Modular valve terminal offers major cost-savings

The new valve terminal is a highly flexible system that permits any combination of valves and regulator modules, and offers advanced industrial Ethernet and fieldbus-based diagnostics

Festo has launched a highly configurable valve terminal that offers major cost-saving advantages to 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 18mm, 26mm and 42mm valves, and allows any combination of these valves to be mounted on the same manifold.

The Festo 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 ISO15407-2 standard, which defines the mounting interface and electrical connections for five-port pneumatic directional control valves and was developed to harmonise the platform for VDMA standard 01 and 02 sized valves, which are now known as 26mm and 18mm valves.

VTSA valve terminals feature robust, all metal sub-base modules, and employ generously proportioned air ducts designed to maximise flow rate.

Festo offers a wide range of compatible 5/3, 5/2 and dual 3/2 valves, all of which have an operating pressure range of -0.9 to 10bar.

The valves are available in 18mm, 26mm and 42mm sizes, with respective flow rates of 550 litres/minute, 1100 litres/minute and 1500 litres/minute.

All three valve series offer a choice of 24Vdc and 110Vac solenoids for maximum applications flexibility, and can be configured so that their breathing ports vent into the exhaust port instead of to atmosphere, making them ideal for use in clean air environments such as food processing plants.

A unique feature of the VTSA valve terminal is that it allows the valves to be oriented so that all pneumatic and electrical connections are accessed from one side of the unit.

This leads to a very clean installation, which 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.

The VTSA valve terminal can have individual electrical connections, multipin connection or can integrate directly with the Festo CPX terminal controller, which is a modular, high functionality hub with an Ethernet interface and extensive fieldbus protocol support.

The controller enables advanced remote diagnostics capabilities to be easily 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 valve front panel LEDs, or via the unique Festo CPX-MMI handheld control unit.

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