Reckoned to be the smallest and lightest 8mm section units on the market, compact valve islands use less than one third the space of competitive units for an eight station island.
Asco Joucomatic's new Compact 8 valve islands are the smallest and lightest 8mm section units on the market, consuming less than one third the space of competitive units for an eight station island, and weighing in some cases, just half as much. These benefits make the Compact 8 the ideal system for OEM's looking to downsize their machines while, at the same time, enjoying the advantages of high flow performance (280 litre/min), plus the flexibility of simplified assembly and connection and Fieldbus communications. Small enough to fit into the palm of the hand, an 8 station Compact 8 island consumes just 490cm3 of machine or panel space and weighs in at only 600 grams, yet the unit offers enough flow to operate 50mm bore cylinders, directly, and the ability to pilot piston and butterfly process valves.

The key to this performance is the use of computer simulation in the design of the Compact 8 Series of valves.

This optimises the position and orientation of the holes in the valve sections to ensure that optimum flow paths are achieved.

The design keeps the change of flow direction down to an absolute minimum, thus maximising the volume of air through the valves.

The same modular design also enables the Compact 8 islands to offer the OEM total flexibility in construction, mounting and in the type of control which they perform.

Supplied with IP65 ingress protection as standard, the islands can be mounted directly onto machines, in panels or near pneumatic actuators, thus fulfilling industry specific requirements in environments such as assembly, food processing, packaging, process control, textiles, paper, printing and pharmaceuticals.

In addition, with just one key required to assemble up to sixteen 8mm wide valves, the majority of industry requirements can be satisfied quickly, usually from a single manifold platform, which is compatible with standard fieldbuses such as Profibus and DeviceNet.

Key to the ability to assemble Compact 8 units quickly is a design that optimises OEM stock profiles by including the smallest number of parts.

In addition, the Compact 8 offers the benefit of singular expansion, in contrast to many competitive islands, which expand in steps of two valves.

This enhances competitiveness, as OEMs do not have to pay for redundant functionality that they will not use.

The cost benefits to OEMs of singular expansion are complemented by the choice of spool valves that make up the Compact 8 valve islands.

These can be monostable or bistable, 3/2, 5/2, or 5/3 units, single or double pilot operated with low power (0.15W) coils.

As an added means of enhancing flexibility, the Compact 8's monostable and bistable spool valves are of the same size.

This allows the islands to be equipped with intermediary modules for additional pressure supplies or blanking plates, enabling them to be supplied with two or three different pressure levels.

Importantly, the user saves much installation time and effort as the Compact 8 valve sections clip together simply in a matter of seconds to form finished islands.

Moreover, once complete, further installation time is saved by the Compact 8's optimised, addressable pinning system, which automatically assigns connector pins to each spool valve in accordance with its function.

In programmable mode, this feature offers the advantage of the pin assignment being easily adaptable to existing installations, which for OEMs producing serial machines, is a real production bonus.

A wide range of connection options - the flexible design philosophy employed to create the Compact 8 range offers the OEM and user the best possible range of connection options to meet almost all requirements.

These include: * Multipol: with 25 SUB-D connector (IP40 or IP65) for use with up to 16 valves as standard.

* ASi interface network: electrical connection with M8 and M12 connectors.

Extension up to 2 bistable or 4 monostable valves.