Basic motor overview
The five-page paper, "AC-powered motors in automation: general purpose, inverter/vector duty and stepper motors," provides a good overview of the main motor types used in many control and automation applications.
Read it here.
Omega Engineering / www.omega.com
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AC motor guidance
This webpage, "AC Motor Guide," delivers a Q&A-style introduction to most of the essential aspects of AC motors, such as basic functions and types, feedback, applications, controls, drives, inverters, selection issues, troubleshooting, physical properties and a glossary.
It's located here
Anaheim Automation / www.anaheimautomation.com
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Induction, AC, DC series
An enlightening series of hour-long videos from the Indian institute of Technology Kharagpur and the National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) includes lectures on "DC motor drives," "Induction motor drives," and "DC and [brushless] BLDC servo drives."
They can be viewed here and here and here
NPTEL / nptel.ac.in
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Rerun motor resources
This five-year-old Resources column, "Drives and Motor Controls Online," provides a treasure chest of earlier—but still useful—instructional materials on motors and drives from Danfoss, Siemens, AutomationDirect, Galil and Rockwell Automation. See how it compares to this latest edition.
It's available here
Control / www.controlglobal.com
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Adjustable AC, DC drives
This 11-page paper, "Drive and Motor Basics," presents many of the technical fundamentals of DC and AC drives and motors, performance characteristics, windings and rotors, voltage issues and others.
Read the paper
Rockwell Automation / www.rockwellautomation.com
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AC drives essentials
The almost 40-minute video, "Drives 101: Basic features of AC drives," is presented by Rick Kirkpatrick of ABB, who teaches viewers how AC drives operate to increase production efficiency, and also covers controlling motor speeds and energy savings. Several related videos are located on the same webpage.
View it here
ABB / www.abb.com
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About variable frequency
The great blog at VFDs.com has several useful article, including "What is a VFD?" by Craig Hartman, which also provides a video and transcript. It covers the most important aspects of how variable-frequency drives (VFD) function, and shows how they can be used to save energy and revenue in manufacturing and industrial applications. There's also a lively chat section with questions and answers at the end.
They're available here
VFDs.com / www.vfds.com
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VFD videos—and more
This 52-minute webinar recording, "Variable Frequency Drive Basics," is presented by Daniel Shubert and Yaskawa America, and covers all the essential elements of variable-frequency drive (VFD) technology and applications. It's designed for technicians and engineers who need an introduction to VFDs, and it includes application, typical layout/construction, theory and special designs.
It's available here. The webpage also has an additional link to Yaskawa's "Motor Basics" video, which can be viewed here.
Yaskawa America Inc. / www.yaskawa.com
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Motion control instruction
An online tutorial, "Fundamentals of Motion Control," is part of National Instruments' Measurement Fundamentals series, which teaches specific topics of common measurement applications by explaining theoretical concepts and providing practical examples. In this tutorial, readers can learn the fundamentals of a motion control system including software, motion controller, drive, motor, feedback devices and I/O.
View the tutorial here
National Instruments / www.ni.com