. 3G systems could provide for data rates of several Mbit/s, which was very useful. Specifications for the newer 4G LTE standards call for peak data rates of up to 100 Mbit/s for high mobility devices and up to 1 Gbit/s for low mobility devices. Message latency (in the hundreds of milliseconds for 3G) improves to tens of milliseconds over LTE. With that throughput 4G LTE cellular networks can replace long-range cabling. Cellular providers are winding down 2G services to make room for an expected explosion in 4G LTE data networking.
Improvements in Wi-Fi
Cellular networking requires the purchase of a data plan. For local wireless connections its often more cost effective to deploy Wi-Fi, limited until recently by issues like multipath propagation. IEEE 802.11n Wi-Fi standard has multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) technology using multiple antennas at the transmitting and receiving sides of the wireless connection and splits the data into numerous spatial streams. Now propagation is an advantage. Wider bandwidth and lower power provide additional advantages. Virtual private network (VPN) tunneling authenticates endpoints before the tunnels can be established, and the data is encrypted before it is sent, providing the same functionality and security from a private network. And this is only the beginning. The IEEE 802.11ad or WiGig, could record everything a plant, factory, or volcano was doing while simultaneously watching it all on 1080p HDTV. ce - Mike Fahrion is director of product management at B&B Electronics.
Super-E Motors
To achieve even greater energy savings, adding an ABB or Baldor industrial variable speed drive can dramatically reduce the motors energy consumption while improving process control and reliability for any application. On centrifugal load applications like pumps and fans, reducing the motor speed with a variable speed drive can save as much as 60% in electricity costs! Visit baldor.com and start lowering your energy costs today.
baldor.com
input #8 at www.controleng.com/information
machine
SAFETY
Q
Find it at
mathworks.com/accelerate
Simulink
with Simscape Electrical Mechanical Hydraulic and more
Use SiMScape with SiMulink to model and simulate the plant and controller of an embedded
system. Assemble your model with a graphical interface, or import physical models from CAD systems. Use built-in components or create your own with the Simscape language.
input #9 at www.controleng.com/information
application
UPDATE
obotics helped with electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) testing and compliance, needed for successful electronics design prior to releasing a product to market. Amber Precision Instruments (API), headquartered in Californias Silicon Valley, recognized it needed a faster, more precise motion control solution. In 2006, the developer of small-scale EMC test stations used a vertical X-Y gantry motion subsystem incorporating stepper motors, worm gears, and custom-made parts. The multi-vendor design was complex to set up and program, and also was noisy and slow in operation. The mechanical design posed inherent challenges to wiring and final assembly, and the resulting system saw limits to accuracy,
Mitsubishi Electric Automations technical sales support and field engineering services in North America helped in APIs decision to purchase the vertically articulated 6-axis RV-3SD for its SmartZap ESD test station. Partnering with Mitsubishi Electric has played a role in improving APIs credibility with current and prospective clients by offering an attractive solution that resolved related engineering issues and provided a 2-year warranty. Mitsubishi has automation, service, and support centers globally. Courtesy: Mitsubishi Electric Automation
PLC + HMI
reliability, and performance. Although Go Online APIs proprietary measurement softwww.meau.com ware provided a powerful toolset, the mechanical system was not optimized and would not accommodate anticipated technical growth requirements, including TACT (turn around cycle time) and DUT (device under test) sampling resolution.
