Electrical and Electronic Equipment

When its parent company, Scottish and Southern Energy, acquired a 50% stake in Scotia Gas Networks, Southern Electric Contracting was the obvious choice to carry out the refurbishing of the company’s mechanical and electrical facilities at its headquarters in Horley, West Sussex. However, when it came to the supply and installation of a power support package to support Scotia Gas Network’s electrical supply and IT equipment handling the details of company’s 5.7 million customers, Southern Electric Contracting turned to Scorpion Power Systems.

Baolab Microsystems has announced a new technology to construct nanoscale MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems) within the structure of the actual CMOS wafer itself using standard, high volume CMOS lines, which is much easier and quicker with fewer process steps than existing MEMS fabrication techniques that build the MEMS on the surface of the wafer. This significantly reduces the costs of a MEMS by up to two thirds and even more if several different MEMS are created together on the same chip.

Bentek Solar, a leader in manufacturing and engineering solutions for complex electro-mechanical and power distribution systems, recently launched a new Bentek Solar Web site that showcases the quality, ease of installation and safety of the Bentek Solar family of solar combiner products.

Products4Automation has introduced the new Monitouch V8 Series of operator interfaces, extending its range of Ethernet compatible flat panel HMIs available to the UK market. Designed to be simple to use, extremely adaptable and highly compatible with existing control and process hardware and software, the Monitouch S8 is also highly economical; its overall power consumption being 40% lower than that of conventional HMI products.

Design engineers in defense, aerospace and other industries where low weight and superior electrical performance are key considerations have a new option, following PA&E’s release of its new aluminum Micro-D connector.

Microscan, announces the recent expansion of their NERLITE® machine vision lighting product line. The portfolio now includes approximately 300 standard lighting configurations in multiple geometries, sizes, and wavelengths.

AES Energy Storage has commissioned a 12MW frequency regulation and spinning reserve project at AES’ Los Andes substation in the Atacama Desert, Chile. Combining an inverter and control system provided by the SSD Drives Division of Parker Hannifin with a lithium ion battery system from A123 Systems, the project will improve the reliability of the electric grid in Northern Chile.

This novel new component from FDB Panel Fittings is expected to be a significant aid to panel builders seeking to improve the look of their enclosures, while saving time on the assembly process. By providing a quickly placed corner fillet the new radius adapter is not just a quick easy way to get a sealing strip around awkward square corners, but also enables fitting of screw retained covers with self-tapping screws, directly into the moulding which provides an integral support for a 4.8mm dia self-tapping thread.

BPM Microsystems L.P., a leading supplier of device programming systems, today announced its support for the PowerXR family of high-performance programmable power controllers from Exar Corporation . Exar’s PowerXR ICs, combined with BPM Microsystems’ unrivaled universal device programmers, significantly reduce development time, cost and are easily reconfigured for real-time design changes.

There has been a lot of discussion recently in the press and on-line about RCBOs and, in particular, about the separate earth connection that is used by some of these devices. Unfortunately, a lot of the information that has appeared has been misleading and, in some cases, it is simply wrong. Given that the recent introduction of the 17th Edition of the IEE Wiring Regulations is resulting in a big increase in the usage of RCBOs, it is important to clarify the situation.