Motors & Drives Information

According to new data from IMS Research, the China market grew an estimated 18.6% over 2004 to become an $860 million market for motor drives. Standard and premium AC drives experienced the most revenue growth during this same period, most notably in the larger power ranges. A large proportion of these drives went into construction-related sectors involved in building China's manufacturing and logistical infrastructure.

China's strong economic performance continues to be a major contributor to the extraordinary growth of its motor drives market.

The country's economy has boomed since its entrance into the World Trade Organization in November 2001, experiencing annual growth of no less than 8% for Gross Domestic Product.

These attractive market conditions have motivated virtually every major multinational motor drives company to enter the Chinese market.

According to analyst Steve Lam of IMS Research, these global companies have brought with them competitive advantages such as more reliable and technically superior motor drives, and have enabled them to dominate this market.

However, these drives come with a higher price premium, and have recently allowed indigenous companies to gain market share by competing in their own niche 'economy drives market'.

'Additionally, strong economic performance has resulted in a rising consumer income in China, which is driving the lower power drive segment.

More and more Chinese consumers are able to afford packaged consumer goods, resulting in increased use of motor drives in food and beverage and packaging machinery applications that utilise these lower power drives'.

Higher performance brushless servo motors from Parker EME are designed to replace the now obsolete N-Series motors recently discontinued by Rockwell Automation/Allen-Bradley. Parker Electromechanical have launched the MPN-series of brushless servo motors, designed to replace the now-obsolete N-Series motors which were recently discontinued by Rockwell Automation/Allen-Bradley. The Parker MPN motors offer more torque per-frame size than the N-Series motors, feature well-proven technology from the Parker MaxPlus motor family range, and are modified to match the mechanical mounting and electrical characteristics of the Rockwell N-Series family.

The front motor mount, shaft dimensions, connectors and the electrical Ke (back-EMF) of the motors are identical to that of the N-series motors, and the rotor inertias are typically within 10% of the equivalent N-Series motor - so there is unlikely to be a any need for retuning.

One minor drawback is some of the motors may be slightly longer than their N-Series equivalent.

The use of neodymium magnets permits the MPN-series motor to generate significantly higher torques, with the Kt (torque constant) of some MPN motors being twice that of the equivalent N-Series motor.

Consequently MPN motors require less current, less energy, and generate less heat, while providing higher performance and ultimately greater throughput.

Since these motors have the same mounting, connectivity, and very similar electrical characteristics to the N-series motors, it is very easy to retrofit MPN-series motors in existing N-series applications.

Geared motor leader Zeitlauf is now offering guaranteed 48-hour delivery, for order quantities of up to 20, on geared motor drives from its standard range, which includes no fewer than 472 different models and 2378 variants. The drives are available with output torque up to 30Nm, and output speed up to 1132 rpm. This rapid delivery service is made possible by the advanced Zeitlauf manufacturing techniques and sophisticated logistics, combined with the unique modular design of its products.

The service is an important aid for OEMs that operate in sectors where minimising time to market is crucial for commercial success.

Users of the Zeitlauf rapid delivery service can choose from drives incorporating spur or planetary gearboxes, both of which are offered in a finely graded range of reduction ratios.

All types feature compact construction - the planetary gearboxes are among the shortest currently available - and long, reliable working lives.

In addition, all use helical gears in the first reduction stage to ensure smooth running.

The drives can be supplied fitted with split-pole or capacitor-start motors for AC operation, or with standard or brushless DC motors.

Trend Control Systems, one of Europe's leading Building Management System manufacturers in the worldwide HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air-Conditioning) market, has sold more than 10,000 pcs of Vacon NX drives to the building automation segment. The Vacon NX range of AC drives is fast becoming the preferred choice for the building automation arena in the UK. Trend is one of the major Vacon co-operation partners and supplies the Vacon AC drives under the Trend brand.

The companies have jointly developed a specific interface option card for the NX drives.

For controlling and monitoring purposes, the NXNI option card gives the customer full interface between the Trend BMS (Building Management System), the NX drive and the building.

To complement this partnership, Trend have been selling the NX drives to the building services sector for four years.

A good proportion of these NX drives have been supplied into many of the major projects seen in the UK, where technical regulative and customer preference have won the business against strong competition.

These major projects include the Royals Business Park in London's Docklands, Broad Quay House in Bristol and the Manchester Museum.

If you use hazardous area motors with drives, there are a few things you need to think about. However, if you get the motor and the drive from ABB, there is no need for further action - we have already worked out the details for you. ABB has blanket certification for motor and drive combinations for hazardous areas.

