New medium-voltage and low-voltage products plant in Bulgaria!

ABB has just inaugurated a new facility for producing low and medium voltage products in Bulgaria in the presence of the country’s President Rosen Plevneliev.

ABB facilty in Rakovski, Bulgaria

The facility is located in the town of Rakovski about 25 kilometers to the northeast of Bulgaria's second largest city Plovdiv and is expected to generate around 600 jobs once fully operational. It is part of a $23-million investment to expand production capacity to serve growing demand in Europe and Asia and will manufacture low-voltage control products and medium-voltage power products.

“This new unit further strengthens our manufacturing footprint in the region and enables us to deliver solutions across Europe, faster and more efficiently” said Bruno Melles, head of ABB’s Medium Voltage products business, a part of the company’s Power Products division.

Morten Wierod, head of ABB’s Control Products business, within the Low Voltage Products division, added: “This represents an opportunity to build on an excellent team in this region. We are committed to develop our footprint in Bulgaria to support our growing business.”

The new unit covering an area of about 15,000 square meters represents the second major investment by ABB in the Plovdiv region. The first greenfield factory manufacturing low-voltage products was built in 2009 and now employs over 1,000 people.

Other ABB production units in the country are located in Petrich for low-voltage products, Sevlievo for high-voltage products and transformers and a turbocharger service station in Varna.

Low voltage PSUs

Moore Industries has added low voltage power supply options to many of its products. This addition makes these products suitable for use in remote applications such as oil and natural gas wellheads where power supplies are limited and harsh environmental conditions often exist.

Products that have recently added a 12Vdc power supply option include: CPA 4-Wire PC-Programmable Alarm CPT 4-Wire PC-Programmable Signal Isolator and Converter ECA 4-Wire Current and Voltage Alarm ECT 4-Wire Signal Isolator, Converter, Repeater and Splitter TMZ 4-Wire PC-Programmable MODBUS Temperature Transmitter & Signal Converter

These products join existing Moore Industries products that offer 12Vdc or low voltage capabilities including the HCS HART^® Concentrator System, the LRX 3-Wire Low-Power Temperature Transmitter and the EPX² 3-Wire Voltage-to-Pressure (E/P) Transmitter. 

Moore Industries’ line of low voltage instruments addresses a growing demand by customers with solar and battery sources as their primary means for operational power in remote areas.  All of these products are designed for harsh conditions. They are suitable for extreme ambient operating conditions and offer exceptional RFI/EMI protection against the harmful effects of radio frequency and electromagnetic interference.

Voltage data logger

MadgeTech has released the Volt101A, a DC voltage data logger designed to measure and record low-level voltages with a high degree of accuracy.

The Volt101A can sample as fast as 4Hz, and features a 10 year battery life which allows the logger to be deployed in the field for months or even years. The device is also equipped with LED alarming functionality and can be programmed with high and low limits, that will trigger the red LED to blink if they are breached.

The unit is available in four different input ranges: 2.5V, 15V, 30V, and +/-160mV. The Volt101A-160mV measures differential voltage and is equipped with a 3-position screw terminal for positive, negative and ground connections.

It has user programmable engineering units, enabling the device to scale the input voltage to various units such as temperature, CO2, light and more. Engineering units in the device are a great

time saver as the data is shown in the scaled unit and can be downloaded on any computer with the MadgeTech Software.

Internal & remote temp measurement

Digital monitor provides accurate internal & remote temperature measurements

Linear Technology Corporation has introduced the LTC2990, an I²C temperature and voltage monitor for 3V and 5V systems. Many emerging, low voltage systems today rely on monitoring ICs to relay parametric data used in assessing overall system health and reliability. Traditional ADC implementations require a sensor, low noise preamplifier, precise reference and some type of digital interface, resulting in a complex monitoring scheme prone to inaccuracies if not carefully designed. This is a highly integrated monitoring solution that incorporates a 14-bit ADC, a 10ppm/°C voltage reference and I2C digital interface to provide submillivolt voltage resolution, as well as +1°C accuracy internally and +0.5°C accuracy remotely when making temperature measurements. The LTC2990 provides a configurable, yet simple solution for monitoring temperature and voltage without compromising accuracy on any parameter.

The LTC2990 caters to a wide variety of applications including supply voltage monitoring and remote diode temperature measurement, particularly in industrial or computing systems where thermal management is crucial for maximizing performance. The device enables configuration of four single-ended voltage inputs to measure any combination of internal temperature, remote temperature, remote voltage and internal VCC for single or repeated measurements. When making differential measurements of diode or transistor voltages to calculate temperature, the LTC2990 allows for cancellation of error due to sensor series resistance. Its accuracy is the result of the averaging 14-bit ADC, while the number of supporting components and area required is minimized thanks to the internal 10ppm voltage reference. In addition, the I2C serial interface enables easy configuration and read back of the device's control, status and data registers, with support of up to 400kbit/s in I2C fast mode.

The LTC2990 is offered in commercial and industrial versions, supporting operating temperature ranges from 0°C to 70°C and -40°C to 85°C, respectively. The LTC2990 is available today in a small RoHS compliant, 10-lead MSOP package.

Changing the guard

Tarak Mehta, the global head of ABB’s Transformers business, has been appointed to ABB’s Executive Committee as head of the Low Voltage Products division as of Oct. 1, 2010. He replaces Tom Sjökvist, who is retiring at the end of September.

Mehta, a US citizen, has been responsible for ABB’s Transformers unit since 2007. It is the world’s largest transformer business, with 16,500 employees.
“Tarak has driven growth in the Transformers business organically and through the integration of several niche acquisitions, developing a very competitive business with an innovative, market-focused portfolio and a robust service offering,” said Joe Hogan, ABB’s chief executive officer.

Mehta joined ABB in 1998 and has held various management positions in the Power Products division in the US, Sweden and Switzerland. Before joining ABB, he worked for 8 years at Cooper Power Systems in the US. Mehta has Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University and an MBA in Finance and Marketing from the University of Chicago.

Tom Sjökvist is retiring from ABB after 38 years with the company. He began as a trainee at ASEA in Sweden in 1972, and has since held a wide variety of roles in Sweden, the US, Germany and Switzerland. He joined the ABB Executive Committee in 2006 as head of the Automation Products division.

“Under Tom’s leadership, the business developed a rich portfolio of innovative technologies. In 2010, Tom became head of the Low Voltage Products division, which has proven an equally successful business with double-digit growth in its first half year,” Hogan said.