Company Consultancy
Our main business is designing and making non-contact, inductive position sensors - sometimes referred to as encoders, transducers or transmitters. We are the world's leading experts in this field - nobody else comes close to our levels of technical expertise and know-how.
Sometimes we are asked to carry out consultancy or development work in more general electronics, embedded systems & software - including control systems which might include other types of position or speed sensors. Our core skills are:
- Electromagnetic & magnetic design
- Sensor integration - inductive mainly but also optical, capacitive, Hall effect, magnetostrictive
- Control system integration - notably brushless DC motor contriols
- Electronic hardware design, development and test
- Motor and servo control
- Embedded software development and related PC software
- Small scale mechanical engineering
- Prototype production
- Qualification and testing (functional, environmental & EMC).
We are familiar with structured development environments such as DO-178, DO-254 and ATEX certified.
We have full prototype manufacturing facilities in-house.
If you are looking for skilled resources to carry out such work, simply contact us via our website. We're happy to take a look at any technical development project and will be able to very quickly advise if it's something where we can add value.
Zettlex sensors measure position or speed. They use a resonant inductive technique with printed circuit boards (PCBs) as their main components. This enables a non-contact measurement technique offering highly accurate and stable performance in harsh environments. The basic physics used in Zettlex sensors is similar to inductive proximity switches but the Zettlex technique allows absolute position measurement in various geometries including rotary, linear, 2D and 3D. Rotary sensors can measure over a full 360 degrees in diameters ranging from 12 – 1200mm. Linear sensors range from 0,1 to 2000mm. On this web-site we tend to use the term ‘sensor’ but some might refer to Zettlex products as transducers, encoders, resolvers, detectors or transmitters. Similarly we also use the term ‘position’ but some might refer to angle, rotary, multi-turn rotary, linear, curvi-linear, displacement, location. We simply use the term speed as the time derivative of position but some might use the term velocity. Whilst we measure position directly, such measurements can be used to measure servo position, force, wear, weight, vibration, stress, strain, pressure or even temperature by virtue of thermal expansion or contraction. There are a myriad of scientific techniques to measure position including potentiometers, magnetic encoders, magnetostrictive transducers, Hall effect sensors, optical encoders, optical scales, magnetic scales, LVDTs, RVDTs, LVITs, RVITs, synchros, resolvers, pancake resolvers, capacitive transducers, capacitive encoders, electric encoders, Inductosyns, reed switches and magnetoresistive devices. Zettlex sensors offer high precision, high reliability, compact form and lightweight. Since the sensors are made from PCBs it is relatively easy to engineer a device to suit customer applications and much of Zettlex’s production is for OEM specific sensors that are used in industrial, defence, medical, aerospace, petrochemical, oil and gas applications. We make lots of sensors for pan and tilt camera controls (PTZ), electro-optic equipment (EOI), gunnery systems (azimuth and elevation controls), weapons control systems, unmanned aerial vehicles, linear actuators, rotary actuators, ATEX equipment, steering angle sensors, torque sensors, valve controls, servo control, motor encoders, missile seekers, missile fin control, hydraulic cylinders, ball screws, joysticks, medical robots, industrial robots, rotary joints, radar antenna, antenna pointing systems, solar pointing devices, valve transmitters, remote control weapons systems (RCWS) and direct drive motor controls. Our sensors have a wide variety of interfaces – both analogue and digital – including 0-5V, 0-10V, 4-20mA, A/B pulses, A/B/Z reference, sin/cos, 1V pk. to pk. sin/cos, HART, CAN, RS232, RS422, RS485, SPI, I2C, SSI, Namur, power line carrier. Electrical supplies range from 3,3V to mains. Some of our standard products such as LINTRAN and IncOder are available directly from our web-site www.zettlex.com. OEMs should contact Zettlex directly to discuss requirements especially if there are safety, certification or aerospace requirements such as ATEX, SIL, DO-178, DO-254, duplex or triplex electrical redundancy. We specialise in providing reliable fit, form and function replacements for existing problematic devices – especially potentiometers, electric encoders and pancake resolvers.