This means that no further testing is required once on site.

But if you match your own drive and motor combination, it may need to be independently tested by a notified body.

Variable speed operation gives higher temperature rise and higher voltage stress on the motor insulation, in combination with reduced cooling in self-cooled motors.

These factors combined could create a heat source powerful enough to ignite an explosion.

At ABB, we have designed our motors for use with variable speed drives for the last 30 years.

We have the experience to guarantee safe operation in hazardous areas - and we have the certificates to prove it.

If you want more information about using motors in hazardous areas with variable speed drives, order your FREE information leaflet.

The adoption of fieldbuses in manufacturing continues to grow rapidly, especially in the heavy process industries such as oil and gas and chemical where the penetration of fieldbuses is still small. Manufacturers are realising the benefits of homogeneous fieldbus architectures that enable industrial networking across domain boundaries from simple sensors to complex field instrumentation. Profibus, with its common communications layer, many application profiles, and breadth of media alternatives, offers manufacturers a solid long-term value proposition to help protect their automation investments.

The value proposition of fieldbus has changed from the initial perceptions of the marketplace.

Benefits such as reduced wiring and installation costs are apparent, but often mask the long-term benefits of fieldbus and device networks.

According to ARC research, the greatest benefits of fieldbus and device networks are realised in the areas of maintenance and operations, long after a plant has been commissioned.

In other words, fieldbus itself is often not the cost-saver, but merely an enabler to a new level of asset management effectiveness that can significantly reduce operating costs and help manufacturers achieve operational excellence.

Many of the benefits of fieldbus are still being discovered as users gain more experience with these technologies in real world plant settings.
In typical process industries such as oil and gas or bulk chemicals, fieldbuses can contribute significantly to the achievement of operational excellence by enabling the sharing of critical information about the condition of devices.

A fieldbus simplifies the gathering of data for Plant Asset Management (PAM) systems that watch over devices, tracking their 'health', and even detecting problems before they occur - a process known as predictive or proactive maintenance.

Profibus, which conforms to the international IEC 61158 standard for fieldbus, is the most widely used industrial network to connect control systems with field devices.

To meet the special needs of the process industries for intrinsic safety and bus power with two-wire technology, Profibus offers MBP-IS (Manchester Coded, Bus Powered, Intrinsic Safety) transmission technology as well.

All variants of Profibus share a common communications layer; the differences are a function of the required network media and application profile.

This single communication layer simplifies network configuration and diagnostics in all areas of the plant by providing a seamless link between all manufacturing domains.

Profibus DP is used to network I/O and intelligent devices due to its fast response time and may also serve as the fieldbus 'trunkline'.

With data rates up to 12 Mbps, more devices can be connected to the network than with other fieldbus solutions.

For hazardous areas, Profibus PA employs an intrinsically safe physical layer that provides bus power to devices on two-wire technology.

Field instruments such as pressure or temperature transmitters, flow meters or control valves are networked using Profibus PA.

Because DP and PA share a common communication layer, PA segments can be coupled as extensions to a Profibus DP backbone network via segment couplers that are transparent to the bus protocol.

The HART protocol has become a de facto standard in the process industries, and ARC estimates that the majority of intelligent, microprocessor-based field instruments installed today are HART-compatible.

Unlike other fieldbus solutions, Profibus allows for direct integration of HART devices.

In view of the large number of installed HART devices, the Profibus HART specification was developed to enable the mapping of the HART client-master-server model on Profibus.

Installed in the engineering or asset management stations, a communications channel allows transparent remote access to diagnostic information and parameters.

Profibus Targets Process Industries.

Fieldbus technology is gaining traction in the process industries not only due to perceived benefits such as lower installation costs, but also other benefits such as enabling sophisticated tools like predictive maintenance through the use of intelligent asset management.

Profibus in particular offers a unique value proposition to various process industries.

Chemicals and Petrochemicals.

The chemical industry produces a wide range of products for consumer use as well as preliminary products for other industries such as automobile and building materials.

These industries employ a variety of different manufacturing processes - from batch processes in fine and specialty chemicals to continuous processes in bulk chemicals.

In addition, discrete applications such as filling, packaging and labeling are often integrated into these processes, especially in the manufacture of consumer products.

Chemical plants tend to be large, centralised facilities that place special demands on automation equipment and machines over lifecycles often in excess of 15 years.

A single plant may employ thousands of simple actuators and sensors in addition to a wide range of more complex field instruments and analytical devices.

