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Spool valve islands cut installation costs

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Sep 17, 2003

A new concept in valve design, Mega spool valve islands offer the OEM and user total flexibility in their construction, mounting and the type of control that they perform.

In addition to the perennial demand from OEM machine builders for more performance from a smaller product envelope, the current "holy grail" is lowest installed cost.

In today's global manufacturing environment competitiveness is paramount.

Lowest installed cost helps OEMs to achieve competitiveness by providing reductions in cabling, both on the product and in the control cubicle, and (commensurate) reductions in materials, labour and commissioning costs.

Contributing factors - and essential customer prerequisites - which make a big difference to lowest installed cost are product simplicity, flexibility, adaptability, modularity (or multifunctionality) and connectivity - the facility for easy integration of the product into existing factory-wide communication systems (fieldbus).

Added to these must the traditional demands made upon any equipment supplier for excellent reliability and long life.

Asco Joucomatic's Mega valve islands and VCS valve connection system have been introduced to meet all of these demands.

A new concept in valve design, the Mega spool valve islands, offer the OEM and user total flexibility in their construction, mounting and the type of control that they perform.

The Mega's modular construction requires no tools for assembly yet enables almost any configuration of valves to assembled, enabling all OEM control needs to met from a single manifold platform - which itself is compatible with standard fieldbuses such as Profibus-DP, Interbus-S and DeviceNet.

In terms of improved performance from a smaller product envelope, the reduced size, modularity, low weight, high flow rate (900 litre/min) and connection via 6 or 8mm instant fittings, of the Mega valve islands make them the ideal product for installations where compactness and high performance are essential requirements.

Importantly, the user saves much time and effort as assembly of the Mega islands is achieved without tools, the different elements are simply clipped onto connecting rods.

The effectiveness of this procedure can be judged from the fact that it takes less than 20s to mount a spool valve on a Mega island.

Moreover, once complete, the assembly, because it is IP65 rated, can be mounted directly onto what it is controlling, reducing the size of an installation, or mounted conveniently in a control panel on industry standard DIN rails.

Comprising up to a maximum of 16 monostable or bistable valves the Mega valves are equipped with space saving, low wattage (1.5W) push/pull coils, which require the minimum of cabling and connection time.

Finally they offer the OEM and machine builder unmatched connection flexibility with an industry leading range of connection options including Classic connector, Multipol single wire, AS network interface and the new intelligent VCS valve connection system, which is compatible with standard communication protocols, such as Profibus-DP, Interbus-S and DeviceNet.