Welcome to Oriental Motor's "Engineering Notes" Blog:

My first experience using DC motors was for a small elevator for a science project back in school.  Although I had no idea, that day would become only the first day of my experience with motors.

The viscosity change in liquids can vary the torque required for mixing.  For AC asynchronous motors such as AC induction motors, the rated speed is affected by load torque fluctuations, which may cause inconsistency in the final product.  Is there a better motor for the job?

For automated factories, motor failures mean lost production and lost revenue.  Being able to identify the specific issue in advance and its location is critical to maintaining production efficiency.  To be successful, extra sensors must be added to detect abnormalities.  There may be an easier way.

A gripper is typically an end effector that is installed at the end of a robotic arm or on a cartesian robot and can be used to grip parts in order to transfer them from one location to another.  However, there's more to it than just closing the jaws to pinch a part.  

AC motors have the same operating theory, but by changing its design a little, you can modify its characteristics to suit certain applications better.  In the last post, I focused on AC induction motors for unidirectional applications.  In this post, I will explain what makes AC reversible motors and AC electromagnetic brake motors ideal for start/stop, reversing, or vertical applications, and demonstrate how to operate them.

AC motors are simple to control, rugged, and cost effective for general purpose applications.  These reasons are why they are the most popular type of electric motor across various industries.  In this post, we will briefly introduce induction motors and demonstrate how to operate these motors.

Do you know how to use this graph?

Stepper motors vibrate.  It's what they do.  To minimize motor vibration, first we need to understand where they come from.

The terms "absolute" and "incremental" come up frequently in the world of position control.  The exact meaning can be the type of motion done by the motor in programming terms or the type of feedback device used with the motor.  In this article, we will focus on the differences between an incremental closed-loop feedback system and an absolute closed-loop feedback system.

The word, "AlphaStep", describes Oriental Motor's patented Hybrid Control technology, which offers improved stepper motor performance by sensing the rotor position and automatically switching between open-loop and closed-loop operation when necessary.  This post explains the unique technologies offered within the AlphaStep family of products and summarizes the numerous integrated options available.  It also can serve as a website navigation guide (video added).