Drives boom at Porter's Fuchsias

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Aug 20, 2002

AC Tech's SCL drives have provided Porter's Fuchsias with a user friendly, off-the-shelf drive solution at a fraction of the cost of rival models.

AC Tech's SCL drives have provided Porter's Fuchsias with a user friendly, off-the-shelf drive solution at a fraction of the cost of rival models.

The drives were used to control a series of large water booms at the company's commercial greenhouses and offered reduced installation and maintenance time thanks to the SCL's unique EPM chip programming system.

AC Tech's SCL drives have been used to control a series of 30ft long booms used for watering and feeding plants at Porter's Fuchsias main commercial greenhouse complex in Formby, near Liverpool.

The greenhouse complex covers the equivalent of four football pitches and requires 20 suspended watering booms to feed their entire stock.

Each of the booms was fitted with 0.37kW AC Tech drive to power 0.18kW motors used for powering the watering system along 60m gantries installed in the greenhouse roof.

The AC Tech drives effectively geared down the motors to provide the constant torque required for the booms to move up and down the gantry systems, pulling supply lines behind them and producing an even coverage of water.

The SCL model chosen claims to have the smallest investment in panel space (93 x 146mm) compared with other variable frequency drives on the market.

The drives weigh in at just 900g, making them perfect for installation in the cabinets attached to each boom where weight was a consideration.

The drives were installed by Brinkman Horticultural Services, who specified the units for their ease of use, cost competitiveness and comparatively high level of functionality.

AC Tech's SCL model provided reliable performance at almost half the cost of the nearest competitor's drives, which were seen as having an excess of expensive software.

During the project, Brinkman found that the installation and unit costs saved by using the SCL drives allowed the company to offer their services at more competitive rates and reduce the number maintenance visits to similar sites across the UK.

The SCL's unique EPM system saved both maintenance and set up time by enabling the installer to program one drive, remove the memory chip, and copy the information across to those from the remaining units using an AC Tech desktop programming module.

Brinkman Horticultural could program each of the other 19 EPM chips with the full set of drive parameters in a matter of seconds, allowing them to be inserted into drives already installed in the cabinets making them ready to run without mains or computer connection.

AC Tech supply SCL drives for single-phase 220-240V supplies, covering the power range 0.25 to 2.2kW, models feature full CE marking as well as integrated EMC filters.

The design also incorporates a control terminal block that offers 11 finger-safe terminals to configure input and output logic, analogue inputs and outputs.

Manual setup is easy; just a start command and a speed reference will start the motor running and by using the function keys on the front of the drive, they can be easily configured for almost any motor control requirement, including reversing, Jogging and multispeed operation.