Modular valve terminal claimed to cut costs

01 January 2008

Festo claims its recently launched valve terminal can reduce costs for automation designers and builders, who can now standardise on fewer components to reduce their spares inventory and to lower service costs. The new VTSA valve terminal can accommodate up to 32 ISO standard 18 mm, 26 mm and 42 mm valves, and allows any combination of these valves to be mounted on the same manifold.

Festo's VTSA valve terminal
Festo's VTSA valve terminal

The VTSA valve terminal is supplied as a fully assembled and pre-tested unit, enabling users to effectively replace an entire control panel via a single order. The valve terminal is fully compliant with the new ISO 15407-2 standard.

With robust, all metal sub-base modules, the valve terminals employ air ducts, designed to maximise flow rate. Festo offers compatible 5/3, 5/2 and dual 3/2 valves, all of which have an operating pressure range of -0.9 to 10 bar. The valves are available in 18 mm, 26 mm and 42 mm sizes, with respective flow rates of 550 litres/minute, 1100 litres/minute and 1500 litres/minute. All three valve series offer a choice of 24 Vdc and 110 Vac solenoids for applications flexibility, and can be configured so breathing ports vent into the exhaust port instead of to atmosphere, making them suitable for use in clean air environments such as food processing plants.

The VTSA allows the valves to be oriented so that all pneumatic and electrical connections are accessed from one side of the unit. This offers clean installation, requires less physical space and simplifies servicing. Furthermore, the valves all feature front-panel LEDs and the pressure regulators are equipped with swivelling pressure gauges, making it easy for operators to see the overall system status from a single viewpoint.

Festo also says its valve terminal can have individual electrical connections, multipin connection or can integrate directly with its CPX terminal controller, which is a modular hub with an Ethernet interface and extensive fieldbus protocol support. The controller enables advanced remote diagnostics capabilities to be incorporated into factory-wide local area networks, to provide centralised control and monitoring of individual valve performance. Local diagnostics can either be performed using the valves' front panel LEDs, or via Festo's unique CPX-MMI handheld control unit.


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