36 Design Product News dpncanada.com June/July 2007 Technical Literature CAD Industry Watch Ethernet-compatible ac drive. Baldor has published a 28-page guide to an Ethernet- compatible 3-phase ac drive series for higher Maple 11 math software really adds up power machinery applications. The catalog details the drive’s architecture and introduces the Ethernet Powerlink protocol. By Bill Fane (“New command for baldormotion.com/br1202 Info Card 420 computing hypergeo- metric solutions of a Rapid prototyping. Brochure describes ecause of the limitations of spread- linear difference equa- Dimension 3D printers distributed by BRT sheet programs, software developers tion with hypergeo- Solutions that generate working models B have come up with programs aimed metric coefficients”), from CAD files in ABS plastic. Colors avail- specifically at the mathematical computa- so here are some of the able are white, red, blue, green, gray, yellow tion market. One of the early leaders in this high spots. and red. arena was Maplesoft, and over the years The three main areas brt-solutions.com Info Card 421 they have continued to develop their Maple of interest in Maple 11 product to maintain its position on the lead- are the document inter- Antennas, transformers. Pulse, a Technitrol ing edge. face, the computation Company, has announced the Pulse 2007 engine, and its connec- Product Catalog. The catalog features anten- NASA might have tivity capabilities. nas for consumer and automotive applica- Let’s start with the tions, automotive coils and transformers, plus avoided the Mars interface. The interest- unfiltered connectors for networking and tele- ing one here is self- Maple software can transform dynamic equations communications infrastructure and consumer probe disaster documenting context menus. into real-world mechanical problem solving and even products. Like most writers I’ll show a trivial exam- machine designs. pulseeng.com Info Card 422 Maple 10 introduced a very radical ple, mostly because like most writers I don’t change in the user interface with their understand the complex ones. Power transmission. The Power Transmission WYSIWYG (What you see is what you tion to indicate that it is a 20-digit approxi- Distributors Association (PTDA) 2007 get) approach. It is no longer necessary to mation of the true value. You can select 5, Membership Directory is a resource for locat- create complex macros or esoteric repre- 10, 20, 50 or 100 digits. ing providers of all types of power transmis- sentations to set up your calculations. You Maple 11 now includes the Back-Solver sion/motion control-related systems, products now work just as you would with paper Assistant. With it, you can find the value of and support. A fee applies. and pencil, using standard mathematical To create this, all I had to do was to type any variable in a formula, given the values ptda.org Info Card 423 annotations and interspersing them with 2/3, press the right arrow key, type 5/7, and of the other parameters. textual notes to explain what you are then press Ctrl-=. Another new documentation feature is the Bearings. The Timken Company has doing. Better yet, if you change input val- Now comes the cunning part. I simply ability to turn a Maple 11 document into a announced a 1300-page bearing catalog in ues within the document then everything right-clicked on the answer, and then select- slide show. No more boring static presenta- print and electronic versions, which includes updates, including graphical representa- ed Approximate 20 from the context menu tions, because things like buttons and sliders the company’s full range of bearings recom- tions of the results. to produce the following: are still active during a slide show. mended for design applications. With Maple 11, Maplesoft continues timken.com/catalogs Info Card 424 to develop and improve its interface, its Bill Fane ([email protected]) is a software computational engine, and its connectivity reviewer and mechanical engineering instruc- Screw jacks. Trans-Quip Inc. has release of capabilities. As with most releases of soft- tor at BCIT in Burnaby, BC. the latest edition of the Joyce/Dayton screw ware these days, its “what’s new” list runs jack catalog. Included are electric cylinders, well over a hundred items. I won’t bore you If you found CAD Industry Watch interesting, fill in 750 lb linear actuator and a variable speed with all of them, especially because many Maple 11 converted the fraction to a deci- 347 on the Info Card. positioning system. of them are written in a foreign language mal and automatically added the annota- trans-quip.com Info Card 425

