Leuze electronic presents a concrete innovation towards powering Industry 4.0 applications with its new Smart Core cable. With the smart factory revolution on the horizon, the Smart Core cable enables an innovative predictive maintenance measure specifically for applications with moving cables (i.e handling robots, welding robots, moving cables). The cable contains an additional, special sacrificial wire that fails at approximately 80% of the cable’s lifecycle. The sacrificial wire is bridged with the supply voltage, and when the core breaks it gives an early warning of the impending end of the cable’s service life. Not only does this help to prevent unplanned downtime, but it increases system availability by predicting downtime and allowing for scheduled maintenance. With the future of smart automation already here, Leuze electronic presents a smart solution to a critical but often overlooked component of an application.