These devices produce and consume large numbers of analogue process and control variables that are communicated between controllers and devices.

Many plants also employ smart motor control centres to provide controlled motion for mixers, pumps, valves and transportation equipment.

Plant equipment must be designed to operate in dusty, corrosive and often explosive environments.

High availability of automation systems means employing redundant control systems and networks and is critical in chemical manufacturing, especially in continuous processes that may run for years without stopping.

To meet these requirements, Profibus offers a large number of redundancy options such as two redundant, separate copper lines or fault tolerant optical ring structures.

The use of a fieldbus in chemical manufacturing offers users a number of tangible benefits.

In most cases, networking field devices via a fieldbus can cut documentation, installation and material costs substantially.

As a rule of thumb, the larger the application, the greater the benefits from a fieldbus, which is why many new projects or 'bulldozer' revamps are planned around a fieldbus architecture.

Start-up costs can also be lowered due to a reduction of the time needed to perform loop checks, while non-fieldbus legacy devices can be networked via remote I/O blocks that connect to the fieldbus.

Finally, field devices can be calibrated more conveniently over the fieldbus rather than on-site, both during start-up and at regular calibration intervals during normal operations.

Profibus architecture is especially suited to meet the demands of chemical manufacturers.

Data transfers rates of up to 12 Mbps allow a fast exchange of large data quantities between controller and devices, while the typically long distances between devices in a chemical plant can easily be bridged using repeaters and a fiber-optic bus medium.

Profibus offers wide range of application-specific profiles to meet specific needs, such as PROFIdrive for motion applications or PA Devices for intelligent field instruments that can take advantage of the network's high data rate while allowing a larger number of devices to be connected to the network than other fieldbus solutions.

PROFIsafe is profile for safety components that allows safe communication up to safety level SIL 3 according to IEC 61508.

Users can also protect their investment in existing 4-20 mA or HART devices by directly interfacing these to Profibus.

By far the most important advantage of Profibus for chemical manufacturers is its single communication layer, which allows integrated communication across all network media from the field level to the control level.

This seamless communication provides the basis for asset management software to monitor the performance of field devices, helping to predict faults in advance and reduce maintenance costs.

No compromises made over quality and productivity The Gildemeister Twin 32/42, a new 2-spindle lathe centre for bar and chuck work has a distance between centres of 210mm, acceleration 1G, rapid feeds of 30m/min in all axes, turret indexing times of only 0,1 seconds and an acceleration time of the spindle motors to reach 8000 rev/min in 1 second. These are the most important characteristics of the Twin 32 which will particularly impress suppliers to the automotive industry and users from the hydraulics, fittings or electrical/electronic industry. The Gildemeister engineers' propensity for innovation can be seen in the machine base alone, which is made of a Meehanite cast and provides for a high rigidity due to FEM optimisation.

In addition, the 60deg machine base ensures optimum chip clearance.

The machine top stands in an oil tray and, as a result, any coolant dropping off automatically reaches the chip conveyor.

Another focus of the developers' activities was the minimisation of down time, which particularly entails a maximisation of the dynamic force.

The Twin 32 provides an acceleration of 1G (this acceleration due to gravity) due to highly dynamic feed drives, and to the excellent linear guiding systems, high rapid feeds of up to 30m/min are possible.

The other features of the Twin 32 are also pure high-tech.

Drive-based automation is becoming increasingly important in mechanical engineering, with modular machine concepts being the key driving force behind this trend.
Lenze has developed a servo controller with an integrated PLC called the 9300 Servo PLC. The drive is available with power ratings from 0.37 to 75kW, and PLC functions include real-time and multitasking operations, processing time of 0.7us/bit and I/O expandable to 64 inputs, 64 outputs. Preconfigured software solutions can easily adapt to the requirements of varied applications, making the Servo PLC well suited to a wide range of industries.

Drive-based automation is becoming increasingly important in mechanical engineering, with modular machine concepts being the key driving force behind this trend.

They provide an efficient means of creating complex systems by combining ready-to-use machine standards.

Freely programmable, intelligent servo controllers are the key elements in implementing these concepts.

Combined with expertly designed hardware and software, they create a complete automation system.

There are three software options available with the Servo PLC, the first is 'Positioning drives' which would be typically used in material transport, stacking and storage, rotary tables and robotics.
The 'Cam software' package suiting contouring, filling, packing and cross-cutters, and the third 'Winder drives' offers open and closed loops solutions with applications including winding of cables, wires, textiles, paper, sheet metal and foil.

