Baldor is launching its new Ethernet-compatible three-phase ac drive range. Compatible with both TCP/IP and Ethernet Powerlink, the deterministic Ethernet standard, the Motiflex AC drives join single-phase drives, a machine controller and a development environment.
Together, the Ethernet-compatible range provides machine builders with a single source of supply for all the key motion system elements.
David Greensmith of Baldor comments: The release of the Motiflex three-phase ac drive range gives us a complete real-time Ethernet motion control solution - allowing machine builders to take advantage of Ethernet immediately. The technical benefits of a high-speed machine network have been well publicisedbut it is the simple factors of system cost savings and product availability that are being overlooked.
"Machine builders are definitely sold on the system-building benefits of the architecture. For exampleI calculate that a single Ethernet CAT5e cable eliminates somewhere in the region of 40 to 50 cable strippingsoldering and assembly tasks for each drive node. Ethernet now accounts for the majority of our sales enquiriesand this product release opens the technology to almost all users."
From its first 18 months' experience with Ethernet motionBaldor has proved the technology to be very attractive in small to medium-sized multi-axis systems. The savings come mainly in the area of simpler engineeringand reduced control hardwarecabling and assembly. Even though the actual cost of the Ethernet elements is a few per cent higher than traditional motion equipmentthe overall savings can be significant.
The addition of three-phase ac drives means that users can build all-Ethernet systems with the optimum choice of motor technology for each axisfrom small to large loads. Rotary and linear versions of brushless servoand ac vector motors are all software-selectableand these will be joined shortly by support for dc servos.
Many machine builders are trying to move to all-electronic architectures to provide software-centrichighly-reconfigurable equipment. Baldor's new Ethernet technology is particularly beneficial for thisas its single machine controller can manage different system components such as I/Oabsolute encodersEthernet Powerlink DS402 positioning drivessteppers and up to 16 interpolated axes. This means that machine builders can replace pneumatic actuators with stepper or servo motorsfor example - with no increase in controller hardware - thereby eliminating the costs and issues associated with maintaining a secondary supply of clean compressed air.
Applications can be implemented with the Ethernet Powerlink protocol. This provides a deterministic real-time performance that makes it suitable for handling the most demanding motion control tasksas well as a means to link seamlessly with standard Ethernet networks. An alternative is the use of standard TCP/IP protocolswhich can be suitable if the automation in question does not have any demanding time-synchronisation or multi-axis co-ordination considerations.
Free ActiveX toolsprovided as part of Baldor's development environmentmake it very easy for developers to create Windows-based PC applications that can communicate with the real-time motion hardware via Ethernetsuch as a man-machine interfaceor remote monitoring software.
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