Softstart UK Limited

SoftStart UK has built a fleet of variable speed drive control cabinets that it is making available for hire, to address a growing need across many sectors of industry. The company’s managing director Stuart Harvey says that in recent times there has been an increasing demand for prompt solutions to immediate situations.

Softstart UK has introduced a new range of HMIs into the UK that combine excellent control and visualisation capability with an innovative widescreen design. Manufactured by Delta Electronics, the DPO-B series HMIs are available in screen sizes from 4.7in to 10in, with features including built-in Ethernet communications, the ability to display over 65,000 colours, three sets of COM ports, a USB port, support for audio output, and support for SD card program loading and backup.

As the parent of teenage boys Stuart Harvey is inclined to classify Playstations and Xboxes as the scourge of a generation. But as the forward-thinking managing director of Softstart UK, he sees them as technologies that could transform industrial automation.

Meeting the needs of general purpose OEM drive applications such as textiles, printing and packaging, food and beverage, and materials handling, the C2000 variable speed drive from Softstart UK uses field oriented control as its core technology, taking drive technology to the next level.

Steve Hallas, has joined SoftStart UK Ltd as Business Development Manager for the North of England, Midlands and Scotland, completing a 60 percent growth in the sales and support team since June. Previously with Westin Drives, Steve has 25 years experience working with automation, drives and controls and other electro-technical technologies.

To meet the requirements of the most demanding motion control applications in industry and to satisfy the needs of high-precision positioning control requested by machine designers, Softstart UK has introduced the ASDA-A2 series of servo motors and servo drives.

Softstart UK is building 1.3MW softstarts for five giant irrigation pumps being used in a huge Ministry of Water agricultural development scheme in northern Iraq, and six 3.3MW units for foul water booster pumps in Egypt’s El-Abour Sanitation Project.

A new motor, variable speed drive and control system designed, manufactured and installed by Softstart UK is providing Perkins Engines with enhanced facilities for testing and evaluating diesel engine fuel pump systems at its Global Engine Development centre in Peterborough.

When EdF (Cottam Power) needed a starter for the MV drive fitted to a hammer mill at its Nottingham site, most suppliers claimed that only a costly variable speed drive would be suitable. Softstart UK, however, with its wide experience of similarly demanding applications, was confident in offering instead a much more cost-effective MV soft starter. This has proved entirely satisfactory in service, and its adoption has allowed EdF to make substantial savings on the overall budget for the project.