Drives now the standard for multi-axis tables

One of Europe's leading suppliers of high performance waterjet cutting equipment has selected M'Ax servo drives and Unimotors from Control Techniques for its range of multi-axis tables.

One of Europe's leading suppliers of high performance waterjet cutting equipment has selected M'Ax servo drives and Unimotors from Control Techniques for its whole range of multi-axis tables.

Power Jet Systems, based in Nelson, Lancashire, was established 10 years ago to build and integrate high pressure systems, initially for the nuclear decontamination and decommissioning market.

Now, the company has built a reputation for pure and abrasive waterjet technology and, three years ago, moved into the system-build market, supplying robotics and multi-axis cutting tables for high-precision engineering applications.

Having used several servo-based systems, Power Jet has standardised on Servo systems from Control Techniques.

Director, Brett Cooper explains: "We have built up a team with considerable experience and they have strong ideas on systems requirements.

We made a decision to build up to a reliability standard, rather than down to a price.

This means using the best quality, most reliable components to reduce downtime for maintenance.

It makes good economic sense for us - and customers certainly appreciate the reliability and come back for more.

A key element in this philosophy was the choice of Control Techniques' M'Ax digital servodrives used in conjunction with SLM Unimotor servo motors.

"We have tried several systems, but have found M'Ax to be the most stable by far.

We considered using a cheaper belt drive for our budget machines, but decided that it wasn't worth cutting corners.

So we now offer this digital solution across the range, so our customers benefit from a terrific dynamic response and accuracies that many of our competitors simply can't match.

The Control Techniques servodrive system has also offered Power Jet savings in both engineering and set-up costs.

The Control Techniques' sizing software has meant that correct drive sizing is a task of just a few minutes and the easy set-up characteristics of M'Ax with the speed-loop Unimotors gave Power Jet engineers complete confidence and control to complete commissioning with no need for further assistance from Control Techniques.

M'Ax innovative SLM system uses the high resolution, motor-mounted Sin/Cos encoder with DSP technology to achieve a 500 fold increase in feedback resolution (8.3 million ppr), which is unaffected by digital noise, and a four-fold improvement in positioning too.

"We particularly like its simplicity in use," says Brett Cooper.

"It is virtually a 'plug-and-play' system - only three parameters need to be set - and, with just four wires to connect, it keeps both build and maintenance costs down.

And, reduced wiring has minimised panel size too!" M'Ax systems are used on all models of Power Jet's multi-axis tables, which use either precision ball screw drives with an accuracy of ñ69 microns/ 3 metres or belt drives with accuracies of ñ0.2 mm and linear bearing slides.

All models feature a heavy-duty box framework to support and enclose the drive axes and a free-standing water table within the drive structure, available in a wide range of sizes.

Configurations are available with 2,3 or 5 axes of motion, with the facility to feed abrasive being mounted directly on the Z-axis.

Cutting speeds of up to 30 m/min and traverse speeds of 40 m/min can be achieved.

Power Jet's dedicated water jet cutting software on the Delta Tau controller, with touch-screen (or tracker ball operator interface) communicates with the M'Ax servo-drives, which provide an extremely stable PID control loop for each axis.

Usually a machine is fitted with one Unimotor per axis, but larger machines sometimes have two motors, load-sharing, fitted to each of the X and Y axes.

In all cases, the Unimotors are of the SLM type, to give the performance benefits available when used in conjunction with M'Ax drives.

Unimotors also give market-leading thermal performance (typically 200-300% better) thanks to its unique finned motor housing and this is directly translated into a corresponding increase in torque of around 17%! The multi-axis tables are used in conjunction with a variety of cutting tools.

Water Jet utilises water pressurised up to 60,000 psi (4000 bar) and focused to produce a high energy beam of water which is used to cut softer materials such as paper, foam, soft rubber and food.

For harder tasks, such as the cutting of concrete, metals, stone and ceramics, abrasives are introduced into the water stream and focused into a narrow beam of typically 1 mm.

Plasma cutting and laser profiling solutions are also supplied by Power Jet.

"With M'Ax, we are able to offer a technically superior solution," concludes Brett Cooper.

"Our multi-axis tables offer good value for money and technical advantages of better accuracy and better dynamic response.

And, we offer less hassle - easy set-up, good diagnostics and lower maintenance costs.

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