Functional demonstration for materials handling industries

With Profibus communication and fully synchronised control across the entire multi-axis system, the demonstration rig displays the diversity of features and functions available from NORD DRIVESYSTEMS’ electronic and mechanical drive technology. The walk-around rig includes a combination of general purpose and closed loop positioning inverter controlled geared motors driving belt and roller conveyors linked with mechanical elevating elements; these interact with machine control components such as proximity sensors and light barriers to load, transport and stack sample crates.

For the left and right load pickup axes, NORD SI series universal worm geared motors are controlled with motor-mounted SK 135E soft starters. This decentralised configuration includes actuation via Profibus where sensors in the form of light barriers are used monitor the position of the crates which are stopped by switching off the soft starter.

All other axes on the rig feature high-efficiency NORDBLOC.1 bevel geared motors:

The lower roller conveyor geared motor is driven by an SK 180E frequency inverter – an economic general purpose combination for simple speed control of horizontal conveyors. With material position detected via a light barrier, the sensor is directly connected to the inverter with information transmitted to the controller via Profibus.

The upper belt conveyor displays more sophisticated control with an SK 200E series inverter. Contactless backing up of crates via sensors directly wired to the inverter allows the stopping position of the crates to be set via the inverter over the communication bus and also handles synchronisation with the load pick-up inverter for transferring the crates into the lifting equipment.

The motor-mounted roller conveyor inverter and machine-mounted belt conveyor inverter demonstrate the flexibility of the decentralised SK 200E series.

For the elevating axes at both ends of the rig, SK 200E inverters demonstrate the POSICON positioning option available in the range. In this case the motor is fitted with a CANopen absolute encoder which is directly wired to the inverter. The encoder is protected by a second cover. The raising and lowering function includes a motor mounted brake and brake management on the inverter, with further external proximity switches installed on the elevators for safety purposes. Brake management is taken care of via an 180VDC output and the high overload potential is countered with a brake resistor.