 Welcome to JSA TV and JSA Podcasts, the newsroom for telecom professionals. I'm Carl Skechley and joining me today is Doug Moore, Product Manager for Starline, a brand of Legrand. Doug, welcome to JSA TV. Thanks, Carl. Thanks for having me. Wonderful. Doug, Starline has been a part of the Legrand family since 2019, but let's step back a bit and talk about what Starline has been known for since the late 1980s, track busway systems. What would you say are the key advantages of track busways over traditional bus duct and pipe and wire solutions? Well, Starline has been known as a leader in the market with track busway, one of the first out there, but as you said, over 30 years. And I'd say that the biggest advantage, honestly, is flexibility. You take an open channel busway product like our track busway and compare it to traditional systems, bus duct and pipe and wire, which are more rigid, permanent systems. Hard to make changes to, harder to plan for. You take an open channel busway and you've basically got open access anywhere. Put power wherever you need it, anywhere in the plant, whatever facility that you need power for. So it's really based on the nature of the design. And I'm sure how many people are that familiar with open channel busway. It is similar to bus duct, but the open channel is exactly the way it's described. It's literally a slot along the bottom of the busway itself. And it's open crossing of the full length of that busway. You can put a power tap off unit or what we call our plug-in units at basically any location. So one of the other things that allows more flexibility is not only can you put it wherever you want, but it's easy to move, it's easy to make changes. If you add equipment, move equipment, maybe a power need changes. We can literally twist and remove and then grab a new one that's modified and twist and install. It's that simple. A couple other things that make it easy to use. It's lightweight design, easy to install. So it's quick, quick installation, less resources needed on that side. And then also with maintenance, it's a really simple joint design. So there's not a lot of mechanical connections that require checking, periodic checking for issues or heat and all that kind of stuff. So long-term cost of ownership is lower compared to some other systems as well. So actually another thing, sorry about the plug-in units, is the number of configurations that we can do. So we are pretty well known for being, I guess, almost built to suit a customer customization of our plugs. So in the plugs, you can have millions of different types of configurations with multiple devices, meters, drop cords, different lengths. You can have different amperages, different voltage systems, whatever it is customers really need. We can design it for them basically. Amazing, sounds like a very amazing product. So here we are now in 2023 and you've launched the newest version of the Starline Track Busway, the IP54 Rated Series S. What is the significance of this IP54 rating for Track Busway? Basically what benefits does it offer and how does it enhance the overall reliability and safety of your electrical distribution systems? Yeah, so Series S we're obviously really excited about our newest product and it's built off the same platform as our current system. However, it's got additional ingress protection. So you mentioned the IP54, that's an IEC standard and ingress protection 54 essentially means splash proof and highly dust resistant. So it's not entirely dust proof, entirely waterproof, but what it does is it allows you to use the system in different areas, different applications, different environments. And it expands not only for Starline, allows us to sell and use our busway systems in different environments, but allows users that in the past never had that option of the flexibility and ease of use of our system. Just didn't have that option because maybe it's a dusty distribution center or it's a food and beverage type of environment where there's a lot of splash going on. Heavy machining areas and then also areas where just in general there would be water or dust present. So it allows us to expand into those areas, provide another exciting option I would say for customers that haven't had that before. Can you ask about some features as well? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think what we'd be interested in knowing more of as you mentioned a few different industries, you mentioned the possibility for using the track busway in new areas that weren't quite open before. Can we deep dive into those a little bit more? Maybe you can mention some markets or other industries that can benefit from this product or specific applications or use cases where this IP54 rating opens up new possibilities for track busway deployment. Sure. Yeah. So the traditional manufacturing, first off, that's really where the need came from. We had heard from the market for years, hey, do you have an IP44 rating? Do you have an IP54 rating or hey, we've got water, we've got dust, which your system hold up in this type of environment. And that was mainly in just traditional manufacturing across different industries. However, there are a lot of new industries that have already, we've talked to people in that that are looking for something like this. One, this emerging market of course is electric vehicles. So that's one of the biggest things going on right now out there. Everyone's talking about building the infrastructure to support adding all these EVs and how do you charge them and where do you charge them? So one of the areas would be parking garages, right? And I know some areas they require an IP44, an IP54. The other thing that we've added to as a feature of this is a certification for NEMA3R. So a lot of the charging equipment needs a NEMA3R, which is just a NEMA certification for Ingress Protection as well. And so we want to make sure that our system would work hand in hand with those electric vehicle charging systems as well. So electric vehicles, another new emerging market as medical marijuana or just in general marijuana has become more legal and indoor farming as well, vertical farming, those types of environments. You get a warehouse, you've got plants growing, you've got heat, humidity, water. I'm sure there's some dust in those environments as well and a lot of lighting. So power density is something I did mention earlier, but having that open channel across the whole system allows you to put more power in a tighter space, right? That's why the system is used currently today quite a bit in data centers. But that's also going to be applicable in some of these other areas like vertical farming, where you've got a lot of different things that need power, fans, lights, heaters, etc. Interesting. It sounds like the IP54 rated series S is quite a versatile product that can be used across a wide variety of industries. One last big question for me, are there any other features or innovations that series S is bringing to the market? I know you mentioned open channel, I know you mentioned various ratings. What about any other unique design elements or other technological advancements that set it apart even from other track busway systems in the market? Yeah, I think the biggest thing is as we've designed the system and you start thinking about some of these environments where it's going to be, you start thinking of other things, other factors that the system must be able to handle, right? For example, you're in a heavy manufacturing environment and impact resistance, for example. So when we thought about the materials, we thought about how we design the new plug-in units, this needs to be able to stand maybe equipment moving around or maybe debris flying around in a harsher environment, which we didn't have to worry about before. In addition to that, maybe you're in an area where there could be exposed to some natural elements, UV protection. So a lot of the materials we looked at, we made sure that there's a relative level of UV protection. Also corrosion, corrosion is probably the biggest thing. You can put the system up and maybe it defends against the water, but over time, aesthetically, it starts to deteriorate or just aesthetically doesn't look right. So we want to make sure that everything's corrosion resistant as well. It's all a patented design as well, I should probably mention. The new plug-in units are a totally different material than what we're using today. This is all injection molded plastic. It's a very strong, durable material and it's designed for this type of environment. So that's exciting. And the one other thing I should add, which I forgot to mention earlier, is this system will be offered from a 100 amp up to a 1200 amp system. So currently, that would equate to what we call our T3 and T5 systems today. This would be our S3 and S5, so your Series S. Understood. Well, that's amazing information, Doug. And thank you so much for coming on our show today and helping us learn more about the Series S. For our viewers, if you would like to learn more about the IP54 rated Series S track busway, simply scan the QR code that's on the screen and it will take you to the Starline website. And again, Doug, thank you so much for being here and thank you viewers for tuning in to JCTV. Happy networking. Thanks, Carl.