Skip to content
MarketScale
‹ Back to IndustriesIndustrial IoT

Variable Power is Bringing Manufacturers Maximum Efficiency, with Mike Darrol of Advanced Industrial Devices

Mike Darrol of Advanced Industrial Devices explains how variable frequency drives (VFDs) can enhance manufacturing efficiency by adjusting power frequency or voltage. VFDs offer process improvements, cost savings, and operational flexibility by enabling equipment to run at optimal speeds and reducing mechanical wear-and-tear.

This story was produced through MarketScale. See how Industrial IoT teams put it to work with AI Visibility (GEO).

By Industrial Iot · Mike Darrol PodcastPromoted ContentTyler Kern Podcast
Share

Key takeaways

01

Variable frequency drives (VFDs) allow the adjustment of power frequency or voltage to improve manufacturing efficiency.

02

VFDs can save money by reducing wear-and-tear on machinery and the need for costly part replacements.

03

Using VFDs can pay off equipment costs within 18 months due to mechanical and electrical savings.

Get featured

Want to get featured in MarketScale Industrial IoT?

Create a free MarketScale workspace and get your company's expertise featured across our Industrial IoT coverage. No credit card, no demo required.

Start free

The power of a Variable Frequency Drive, or VFD, cannot be understated in all industries that thrive off of efficient manufacturing. To recap, a VFD adjusts the frequency or voltage of power by variating the frequency of what’s driving the power, i.e., the motor. This is helpful for a couple of reasons: it allows companies to run three-phase power from a single phase power supply, and it allows equipment to run at a voltage or frequency other than what a power company provides, or what’s available in a certain location.

The ability to change speed creates new possibilities in process improvement, and on today’s podcast, Mike Darrol, communications engineer and embedded application development professional at Advanced Industrial Devices, joins us to break down just how those process improvements can bring value to a manufacturing company.

At a basic level, a VFD can save money and time. It reduces the wear-and-tear on machinery by allowing equipment to warm up slowly and then adjust its speed as needed. It reduces the need for replacing costly parts like clutches and gearboxes, and even eliminates water hammering as well as wear on piping and check valves. Overall, companies find that the amount that they save on mechanical and electrical payouts can often pay for a new piece of equipment within 18 months, giving them more capital to focus on other areas within the business.

Give this podcast with Darrol a listen to hear how AID USA is aiming to make complicated applications simpler with industry-tailored, turnkey VFD products to improve manufacturing processes.

For the latest news, videos, and podcasts in the IoT Industry, be sure to subscribe to our industry publication.

Follow us on social media for the latest updates in B2B!

Twitter – @IOTMKSL

Facebook – facebook.com/marketscale

LinkedIn – linkedin.com/company/marketscale

Your experts belong here

Every story in MarketScale Industrial IoT starts with a company putting its controls engineers, plant-floor specialists, and integration partners on the record. Buyers are already reading this topic. The only question is whose experts they find.

Plant and controls buyers research deep before contact, and your engineers get to shape that research.

Get your team featuredSee how it works15 minutes, straight to a calendar.

About the author

II
Industrial Iot

Follow Industrial IoT Insights

Get new expert content in your inbox.

Industrial IoT: are you visible to AI?

Before they reach out, Industrial IoT buyers ask AI engines which vendors to trust. Explore how your experts, customers, and partners can become useful content for buyers and AI search.

Free plan

You just read one Industrial IoT expert. Your company is full of them.

This article was produced through MarketScale. The same platform turns your controls engineers, plant-floor specialists, and integration partners into the articles, video, and social content Industrial IoT buyers are searching for. Create a free workspace and see it with your own people. No credit card, no demo required.