Accuracy wanted
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Save time & money with ONE programming environment Powerful software features Data logging & recipes Onboard & expandable I/Os FREE Remote Access FREE Programming software FREE Technical support 16 bit Color Touchscreen Auto-tune PID: up to 24 independent loops PTO Trends Built-in Alarms Multi-language support I/O & Expandable Options include: digital, analog, temperature, load cell Micro SD card - log, recipes, back-up, clone Web Server capabilities MODBUS, CANopen, SNMP, J1939 FREE Remote Access utilities GSM/SMS/GPRS RS232/RS485, Ethernet & CANbus
SD Card Slot
PLC Features
Communication
Snap-In I/O Modules PLC 5.7 Color Touch Screen NEMA4X/ IP66/IP65
Onboard I/O Combinations MicroSD card slot 3.5 Color Touch Screen NEMA4X/ IP66/IP65
TM
Unitronics, Inc. 1 Batterymarch Park - Quincy, MA - 02169 Toll Free: 866-666-6033 Fax: 617-657-6598 usa.sales@unitronics.com www.unitronics.com
Amber Precision Instruments is a private corporation that manufactures EMI (electromagnetic interference) and ESD (electrostatic discharge) scanners to help electronics suppliers comply with EMC regulations and directives. Samsung, LG, and Intel are among APIs Tier 1 customers. When API began researching methods to improve machine accuracy and reliability in late 2009, the engineering team turned to robots. The cost savings from reduced installation and programming times would help offset the upfront cost of robots as a sub-system. Streamlined multi-axis control adds accuracy for customers. In early 2010, API purchased a vertically articulated 6-axis robot for its SmartZap ESD test station. The stand-alone robot provided a test replacement for the complex X-Y gantry system. The fully automated SmartZap uses 5 cameras to define the DUT geometry (typically a PCB, mobile phone, or tablet) allowing software to calculate 3D points for testing. The robot, with TCP/IP communication, receives discrete move commands from the software to position an ESD gun or finger emulator to locations on the DUT. The result is a comprehensive data map with local ESD characterization information. Using the robot technology improved accuracy and repeatability and helped reduce machine setup time from 1 week to 1 day. ce - Edited by Mark T. Hoske, content manager, CFE Media, Control Engineering, mhoske@cfemedia.com.
16
SmartWire-DT Eatons SmartWire-DT is an innovative solution that reduces panel complexity by consolidating circuit wiring into a single 8-pole cable. Cutting installation time and costs dramatically.
Eaton.com/followthecharge
2013 Eaton. All rights reserved.
Eaton.com/followthecharge
2013 Eaton. All rights reserved.
INSIGHT
IT & engineering
any new technology gadgets can help manufacturing companies, such as smartphones, tablets, near field communication, big data analysis tools, 100MB wireless networks, and virtual systems. However, using these new technologies requires that a company gets the IT basics right, first. In too many companies there is a rush to apply a new technology when the basic IT infrastructure is broken or incomplete, and there are no effective policies and procedures in place. If it takes months to deploy a simple new server with COTS (commercial offthe-shelf) software and requires the approval and support from dozens of architects without manufacturing IT experience, then you probably dont have the basics right.
Nonbusiness attention
from business systems. When the IT support staff is five or more, most companies find it better to designate one or more manufacturing IT specialists within the IT group. For this size organization, the basics also include development of standards for manufacturing IT assets and training in the HMI, data historians, industrial networks, MES systems, and batch control systems used in the facility.
Support level agreements
Many IT departments are forced into the role of gatekeepers, preventing anything but previously approved applications and systems from being installed. The IT organization must support the entire company, and it needs control in order to provide timely support. This means that nonbusiness users and systems often have lower priority than financial and customer facing users and systems. R&D, manufacturing, laboratories, warehousing, and plant maintenance are often not considered as critical as e-mail and office applications. This often happens when management considers manufacturing as a distraction to the business, and something that it really wishes could be done somewhere else. In these cases, it is important to educate upper management of the dependency of the nonbusiness systems on information technologies. Getting the basics right is different for different size organizations. Small organizations with only a few IT support staff, often three or less, usually have automation engineers handle IT issues. In these cases getting the basics right means keeping track of all manufacturing IT assets in a database (but a spreadsheet can work), providing written policies that define the documentation that must be updated when any change is made to an IT asset, and providing a segmented network to isolate critical control equipment
For large manufacturing companies, manufacPresident of BR&L turing specialists in IT support are usually about Consulting 10% to 20% of the IT staff. A company is missing the basics if there are no designated manufacturing IT specialists and no separate support contacts for manufacturing IT. The larger the support staff is, the more a manufacturing-specific support level agreement (SLA) is needed. Many IT organizations set a five-day maximum response time SLA for nonproduction Ensure your company gets the basics related problems right, then take advantage of the latest and an eight-hour response time for manufacturing IT technologies and the production problems. The same improvements they can bring. SLA applies if the fix takes minutes or days. Unfortunately, this often turns into a five-day or eight-hour minimum, where the problem is not even looked at until the SLA maximum is reached. This means that a five-minute fix may take a week to get implemented. Getting the basics right is critical. Without the proper infrastructure, policies, and procedures for manufacturing IT, it becomes difficult or impossible to apply the latest technologies into manufacturing. Make sure that your company is getting the basics right, first, and then you will be in a position to take advantage of Go Online the latest technologies and the improvements that they can bring. ce At www.controleng.com/
Dennis Brandl
- Dennis Brandl is president of BR&L Consulting in Cary, N.C., www.brlconsulting.com. His firm focuses on manufacturing IT. Contact him at dbrandl@brlconsulting.com.
