Power supplies and components for treadmills and fitness equipment

Published : 05/24/2023 10:00:00

The motorized equipment with which we all train, both at home and in the gym, are increasingly advanced and intelligent tools, therefore able to offer a training experience that is always more comfortable and interactive. The market demands are clear: from treadmills to rollers for indoor cycling, these devices have for years welcomed the most advanced technological solutions, especially at the software level to offer the possibility of interactive training sessions thanks to specific sensors, communication and synchronization systems.

Most motorized fitness equipment uses two separate AC/DC power supplies to operate the motor of the actual tool, and at the same time power the LCD display, typically used to control and manage your training device based on your needs or workout plans.

Alimentatori e componenti per tapis roulant e attrezzatura fitness

Features and electronic components inside fitness equipments

The tools and machines dedicated to fitness represent a very vast market and are designed and developed on the basis of the characteristics required by the individual sports disciplines. However, there are some shared characteristics that unite treadmills, exercise bikes and elliptical trainers, let's see them below.

Power supply and engine

All motorized fitness equipment need to be powered by electricity. Given the nature of these tools, the power supplies that allow their use must therefore be able to handle high power peaks at startup, it's a matter of a few milliseconds which, however, must be considered in the design phase. For example, consider a standard treadmill motor. Generally we will be faced with an approximately 200W motor, supported by a 350/400W power supply which, however, will have to manage peaks of up to 1000W.

Leakage current

In line with other more commonly used appliances, safety standards for the use of fitness equipment require an equipment leakage current of less than 0.75mA (UL1647); this parameter must therefore also be followed already in the design phase, considering the total leakage current of the various power supplies present inside the single piece of equipment.

Interactive displays

The use of displays of various formats represents the standard of the man-machine interface. Touch technologies have reached high levels of precision and reliability even in difficult contexts such as intense training sessions where sweat and light reflections can make their use difficult. Digimax offers a consultancy service to be able to choose and customize special touch panels capable of controlling training machines and transmitting live video streaming.

Connection and data transmission

The possibility of interaction between hardware tools and external applications represents the latest level of equipment dedicated to fitness. Thanks to communication protocols such as BLE it is in fact possible to transmit data and information detected through special sensors in real-time, allowing for precise and specific training.

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Specific power supplies for fitness equipment

Power supplies are among the most important components of fitness equipment; they are in fact responsible for delivering the right power or resistance, while maintaining compact dimensions and high efficiency from the point of view of energy consumption.

There are different types of power supplies for managing the electrical current of training equipment; power supplies with integrated PFC offer, for example, the native power factor correction in order to guarantee greater stability to the entire electronic circuit, avoiding voltage drops, and at the same time offer greater energy efficiency and savings in energy management costs.

Among the most suitable series for these types of applications, the HEP and UHP families produced by Mean Well are certainly the most suitable, thanks to a leakage current lower than 0.75mA and the fanless design which guarantees quiet operation and reliability over time.

Motorized fitness equipment requires a series of specific characteristics to better meet the needs of the end customer. Digimax offers a series of specific and reliable products to create the best applications for home fitness and gyms of the future.

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