Motors and drives set for launch

Dean Palmer looks at two recently developed motors, an all-stainless steel servomotor that withstands frequent washdown and an integrated stepper motor and drive Due to be launched at this month's Machine Building 2005 show, is a new range of all-stainless steel servo motors that are designed to withstand high pressure washdown environments and which look ideal for harsh, volatile food or liquid hygiene applications. Baldor's SSBSM stainless steel motors include an IP67, 304 stainless steel housing that withstands pressure cleaning with caustic materials of up to 103 bar. Other protection features include an FDA (US Food and Drugs Administration) shaft seal that complies with food industry and BISSC (US Baking Industry Sanitation Standards Committee) standards. The motors also have a potted stator for environmental and high voltage protection and there's an internal thermal switch that prevents overheating. The unit is UL rated for a 130°C temperature rise. The lubricating grease is an advanced Exxon Polyrex EX Ployurea, which extends the life of the unit, and there's a laser-etched nameplate to ensure there are no areas for process media and bacteria to hide in. The servomotors come in five frame sizes with continuous torques up to 32Nm and peak torques from three to four times the continuous duty ratings. The motors can also be specified with standard or low inertia to help OEMs optimise machine performance for specific applications and loads. The motors look ideal for packaging, pharmaceutical, automotive, food and liquid processing, hygiene and oral care, washdown and beauty care products. Another recently developed motor that looks ideal for applications in which size and simplicity of implementation are vital, is an integrated, compact stepper motor with onboard drive electronics. Dubbed the DSM series by Baldor, these micro stepping motors simplify development and machine building for OEMs by eliminating the need to find room in the equipment for drives and drive-to-motor cabling, reducing potential problems of electrical noise. Baldor is supporting the new motor-drives with its 'NextMove' range of motion controllers. These offer developers the option of PCB modules for system integration in Eurocard or PCIbus form-factors, or ready-to-use packaged controllers. All these options provide multi-axis control facilities using the Mint motion language. Baldor offered an example here of a NextMove-ESB, which provides a three-axis servo motor control solution combined with control for four stepper axes, in a rugged enclosure with a USB interface. The 1.8° stepping motor can be configured for use in any of 14 step sizes from 0.5 to 256 micro-steps per full step, using a Windows utility and a motor-to-PC set up cable. The chosen setting is stored in non-volatile memory and can be changed on-the-fly by the motion controller if required. There are three DSM units in the series, with frame sizes of 17, 23 and 34. Each of these sizes can be selected with one, two or three winding stacks, offering designers a choice of holding torque ratings from 22.6Ncm up to 749Ncm. In order to optimise the motor and drive for a specific application, users can select from a number of configuration options, including single or dual shafts, optical encoder or control knob, and flying lead or connector interface.