NPS +73 · 1,000+ creators · 38+ countries

What you get, free

Your own MarketScale workspace, up to 10 people
One professional video edit a month for qualifying companies
Media requests to your crowd, remote recording, AI writing tools
$0, no credit card, nothing that expires

More Industrial IoT Insights

Potassium-based aerosol puts out machine tool fires without halon

Potassium-based aerosol puts out machine tool fires without halon

Fireaway's Stat-X potassium-based aerosol generators put out fires inside CNC machine enclosures without halon, according to Modern Machine Shop. Its detection approach is one of the two methods 2025 trade guidance still describes, though that guidance now adds mist extraction, fire dampers and pressure relief around the detector. For shops running oil coolant, many insurance policies require suppression.

  • 01A suppression system mounted inside a CNC enclosure costs a small percentage of the machine's price, per Modern Machine Shop, so the honest comparison is against rebuilding a burned machine, not against the option's sticker.
  • 02Detection inside a machine tool comes down to two methods, heat-rupturing pressurized tubing or electronic heat and flame sensors, and Modern Machine Shop described a version of each in its 2009 and 2011 articles; what 2025 guidance adds is mist extraction, fire dampers and pressure-relief flaps in the same specification.
  • 03For shops running CNC machines on oil coolant, many corporate insurers require suppression to be installed and maintained, which turns a purchasing option into a policy condition and a maintenance audit item.

Sep 18, 2026

Luxonis OAK 4 cameras run up to 52 TOPS of AI on board from $749

Luxonis OAK 4 cameras run up to 52 TOPS of AI on board from $749

Luxonis launched its OAK 4 edge AI cameras and Hub cloud platform in December 2025. Each runs 52 TOPS of inference on a Qualcomm QCS8550 with no host PC, cloud video stream or server, and prices start at $749. That puts vision compute on the camera itself.

  • 01The industrial PC beside the camera becomes optional: OAK 4 runs inference entirely on the device, so a vision cell's bill of materials shifts from camera plus host computer to camera plus a Hub subscription tier, one of which is free.
  • 02The 40X compute improvement Luxonis claims has no stated baseline in any of the coverage, so a buyer comparing OAK 4 against a prior OAK deployment should ask for the previous generation's TOPS figure before using the multiplier.
  • 03Snaps, the Hub feature that collects data at the edge to retrain models against drift, is the mechanism worth testing in a pilot; it is an announced capability, not yet a documented field result in the published reporting.

Sep 17, 2026

IoT sensor market forecast to grow 37.6% a year to $549 billion by 2035

IoT sensor market forecast to grow 37.6% a year to $549 billion by 2035

Global Market Insights projects the IoT sensor market will grow from about $24 billion in 2025 to $549 billion by 2035. That is a 37.6% annual rate, according to Smart Industry's report on the study. The bigger operational implication is data volume, not sensor cost.

  • 01Predictive maintenance is the one use case Global Market Insights ties to measurable outcomes, downtime and asset efficiency, which makes it the sensor line item most likely to survive a capital review.
  • 02GMI's stated base of about $24 billion in 2025 and its 37.6% growth rate give operators a near-term checkpoint to test against real quotes long before the 2035 endpoint.
  • 03Inertial sensors, meaning accelerometers, gyroscopes and magnetometers, are widely used across consumer electronics, industrial systems, automotive platforms, wearables and drones, according to Smart Industry's summary of the GMI report.

Sep 17, 2026

Explore More Industrial IoT Insights

Read more expert perspectives from across Industrial IoT.

Browse Industrial IoT Hub

About the Expert

II
Industrial Iot

Communications Engineer and Embedded Application Development Professional at Advanced Industrial Devices

Mike Darrol is a communications engineer specializing in embedded application development at Advanced Industrial Devices. He focuses on improving manufacturing processes using variable frequency drives. Darrol brings expertise in creating industry-tailored, turnkey VFD products for efficient manufacturing.

For B2B teams

Your experts could be publishing here

Stories like this one run on content MarketScale captures from real practitioners. See how your team's expertise becomes coverage in Industrial IoT and beyond.

Book a 15-minute demo

Or call us. No forms required. We pick up. 214-945-2512