Product category:
Stepper and Servo Drives, Motors, Controls
News Release from: Baldor UK | Subject: Single-axis MintDrive
Edited by the Engineeringtalk Editorial
Team on 07 August 2001
Novel polystyrene cutting machine uses
Mintdrive
A new hot-wire expanded polystyrene cutting machine from Xycorp is introducing automatic set-up to the sector, and is based on a novel intelligent drive from Baldor
A new hot-wire expanded polystyrene (EPS) cutting machine from Xycorp is introducing automatic set-up to an industry sector which has difficulty dealing with small-batch manufacturing - increasing throughput by 25% or more The innovation, known as the Wiredroid, eliminates time-consuming manual adjustment, and is based on a novel intelligent drive from Baldor
Wiredroid automates the slab cutting process used by manufacturers of EPS foam products such as packaging liners, and roof panels and insulation for the building trade.
These products are fabricated by feeding large blocks of EPS - typically 4 x 3 feet, x 8 feet or more long - horizontally through the machine's cutting area.
A 'harp' of hot wires - which are resistance heating elements that melt the EPS - slices the slab to the desired dimensions.
Until now, harp set-up has usually been performed manually, by means of threaded rods that move the wires into position.
The single-axis MintDrive from Baldor provides Xycorp with automatic motion control for this wire setting process.
It drives a cross-shaft that links to ballscrews on either side of the machine to position the wires, and provides onboard I/O for controlling the pneumatic actuators that grab and release the wires.
Depending on the type of products manufactured, a second MintDrive system may be added to position a harp of vertical wires.
The drive's built-in motion controller with the Mint language held the key to the development of the new system.
MintDrive incorporates a full-featured motion controller which can implement motion profiles combined with real-time I/O control.
It will run in a variety of modes, but in this instance the program executes via the controller's built-in interpreter - providing an autonomous single-box solution that minimises costs in this competitive end of the foam cutting automation industry.
"When developing software for a sophisticated X-Y contour cutting machine, I realised that the Mint language could easily be employed to automate wire-setting", says Greg Good, VP of Engineering at Xycorp, "The English-like commands of the language actually allowed me to prototype the program that places the wires, including the pneumatic I/O, in half a day." This rapid software development made a major contribution to keeping costs down on one of the industry's workhorse items of automation.
Machine costs are also minimised by the integrated nature of the drive, which makes a big difference to machine building time - allowing one simple loom, stemming from a single point, to handle all the motion control and I/O.
This cabling takes less than half a man-day of labour to install.
MintDrive is linked via a serial port to a rugged Windows CE computer which provides a touch-screen user interface.
Users simply enter the parameters they want - the heights and number of repeats - and press start.
The data is downloaded to the MintDrive, which sets the wires and then runs autonomously as the foam block material is conveyed into the machine.
The Windows computer can also be connected to a factory network via Ethernet, allowing a supervisor to manage the configuration, and to queue jobs for even faster changeover between batches.
Wire set up now takes 90 seconds or less, depending on the number of wires to be moved.
This contrasts with a manual operation taking up to 20 minutes for two operators.
Combined with the fact that EPS machines often handle at least 10 different jobs each day - a workload that is forced on them by the fact that the products they make are so bulky they are difficult to stock - the Wiredroid can easily add 25% to machine uptime. Request a free brochure from Baldor UK ...
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