SmartMotors may be painted black, but they are really very green. Consider the following:

SmartMotors are made in the same shaft and frame dimensions as open-loop step motors, but use a small fraction of the power because they only use as much power as the load physically needs. Open-loop step motors are always “on”, drawing as many as several amps constantly, just to hold still. In most machines, many motors spend a lot of their time, even most of their time, just holding still.

Step motors can be purchased at a lower cost, but use large amounts of power with a single motor costing as much as hundreds of dollars more in electricity alone through the life of a machine. Selecting a single size 34 SmartMotor, instead of a step motor, for example, could spare the release of as much as 10 metric tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere over its life.

Because SmartMotors are made a fraction of the size of a traditional control system, and with considerably less cabling, the manufacture of a SmartMotor consumes far less materials. Because of its self-contained nature, the SmartMotor is better than recyclable; it is reusable. Most machines will reach the end of their useful lives long before the SmartMotors will, and transferring them to another machine is easy because the components are not spread all-over and the cabling is simple.

If you are making a machine for your own use, consider the long-term cost benefits of paying a small premium for closed-loop SmartMotors over open-loop step motors, even if your machine doesn’t need the added throughput, or quieter operation. You would be making a small, short-term investment to reap the benefits of some large, long-term savings and also be doing all of our children a big favor by sparing the environment.

If you are making a machine for someone else, please consider communicating and “selling” these benefits to your valued customer. With every passing year, an increasing number of machine users will be specifying energy consumption. Be proactive. Have the right answers, before the questions are asked.

Robert Bigler
CEO
Animatics Corporation