A signal processor developed specifically for the servo drives is responsible for the exact control of synchronous and asynchronous motors, thereby ensuring precise, fast and dynamic motion sequences.

Resolvers, incremental encoders, SinCos encoders or absolute value encoders can be used as feedback systems for speed and position feedback.

Lenze provides a system bus based on CANopen as standard for networking the controllers.

This option also provides the basis for synchronising internal program sequences if required.

The new 'Speed' 32-10 linear automatic lathe from DMG incorporates every feature to facilitate highly efficient, complete machining of long workpieces typically for the automotive, hydraulic and pneumatic, electronics and medical engineering sectors. It combines the latest linear drive technology for the highest and safe dynamic response with a maximum precision tolerance of 0.0015mm on the outside diameter. The re-designed work area allows machining with up to three tools in simultaneous operation resulting in maximum productivity and flexibility for both simple and complex parts up to 33mm in diameter.

A number of features contribute to this superior performance in addition to the two linear drives.

These provide acceleration along the axes from 0 to 40m/min in just 0.04s significantly reducing idle times.

Also important to the machine's design are the main and counter spindles whose integrated motors with mechanical collet operate independently at speeds up to 12,000 rev/min.

The 16i TB Fanuc Series controller ensures optimum machine performance.

The new 10.4in colour display, PCMCIA and Windows interfaces enhance the ease of operation and allow efficient communication with higher-level networks.

The Speed linear Series with sliding headstock has the ability to be upgraded based on double-sided machining with five-, seven-, nine- or even ten-axes technology with two spindles and two carriages.

The machine can also be equipped for thread whirling, slanted milling or deep hole drilling.

The Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering at the University of Sheffield has commissioned a dynamometer drive package donated by Lenze for use in its teaching and research. The system, with capacity to test machines up to 22kW, is being used for 4th-year undergraduate student projects and by Electrical Machines and Drives Research Group personnel. The department has a high academic reputation, and is known worldwide.

It achieved 5-star ratings in both the 1996 and 2000 Research Assessment Exercises.

The Electrical Machines and Drives Research Group (EMD) undertakes research on a broad range of topics related to future developments in electrical engineering.

It currently consists of around 60 academic, research and technical personnel working on applications in areas such as automotive, aerospace and consumer products.

It is one of the leaders in its field, and attracts research funding averaging around GBP 1 million a year.

In line with a policy of encouraging relevant university research, drive and automation specialists, Lenze has donated a complete package of a panel mounted dynamometer drive system.

Rockwell Automation is claiming a quantum leap in soft motor starting with the launch of two new Allen-Bradley units, the SMC-3 and SMC-Delta. The latest electronic circuitry and packaging techniques have been combined to produce class-leading soft starters that offer three-phase control within a footprint only 45mm wide. SMC soft starters feature a built in electronic overload and SCR bypass contactor.

By reducing the number of components and amount of heat generated, panel space is kept to a minimum.

Soft starters limit power line disturbances and reduce inrush currents, while reducing stress on the motor to extend operational life and minimise downtime.

They are ideal for applications such as compressors, chillers, pumps, conveyors and crushers where direct-online starting could result in damage to mechanical systems.

The SMC-3 is suitable for a wide range of starting applications that require the control and flexibility of a soft start, while the SMC-Delta is specifically designed as a replacement for a traditional star-delta starter.

The SMC-3 is a smart and compact unit, with an integrated design that reduces the number components required, optimising panel space and making installation quick and easy.

Baldor has launched a new version of its Mint system development environment to support the evolving needs of machinery and automation OEMs. Already one of the most popular motion control programming tools worldwide, the latest Mint-mt version incorporates new multi-tasking capability, a virtual machine environment, and high level commands for common applications to speed time to market. Multi-tasking addresses the general pressure to reduce time to market, and manage escalating equipment complexity in the form of demand for more features such as graphical user interfaces, fieldbus and factory networking, and sophisticated safety mechanisms.

The multi-tasking kernel embedded in Mint-mt allows developers to split control software into modules, reducing complexity and allowing several programmers to work on the system simultaneously if required.

It also offers a means to reduce equipment costs in some applications by allowing one Mint controller to manage multiple stations for example.

The multi-tasking kernel is pre-emptive in operation, with a priority scheme to ensure that key tasks are performed deterministically.

Advanced software principles have been employed in Mint-mt to give OEMs further advantages.

A key introduction is the rewriting of the language in the form of a virtual machine environment.