Product category:
Industrial Drives/Controls
News Release from: Danfoss Motion Controls | Subject: Danfoss VLT 2800 inverter
Edited by the Engineeringtalk Editorial
Team on 06 February 2006
Variable speed drives transform spray
paint line
Variable speed drives refurbish enamel spray paint line and save oven manufacturer thousands of pounds on replacement motors and a larger sum on reduced downtime and improved production quality.
By buying variable speed drives to refurbish its enamel spray paint line, oven manufacturer Glen Dimplex Home Appliances in Merseyside has saved thousands of pounds on replacement motors and a larger sum on reduced downtime and improved production quality The drive chain system that transported oven components through the enamel curing oven was powered through an ageing and bulky Carter variator gearbox
This article was originally published on Engineeringtalk on 28 Jan 2002 at 8.00am (UK)
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This gearbox failed on a regular basis, necessitating maintenance call outs at all hours and resulted in production losses, halting production further down the production line.
Oil leakage from the Carter variator also meant that on a Monday morning after being unattended all weekend, the gearbox was empty and this in turn delayed production start-up.
The oil on the floor also represented a health and safety hazard.
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Close speed control over the oven drive chain is essential to meet the varied curing times of the different sizes of oven components in production at any time, so George Kelly, Maintenance Projects Engineer, called in Danfoss Drives distributor, MR Engineering, to advise on a remedy.
The decision was to dispose of the Carter gearbox and drive the line using a 3kW Danfoss VLT 2800 inverter to power the force cooled motor through a fixed ratio gearbox.
Speed raise and lower pushbuttons and speed readout from a line mounted tachometer give the line operators full manual control over the enamel curing process regardless of the size of oven components on the line.
Kelly said: "The Carter gearbox problem was causing serious production losses, not just through stoppages but also in terms of scrapped product through unreliable finishing of the oven parts".
The success and implementation of this project led to Glen Dimplex seeking a Danfoss product for its electrophoretic spray plant.
The eight directly driven reciprocating spray heads, on a constantly reversing duty, were every week suffering several shaft breakages of the 0.37kW motors driving the spray heads.
In addition, the juddering of the spray heads when reversing was causing uneven powder deposition on the oven parts with subsequent quality problems.
By converting the spray heads to inverter control using VLT 2800 drives, both problems have been cured.
The smooth ramp-controlled reversing cycle of the inverters has eliminated motor stresses when reversing and stopped motor shaft problems.
The smoother control over the spray heads has also eliminated the powder deposition problem leading to improved production quality.
Kelly said: "We've spent a few hundred pounds on inverter drives and saved ourselves many thousands in production downtime, improved product quality and saved hundreds of hours in maintenance".
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