Drive improves palletiser speed and reliability

A Control Techniques Dynamics product story

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team May 22, 2000

Beer and beverage can manufacturer American National Can Group has increased the reliability and speed of its automatic palletiser with the installation of a servo motor and drive package

Europe's leading manufacturer of beer and beverage cans, American National Can Group Inc (ANC), has increased the reliability and speed of its automatic palletiser with the installation of a servo motor and drive package from Control Techniques Dynamics.

A mass conveyor belt carries up to 120,000 cans per hour to the end of the line where they are packaged by the automatic palletiser.

The palletiser has two operating axes - a vertical axis controls the elevator drive, whilst a second horizontal axis powers the auto-serter which places a 3ft x 3ft layer pad between each row.

ANC wanted to increase the palletiser speed, reduce maintenance down-time and improve the positioning accuracy of the auto-serter, which frequently mis-aligned layer pads in the palletising operation.

The control system package had to be small, and offer flexibility to adapt to ongoing improvements in the line development.

To kick off, they upgraded the original 1500 rpm brushed DC servo motors to CT Dynamics' 2000 rpm brushless AC servo motors.

This cut maintenance time and drastically improving the auto-serter's positioning accuracy, eliminating the problem of mis-aligned layer pads.

"I have found the Control Techniques Unidrive servo package to be very reliable and flexible.

It has given us an increase in overall machine performance and is backed by excellent service.

The package cost a fraction of the price offered by the OEM to modify their equipment.

Also, there is no more unnecessary maintenance with replacing brushes on the motors as the palletiser now uses Control Techniques Dynamics brushless servo motors", said Ian Jarvis, Electrical Supervisor.

The UD70 now controls the auto-serter to ensure a high precision operation and consistent positioning control, whilst the 2000 rpm 142mm frame servo motor and 4 kW 1405 Unidrive has substantially increased the line speeds.

Cycle times of 31/2 minutes have been cut by 10% resulting in an additional 12,000 cans being handled by the palletiser every hour.

These increases can be improved by a further 25% once pneumatic equipment on the line is upgraded.

"I chose the servo package from Control Techniques as it was the only company that offered the complete package of controller and drive in the same unit.

We were also limited with the amount of available space with which to install the drive so the servo package, incorporating the UD70, provided the ideal solution", continued Ian Jarvis.

Such has been the success of the application that ANC plans to trial the same configuration on two further lines.

The new servo package will include CT Dynamics Unimotor AC brushless servo motor.

The Unimotor's unique finned motor housing also provides improved thermal performance which will allow the servomotors, on the other two production lines, to operate at a higher delta temperature of 40�C instead of the current 25�C.

American National Can Group, Inc.

(NYSE:CAN) holds a major position in the manufacturing of beverage cans and maintains strategic partnerships with world leaders in the soft drink and beer industry.

ANC encompasses 34 beverage can plants and end plants in the United States and across Europe.

The company shipped 38.7 billion aluminium and steel beverage cans in 1998 with revenues of more than $2,4 billion.