Posted to News on 2nd Jan 2013, 18:44
Motornet DC - a servo motor with integrated drive
Parker Electromechanical Automation is launching a new drive family, the Motornet DC. The Motornet DC is a brushless servomotor with integrated electronics for flexible and modular mechatronics. Compared with a traditional approach where the electronics is de-centralised or mount on the motor's rear end, the Motornet DC alternative offers a very compact system. Typical applications for the Motornet DC include packaging machines and rotary tables with numerous motors mounted on board.
This motor has been developed to resolve the difficulty many customers have of limited space in cabinets, or a problem in existing equipment, where a large wiring effort takes time and money, especially with a high number of axes within a machine. It can be very difficult to mount motors with two wires each on rotating carousels, and so this system promises to make things simple. Then obviously there is a clear trend for de-centralisation.
For OEMs and machine builders, Motornet DC provides the opportunity to design and build cost-effective modular designs suitable for today's modern packaging and production machines. Furthermore, Motornet DC is the first servomotor with an integrated servo drive which has an EtherCAT interface, based on the well-known CoE-Profile (CAN over EtherCAT).
The intelligent cabling concept combines both auxiliary and DC bus voltages, EtherCAT bus signals and an additional system diagnostics bus (which allows access to individual drives even when the EtherCAT bus is not in operation), in one single hybrid cable. Multiple Motornet DC servo modules can be connected in a simple daisy chain architecture, removing the need for costly distribution boxes.
Common coupling of all drives via a shared DC bus permits energy-efficient sizing, and those with brakes can also transfer their energy directly to the drives in motoring mode. In some cases this makes the central braking resistor completely redundant, while in others it can be reduced significantly in size.
A typical application example would be a carousel filling and capping machine, where as many as 30 servo drives could be required. The Motornet DC can reduce the cabling cost in such applications. In addition, only one single hybrid cable has to be connected to a slip ring, whereas conventional multi-drive systems require multiple slip ring contacts. Calculations have shown that a reduction of the control cabinet volume of up to 70 per cent can be achieved.
Motornet DC can also support the connection of individual stand-alone machines to create bespoke process systems, once again connected via a single hybrid connector to the main machine master. This innovative drive offers installers a plug-and-play system, and returns valuable floorspace to end users due to reduced cabinet size and number.
Micromech is Parker's motion partner and can offer a bespoke system to meet motion control needs; for more information about Motornet DC - a servo motor with integrated drive and other motion control products, email [email protected], or visit the website at www.micromech.co.uk/.
