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Force Sensors Advance Industrial Automation

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Industrial automation heavily relies upon the use of sensor technologies to advance production and manufacturing. In the next phase of the industrial revolution, also referred to as Industry 4.0, gains in operational efficiencies are often rooted in innovative tools, robotics, and equipment renovations. These types of enhancements require use of interconnectivity, automation, machine learning, and real-time data. Interface is playing a significant role in enabling these advancements with smart force and torque measurement solutions.

Randy Franks at Sensor Tips poses the following question in a recent article: How can force sensing be integrated for Industry 4.0 upgrades?

“Upgrading facilities to industry 4.0 standards is one of the most significant trends in the manufacturing industry today. To do this, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are pushing hard to renovate their facilities with connected, automated devices and machines to create greater efficiency and cost savings. Smarter devices can ease the transition.”

He continues in his post to note, “For Industry 4.0, force measurement solutions providers are integrating actuators that move and control a mechanism or system with load cells to create fully automated force test systems.”

Illustrating how this work, Randy writes about manufacturers of mobile devices using force measurement testing automation to pressure test touch screens with the new Interface ConvexBT miniature-sized load button load cells. 

Click here to read the rest of the article.

Interface Releases New ConvexBT White Paper

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To meet the demand for the ever-evolving technological landscape, Interface is constantly gathers input from our customers across all industries and global network of test and measurement professionals to understand trends and sensor requirements for today and into the future. These valuable insights drive our new product introduction strategy and evaluations into how we can best solve your challenges.

In this new white paper, Ted Larson, VP Product & Project Management, and James Richardson, Mechanical Engineering Manager, highlight our recent introduction of a revolutionary load button load cell. We have captured the journey of our design story, along with detailing the innovative features, capacities, and benefits of our new ConvexBT Load Button Load Cell. Access the entire paper.

ConvexBT was introduced due to the growing trend of electronics miniaturization going on throughout nearly every hardware industry in the world. Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are packing more capabilities into smaller and smaller packages, and as product size shrinks testing sensors and equipment must downsize to match. ConvexBT is engineered to fit in tight spaces to test compression force with ultimate precision. It’s well-suited for industries like medical and industrial, where product miniaturization is prevalent throughout.

You can see some of the other recent ConvexBT highlights and use cases here:

[White Paper] ConvexBT The Most Innovative Load Button Load Cell

Advancing Load Button Load Cell Capabilities with ConvexBT 

Robotic Arm Application Note

Sensor Tips Magazine Highlight of ConvexBT

ConvexBT also includes some incredibly novel design choices that helps with rejection of misaligned loads, as well as temperature compensation. This makes it not only the most accurate load button load cell on the market, but also the most flexible. To learn more about ConvexBT and the unique design, capacity ranges, technical specification and more, download the white paper here.

ConvexBT Load Button Load Cell Featured Online at Sensor Tips

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Interface’s newest product release, ConvexBT, is featured in the Sensor Tips, the respected online resource publication for electronics engineering challenges of today and tomorrow.

Featured in the post “How can a load cell force sensor be used in increasingly smaller end products?“  notes:

“A smaller form factor is frequently on the must have list for many next generation products. However, compromising performance is usually not an acceptable tradeoff. This is especially true in medical products such as force sensors where both precision and miniaturization are required.”

CLICK HERE TO READ THE COMPLETE SENSOR TIPS ARTICLE

As sensor requirements for force measurement are being utilized as miniature-sized components, the load button load cell ConvexBT is designed to give precision level performance in force measurement.  The new release is designed for accuracy and flexibility.

As shared in Industry Today, the ConvexBT capabilities far exceed what is available in these grow dimension requirements due to specifications to make devices and products more compact and convenient. Industries such as medical, industrial automation and products reliant on advanced communications technology need to validate these products with force-sensing solutions that can fit in confined spaces and provide extremely accurate data.

ConvexBT product comes in two different sizes: 3/8-inch, and 1/2-inch, which are all manufactured using 17-4 PH heat treated stainless steel. These options provide a wide measurement range from 10 to 250 lbf, a compensated temperature range of 60° to 160°F, and an operating temperature range of -40° to 175°F.

Additional specifications for ConvexBT include:

  • 2.00 ± 20% mV/V rated output
  • ± 0.25 nonlinearity as a percentage of full scale
  • ± 0.25 hysteresis as a percentage of full scale
  • ± 0.50 static error band as a percentage of full scale

Download the complete ConvexBT specifications datasheet and STP / CAD files here.

Check out introduction video for ConvexBT, the next generation in force measurement device.