Network I/O Weldblocks
April 26, 2016Comments
Balluff, Florence, KY has introduced a new family of network I/O blocks optimized for extremely noisy electrical environments, such as those created by welding. These new Balluff Weldblocks are constructed with fiberglass-reinforced composite (polypropylene sulfide) that inherently resists weld spatter while effectively combatting grounding loops and electromagnetic interference.
“The Weldblocks offer an ideal solution for fabricators needing to fight the high electrical noise from their welding applications, while keeping their controls cabinets lean,” says Tom Rosenberg, Balluff’s director of marketing. “With IO-Link on board, Weldblock IO-Link masters and I/O hubs can build entire controls architecture around the weld cell that previously presented a challenge.”
Weldblocks promote machine-mount distributed modular architecture with IO-Link. The network node with IO-Link master on the Weldblock communicates over Ethernet/IP with the PLC or the machine controller, while the IO-Link ports can be connected to a variety of IO-Link-enabled smart sensor devices or to Balluff IO-Link I/O hubs.
The Weldblock family also includes I/O hubs with Balluff expansion ports to expand the total configurable I/O count per IO-Link port to 30, or the entire I/O count per network node to 240. A built-in enhanced webserver and port diagnostics ensure quick troubleshooting.
