Festo has launched a new series of jet valves providing switching times of less than 1ms. Based on a design featuring one moving part, the new MHJ series jet valves provide high switching time repetition accuracies, and a lifespan of 10 billion switching cycles.

Festo’s MHJ series jet valves are designed for use with standard 40 µm filtered compressed air supplies, and accommodate a wide range of operating pressures from 0.5 to 6bar. They offer a choice of three 2/2-way fast-switching models, with nominal flow rates of 50, 100 and 150 litres per minute.

The valves employ a special short-stroke solenoid and patented damping plate, developed using extensive CAE modelling of the magnetic, temperature and flow characteristics, to optimise switching characteristics.

The MHJ series jet valves have a trigger signal voltage range of 3 to 30 Vdc, enabling them to accommodate standard 5 V PLC-level signals without any need for voltage conversion.

The valves have a power consumption of 7W, which can be reduced to 2W after the initial turn-on period by use of a holding current control feature, which can be supplied by Festo either integrated into the coil assemblies or incorporated into the application control board.