Over the years Groschopp has continued to grow in the overall technical complexity of the products that we offer and produce on a daily basis. The foundations of the company started with Universal motors and production of motor parts sets. Moving on from part sets, we began offering a wide variety of completed motors including UM, PMDC, AC Induction, and BLDC. With the advancement of motors came the need for reducers and the addition of Groschopp’s Planetary, Parallel shaft, Bevel, and Worm type gearboxes.
In general terms, a motor is a device that outputs power to do mechanical work. The general motor is loaded with a certain torque and the motor design dictates that a given speed is produced. As engineers we work with our customers to select the optimum motor size and winding to allow for the correct speed and torque to match the application. A typical application might be a pump or blender motor that is continually used to do one simple, repetitive task.
So what is this business of motion control and how does it relate to Groschopp motors? Motion control is defined by Wikipedia as “a sub-field of automation, in which the position or velocity of machines are controlled using some type of device such as a hydraulic pump, linear actuator, or an electric motor, generally a servo.” When an encoder is added to a motor and coupled with a control, there is a whole new realm of tasks that the motors can be used to accomplish. The encoder simply gives detailed feedback to the control regarding the actual position of the motor shaft at any given time. In some motion control systems the encoder outputs one pulse per shaft revolution. This type of system can be used to open and close a door or other simple tasks by counting pulses and calculating the number of counts until the end of travel. In simple systems the motor performs thousands of revolutions to complete a task so a low precision feedback system is acceptable. In more complex systems, a higher resolution encoder might be required (e.g. 2048 or 4096 ppr). These applications require more precision because they can be used as torque mode motors. The control tells the motor to produce a certain torque based on the precise feedback of the shaft position. This is much different than an application which runs at speeds between 1000 to 8000 revolutions per minute.
If this sounds too complicated, here is another way to look at it – adding an accessory (encoder) allows the motor to be used in a wider variety of applications that perform complicated tasks. If you ever have a question about an accessory that is being added to a motor, ask our engineers what it is used for. They would be happy to help solve your motion control problem.