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Product category: Stepper and Servo Drives, Motors, Controls
News Release from: Lenze | Subject: 9300 servo drive
Edited by the Engineeringtalk Editorial Team on 22 July 2002

Servo drive powers up tool-changing
innovation

When ATC Products spotted a hole in the automatic tool-changing market, it contacted Lenze to supply programmable servo drives, compact motors and a whole lot more besides.

When ATC Products spotted a hole in the automatic tool-changing market, it reacted by designing an ingenious machine that was compact, efficient and affordable To bring the idea to life, the company contacted Lenze to supply programmable servo drives, compact motors and a whole lot more besides

It's not often you develop a machine that can truly stand head and shoulders above its competitors.

It's rarer still to find a family-run firm that can give the big boys a run for their money.

Malcolm Drury, Director of ATC Products Ltd, believes his team has designed an ingenious drilling system that is so advanced, it has no real competition, here or abroad.

"We can't find any real competition anywhere", Drury admits.

Drury explains that his firm - renowned for designing automatic tool-changing equipment - originally designed the Multimatic drill for a firm that had difficulty in locating an automatic drill-changing system for its plasma profiler.

Malcolm says the problem was fairly common and, until recently, had only been addressed by a single European supplier.

"Companies with big budgets and resources were forced to go to Italy if they wanted an automatic drill changer", Drury says.

The problem was that the Italian machines were not only expensive and bulky, they also achieved slower tool-changing times and had a limited range of drilling depths and diameters.

A gap in the market presented itself to Drury, who set about designing a multispindle machine which drew the required drill or tap from its horizontal resting position and flipped, locked and clamped it onto a vertical axis within the drum mechanism.

The resulting design proved, quite literally, to be a turning point for the company, and one which would have been impossible without the help of Lenze - one the world's leading exponents of drive technologies.

Drury admits that his machine - which can drill and tap up to 25mm in diameter - wouldn't have met the client's precise specifications without Lenze's input.

"We couldn't do rigid tapping without Lenze's motors - it would be totally impossible.

Likewise, with the servo drives, we are able to program drill speeds and feeds, and engage the drill heads at the job's surface quicker.

Since the tool doesn't drill fresh air, it saves time and money".

Lenze's pivotal role in the development of the drill system can't be overestimated.

"We've used Lenze for 12 years", Drury says, "and from what I know of them, the quality is excellent.

Their equipment has been used in our automatic tool changers, which have to work extremely hard.

Quality is therefore at the very top of our wish list and Lenze delivers it".

ATC uses a 9300 servo drive to power the drilling system's feed unit, which incorporates a synchronous motor with a power rating of 1.1kW and a maximum torque of 11.6Nm.

A second 9300 series servo drive propels the spindles that are powered by a 4.6kW motor with a torque limit of 52Nm.

Drury says that although power transfer is important, component size is paramount: "Since the drill is usually mounted on a cross beam, if it is excessively heavy, it could damage the end user's machine.

It is therefore vital that we keep the size of the motors down and the power up".

Lenze achieves this by designing synchronous motors that utilise powerful rare-earth permanent magnets and low rotor inertia.

This results in compact motors that can channel high torque values through minimal frame sizes.

Heightened levels of control are made possible through the programmability of Lenze's 9300 servo drives and their detachable keypads featuring a LCD display for drive monitoring and programming.

Since the drill system is suitable for a variety of applications and environments, Drury says programmability is a crucial factor: "It is important that everything can be programmed into the servo drives, so that the drive system behaves exactly the way we want it to behave.

And since we can download data from a laptop, start-up is quick and easy".

Although Lenze's role was extensive, it was its expertise in programming that particularly impressed Drury.

"Our relationship with Lenze is very important", he admits.

"It's crucial that we work closely with them so we can use their technology and they can show us what they can do". Request a free brochure from Lenze ...

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