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archive, find more under this headline. At www.controleng.com search related topics.
technology
UPDATE
Go Online
www.gumstix.com http://geppetto.gumstix.com
ass customization at some level has become reality in virtually every industry, from shoes to books to automobiles. In certain markets, products have become easy enough to build in custom fashion: photo albums and books, business cards, and banners have each developed the tools to let anyone design and manufacture (print) a small run of their own design at low cost. Such designs are uniquely attractive, meaning one individual wants the design and full production run (your holiday photo album, affordable, in glossy magazine quality). Customers can design and order their products, often directly from the manufacturer, which produces a unique product, on-demand, and delivers it to the customer. Manufacturers like Nike (with NIKEiD) and the Ford Motor Co. can leverage existing supply chains and manufacturing capabilities to deliver a greater, though limited, number of affordable, customized products to their customers. Tools and technologies used to create customized electronic devices are very new. Electronic devices are ubiquitous today, but the design and manufacture of a personal, custom-shaped, cellphone has been beyond the understanding of the average customer. While some superficial customization might be within reach, design from the ground up certainly has not been.
Electronic designs
Your family photo album
provides. Until now, this was the closest an electronics manufacturer had come to enabling mass customization of electronic devices. The potential for customization that Dell provides, however, is limited because configure-to-order isnt design-to-order. The customer can only select from standard frameworks in choosing the model and the components used: which processor, how much memory, what size of hard disk, etc. Many aspects of system design remain beyond customer control and customization, from simple LED indicators to the number of USB ports. Aftermarket add-ons are possible, but not affordable, customized embedded computers. Dell imposes limits with its PC Configuration Utility. The cost of designing and manufacturing a custom motherboard for one customer would be tremendous. To accomplish this, an OEM would have to assign an electrical engineer to design the necessary circuits, have a PCB specialist to efficiently lay out the schematic, and contract a manufacturer to produce the finished product. In 3 months, the OEM would have the custom motherboard ready to receive components and be shipped, with a price tag reflecting time spent on its singular design. The PCs produced have one of the best supported, standard architectures, guaranteed to work out of the box. Embedded computer users are almost guaranteed to incur another layer of customization (and cost) in creating or adapting software to run custom device hardware.
Expansion boards
Figure 1 shows the long-tail effect applied to product design. Products on the left offset development costs by selling a large number of units. Lower volume products have either high development costs or are lower cost items.
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The configure to order model pioneered by Dell is one approach to mass customization: Dell customers can configure many aspects of their computers but must work within the framework that Dell
Gumstix Inc., based in the Silicon Valley, manufactures Linux-based computers-onmodule (COMs) slightly smaller than a stick of gum. COMs, at the heart of embedded systems, use expansion boards to break the COM into standard connectors. Gumstix expansion board designs are open-source so the engineer can expand features by building on the COM framework. This enables an OEM to design many embedded devices at very low cost. Providing essential computer functions on the COM elimi-
Process Measurement
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DIN Graphic Display Panel Meter and Data Logger for Temperature and Process Measurement