Servo motors are easy to take for granted. They operate behind the scenes, making our lives easier and more convenient with little show or fuss. But it’s not magic that opens up those automatic doors or rolls the car windows down with the push of a button. Those incredible things that are so mundane that we don’t even for stop for a second to consider how they happen only occur because of servo motors.
Servos don’t simply provide everyday convenience, however. Servo motors are truly indispensable in the modern world. They’ve made once impossible things possible, and without them, our lives would be very different. Life without servo motors would be much more challenging, much less convenient, and entirely different.
From macro to small batch
One of the easiest places to see the value of servo motors is in industry. Industrial servo motors are absolutely necessary to modern manufacturing.
It takes a professional knife maker an average of fifteen to twenty hours to make a knife. That basically means you get one knife every two to three days if you make them by hand. If you have someone making knives non-stop, you can expect roughly 100-200 knives in a year.
The Opinel knife company sells roughly 15 million knives each year. The only possible way to meet this production goal – apart from hiring 150,000 full-time master knife makers – is by implementing factory machines that use industrial servo motors.
Without servo motors, manufacturing would change from massive output with global distribution to limited runs to meet regional demands. Of course those handmade knives will also vary in quality, and the specs may even differ from knife to knife. Industrial motion control powered by servo motors on the other hand allows for a more consistent product.
Things that wouldn’t exist without servos
Industrial robots – important as they are – aren’t the only things that would cease to exist in a world without servo motors.
The aforementioned doors and windows wouldn’t open themselves.
You’d have to walk to the top of the Eiffel Tower because the elevator that takes you top uses servo motors.
Space exploration would be lagging as NASA’s rovers use servos to move.
Robots in general wouldn’t be very mobile. Servo motors are the go to for motion.
All of your pictures would be blurry because you can kiss the auto focus feature on your camera goodbye.
Machine tools use servos.
If there’s something that moves with the assistance of an electric motor, there’s a good chance that it uses a servo.
Servo motors are so crucial to technology, the economy, and our daily lives, that it’s really difficult to truly grasp what our world would be like without them. In other words, servos are very important. Show your servo motors you love them. Call 479-422-0390 – or contact us – for immediate support for Indramat servo motors.