Switches. NKK Switches has announced the 850-page electromechanical Switch Guide. The guide has clearly identified four-color sec- tions organized by actuator type. Go figure with PTC Mathcad 14.0 nkkswitches.com Info Card 426 ontrary to what you might expect 2 = will not only generate and display the vectors, matrices, the output of complex Manufacturing management. Reference from its name, Mathcad has very resulting value like this, x: = 2 + 3 = 4, but calculations and definitions involving books from J. Ross Publishing cover manu- C little to do with computer-aided it also defines the variable x and assigns intermediate functions and terms. facturing management topics from Lean & Six drafting (CAD). Its primary focus is on it the current value of 4. This is not only A new feature that can aid in analyz- Sigma to Innovation & Product Development. performing complex mathematical com- a real space-saver in documents that can ing problems within a worksheet is the jrosspub.com Info Card 427 putations and analyses. run to tens or hundreds of calculations, Compare function. With it you can com- This has changed a bit recently, howev- but it can also make it much easier to see pare two similar worksheets and quick- Structural fatigue analysis. Brochure er, because Mathsoft has been acquired by ly identify differences between them, from Safe Technology describes the Verity PTC. They are the people who produce including added, changed, or remove software mesh-insensitive structural stress ProEngineer and Wildfire design software, sections. method, recognized as a breakthrough in the and accordingly Mathcad 14.0 includes Mathcad 14.0 also uses the Adams- fatigue analysis of welded joints for finite ele- enhanced links to these products. You can Bashford method of solving ordinary dif- ment models. thus set up calculations in Mathcad that ferential equations (ODE) to accommo- safetechnology.com Info Card 428 can be used to drive the model parameters date both smooth and stiff ODEs. You in Wildfire and vise-versa. As your calcu- can also enter linear systems of ODEs in Metric gears. Metric gears from Quality lations change so do your models, while a discipline-correct statespace notation. Transmission Components are featured in a change to the model can automatically Mathcad 14.0 is fully units-aware, so the 528-page product catalog, Q420: The re-calculate the numbers. that entering an equation like mass: = Handbook of Metric Gears. A further benefit of this acquisition is 5.234 kg + 15.309 lb will produce the qtcgears.com Info Card 430 that Mathcad users now enjoy 24/7 tech- correct result of 12.178 kg. If Mathcad nical support. 14.0 had been available to NASA some Surge arresters. EPCOS has published the Now let’s look at some of the other new years back then they might have avoided Surge Arresters and Switching Spark Gaps and enhanced features in Mathcad 14.0. Mathcad 14.0 delivers improved calculation power the Mars probe disaster that was caused Product Profile 2007. This 64-page guide pro- The first is foreign-language support, and clarity through new worksheet analysis func- by one team using metric units and the vides photographs, schematics and ordering followed by full Unicode support, mean- tions, inline numeric evaluation enhancements, and other using Imperial. Basically, they tried information for 2-electrode arresters, 3-elec- ing your worksheets will look the same enhanced symbolics. to put a satellite into orbit some distance trode arresters, and switching spark gaps. no matter what the operating system or below the surface of Mars. epcos.com Info Card 431 language. This means that Asian, Cyrillic, the logic and flow of your calculations. PTC also has a Calculation Server pro- Hebrew, Arabic and many other special As usual, changing the value of the inputs gram available. This allows you to post Timing belt drives. A series self-guiding characters can be used within a work- will re-define the current value of the a worksheet to the Web. Outside users Conidrive timing belt drives from Stock Drive sheet. variable. can access it with a generic Web brows- Products features the N10 belt and pulley Speaking of the appearance, Mathcad Obviously this functionality is not lim- er, modify the variable values including system in catalog DN10. 14.0 now supports single-line definitions ited to the trivial sort of operation that I using sliders and buttons, and then see sdp-si.com Info Card 432 and results. For example, entering x: = 2 + have shown, but can also be used with the results.