For details on product innovations and our manufacturers’ product offerings, link to the latest issue of our newsletter, “ECI Connection.”

ECI Signs on As Distributor for Control Concepts

Electrical Controls recently became an authorized distributor for the Control Concepts line of transient voltage surge suppression and filter products. Electrical power has always been dirty, but today words like surge, spike, transient suppressing, and fluctuations pepper our everyday language. That is because the devices we use everyday, PCs, PLC’s, process controllers, robotic equipment, etc. have become increasingly sophisticated and very sensitive to power source changes and disturbances. Control Concepts' broad range of power products eliminates the disturbances at the source making it easy and cost effective to safeguard electronic equipment from malfunction, downtime or failure. For more details see the Hot Products page on this web site.

ECI Becomes PULS Power Supply Distributor

Who needs another power supply? Maybe you will after you check out PULS Mini and Silver Line power supplies. Until recently, PULS has sold its products in the USA through the distribution network operated by SOLA. In October 2003, PULS announced an end to its relationship with SOLA and began to market its products directly to American customers. PULS has been developing, producing and marketing switching power supply systems for industry since 1980 and offers the broadest and most advanced line in the industry. The product range includes both 1-Phase and 3-Phase AC/DC power units, DC/DC converters, parallel and redundant operation, PULS Power Boost and Overload DesignTM. PULS power supplies offer the highest level of efficiency, MTBF, and service life. If you are interested in these compact, highly reliable, DIN mounted products, request literature on our site or give us a call.

News

Banner Engineering recently announced that as part of the Phase 2 Safety Module Upgrade Program, controller models ATDR1, ATDR2 & ATDR6 have been discontinued. These controllers need to be replaced with AT-AM-2A, AT-BM-2A & AT-FM-2A, respectively. If you need assistance on any safety applications, please give us a call. Our factory-trained Banner safety products specialist, Chris Barboza, will be glad to assist.

Speaking of the world’s leading manufacturer of photoelectric sensors, Banner has introduced iKnow PhotoElectrics, a free, on-line resource of educational content on the sensing industry. iKnow PhotoElectrics offers self-paced, down-loadable training on sensor selection, applications, sensing definitions, archived information and photoelectric theory. To visit this easy-to-navigate site, go to http://www.BannerEngineering.com/training/resources.php.

Steel Prices Increasing?

We have had several sources tell us lately that steel prices are rising. According to one source, increases in stainless steel have been especially pronounced. Although the reasons are not entirely clear to us, one commonly mentioned is the explosion in Chinese manufacturing. The rapid growth in Chinese industry has consumed a large part of the world’s steel production forcing U.S. manufacturers to higher-priced sources. While we have not seen steel increases having a broader impact on prices yet, stayed tuned.

When you see the UL listing mark on a product, it means that the manufacturer’s represents that the complete product has been tested by UL to nationally recognized safety standards and found to be free of reasonably foreseeable risk of fire, electric shock and related hazards. A UL Listing Mark on a product is always composed of four elements: the "UL” in a circle Mark, the word "LISTED” in capital letters, an alpha-numeric control number, and the product name, (e.g., "toaster and "portable lamp). Sometimes the UL file number is used as company identification.

UL also has C-UL listed products applied for the Canadian market indicating the product has been tested to Canadian standards. A new mark combines United States and Canadian listing for products that have been tested to both U.S. and Canadian standards. This mark has the UL in a circle preceded by “C” and followed by “US Listed.”

UL component recognition means that an individual component product has been tested, but the component is incomplete by itself or restricted in performance capabilities. An example of component recognition might be a plug-in relay which is not functional without another component, the base. The backwards UR symbol will mark recognized components. You will also find Canadian and combined US and Canadian recognition marks as well.

For more information, visit www.ul.com/mark/differencev6n1.htm