Drives help put fire pumps through their paces

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Oct 3, 2006

When Hale Products had reliability problems with the test rigs for its Godiva fire pumps, the company upgraded to the latest digital PLX drive modules from Sprint Electric.

Godiva fire pumps are used by fire fighters all over the world.

The fire pumps for engine and static mounting are manufactured by Hale Products Europe in Warwick.

Hale Products was recently experiencing reliability problems with its three production test rigs.

The test rigs were driven by two 250hp and one 500hp DC drives and motors.

Because of successful volume sales of the Godiva pumps and increasing demand on the production test, it was necessary to upgrade the DC drives.

"The test rigs are critical to production output, so minimising the stoppage time between shutting the rigs down and restarting again was the highest priority", comments Paul Fulford, Production Manager with Hale Products, on the importance of the retrofit project.

Coventry-based power transmission specialist Andantex was chosen to manage the project to replace the drives, and to reinstall and fully commission the test rigs.

The refit involved replacing the two 250hp test rig drives with the latest digital PLX drive modules from Sprint Electric.

The third 500hp drive would involve reworking the existing thyristor stack and adding the PLXD stack driver from Sprint Electric to upgrade the installation.

Start Electrical Services of Kidderminster provided the specialist knowledge that such an installation requires, along with the recommissioning of the new drive systems.

The whole re-installation of the drives was completed in one week over a bank holiday shutdown.

The test rig DC drive and motor takes the place of the normally coupled diesel engine to vary the speed of the pump and test the output flow.

Phenomenal flow rates in excess of 6500 litres of water per minute are normal for the Godiva pump.

The test rig also runs in the new pump to ensure rotating components and seals are at their optimum performance, thereby ensuring the highest quality when the customer takes delivery.

The original statue of Lady Godiva, still at the Warwick factory, looks down with interest at her new horsepower, provided by PLX DC drives from Sprint Electric.

The drives are designed to offer a powerful, flexible and easy to programme digital DC drive.

The extensive range of application software functions enable the most difficult tasks to be completed easily and efficiently, making costly external hardware a thing of the past.

The four-quadrant PLX version covers a power range of 5 to 225kW.

The PLX range's functionality and compact design has proven to be ideal for retrofits when a more cost effective, modern drive system is required.

Other applications for DC drives from Sprint Electric include the metal processing industry, the pulp and paper industry, rubber and plastic processing, lifting equipment, food processing, pharmaceutical and chemical manufacturing.

DC drives from Sprint Electric cover a power range from 0.37 to 26kW.

Over 50 models are available, analogue or fully digital, covering both single phase and three phase, regenerative and nonregenerative applications, from low voltage servo performance controllers to highly sophisticated fully digital three phase DC variable speed drives of many hundreds of amps.