Name: Integrated Treadmill Controller

The customer wanted to integrate all of the required power circuits in a treadmill for low cost and ease of manufacturing, set up, and troubleshooting.

Overview: In the application of treadmills, the power control includes the motor speed control, the elevation control, the power supply for the display, and the interlock logic.

Application benefit: By integrating the power electronics into one unified PCB, the reliability was increased, performance was repeatable, and diagnostics were more easily evaluated.

The customer's product: The customer's product is a large commercial treadmill designed to be used 24/7 in health facilities.

The customer's present solution: Presently, the customer has a separate DC motor speed control, power supply, logic, and elevation circuitry that requires integration and interconnect during manufacturing. The customer's request was to integrate the motor speed controller, elevation control, display power supply, and interlocks into one unified low-cost controller with diagnostic LEDs.

KB tested the customer's treadmill in the KB engineering lab. This testing, plus a visit to the customer, resulted in a written specification for the required functions and proposed implementation.

KB's capabilities for solving the problem: For the motor speed control, it's the KBWT, PWM DC motor speed controller. KB's engineering staff has a reputation of working directly with the customer applications to reach satisfactory solutions.

The KB solution: The objective was to integrate the control for the lowest cost. The KBWT circuits were designed into a new circuit board that included the treadmill elevation circuits, display power supply circuits, and interface circuits. LEDs displayed the status of all the inputs and outputs to and from the circuit board for easy troubleshooting. The input and output connectors were unchanged to facilitate easy field replacement.

The results: The new controller - the KBWT - integrated all of the power and logic circuits into a lower-cost, smaller-footprint controller with greater reliability and improved commercial sourcing.

Customer's strategic advantage: The customer got exactly what he wanted no more, no less - and has major performance enhancement using custom circuits and packaging providing a major advantage over his competitors.

A Win-Win solution for both the customer and KB.