Drive reduces machine size and costs
A
Control Techniques product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team
May 21, 2004
The latest glass handling equipment from Sheppee International of York has been designed around the new Unidrive SP drives, reducing both machine size and costs.
The latest glass handling equipment from Sheppee International of York has been designed around the new Unidrive SP drives, reducing both machine size and costs.
The new machine, currently under development, is a two-axis Lehr loader, which stacks hot glass containers into a Lehr annealing oven.
The Lehr loader offers a number of unique customer benefits that stem from the use of two Unidrive SP variable speed drives and Unimotors for control of the x-y quadrant and vertical (z) axis movements.
"One of the key factors is the space saving", explains Technical Manager, Peter Clothier.
"No separate PLC is needed as we have opted for the plug-in second level applications PLC module and the drives have integrated braking resistors and EMC filter too".
"This means we have been able to build the very compact control panel on the machine itself, so there's no external cabling or EMC issues to deal with".
"Yet we have been able to increase the maximum motor speed from 3600 to over 5000rev/min, so this unit can cope with big output production runs".
Hot glass bottles or containers are fed to the machine by conveyor.
The pushbar tracks with the conveyor and pushes a row of up to 60 bottles into the annealing oven, then lifts and returns to the start point to pick up the following row.
The frequency of the 24V pulse containers at a time into the signal, from the previous process, produces the virtual axis in the onboard software for precise synchronisation.
The machine will automatically track the line speed and keep in synchronisation up to a maximum speed of 12 cycles (pushes) per minute.
The 2.2kW Unidrives control 6.3Nm Unimotors, with 4096pulse/rev encoder feedback.
The drives communicate via Control Techniques' own high speed network, CT-Net, and with the small control panel via RS485 serial communications.
"Unidrive has provided solutions to many applications in the past", says Peter Clothier.
"We have experienced no problems with these drives".
"Unidrive SP, and in particular the SyPT Lite software tool has made applications even easier to program".
Bob Mottram, Software Development Engineer, reinforces this view" "It is very user friendly, with good graphics - you can actually see parameters passing between the function blocks".
"It's so easy to debug, which means the software is exceptionally reliable".
"And, if there is a problem the 'watch-window' shows you exactly what's happening in real time".
"It means we can be more confident than ever before that we've got it right first time".
The Unidrive SP also features secure disable, "which is an important feature that meets the latest standards for machine safety", adds Clothier.
The close proximity of the control panel to the hot glass containers necessitates air conditioning, although even here, Sheppee has adopted a novel, positive pressure approach.
The panel itself is urethane insulated and a compressed air line connected to a "vortex tube" (with no moving parts) feeds chilled air down across the front of the drives' panel and up the back of the drives across the heatsinks exhausting to atmosphere.
A temperature signal from the Unidrives' control boards opens the airline valve to initiate cooling.
"Even in this respect, the Unidrive SP is well thought-out", says Clothier.
"The drives are well-designed to promote cooling".
The Unidrive SP (Solutions Platform) marks the evolution of AC drives from dedicated controllers of speed and torque to fully fledged solutions platforms in there own right.
It provides unequalled universal control and communication capabilities to handle the most complex centralised and distributed applications, as well as the versatility and simplicity of operation required for standalone applications.
Unidrive SP incorporates V/F, open and closed loop vector, servo and regeneration operation.
It can be configured for 14 different feedback signal devices as standard.
And Unidrive SP's facility of onboard solutions modules (SM) tailor the drive both in terms of scalable control (ie in replacing a PLC) and in terms of communications, with a wide choice of fieldbus options available.
"We are fully committed to using Control Techniques' drives", concludes Clothier.
"Indeed, no other drives would fit properly into our compact enclosures".
"The new Unidrive SP, particularly, is packed with features that meet our needs".
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