Building on the success of the Altivar 31, global specialist in energy management, Schneider Electric has introduced the energy saving Altivar 312 drive. Compact in size, the 312 is designed to make industrial and commercial machines more efficient, while at the same time simplifying integration into unified control architectures.
“Ideally suited to the needs of material handling, packaging, food, beverage, pump, fan and other OEM machines, the Altivar 312 variable frequency drive offers high over torque and is the one of the only drives with a remote graphical keypad,” says Rynhard Davids, product manager for drives at Schneider Electric South Africa. “It delivers performance and reliability in a product that is easy to set up, use and integrate, allowing users to improve machine design, decrease cost of ownership and accelerate time to market.”
Open communication
The drive integrates seamlessly into architectures and communicates with all control system products to optimise machine performance. It comes standard with integrated communication ports for Modbus and CANopen networks and optional cards for CANopen Daisy Chain, DeviceNet and Profibus DP networks.
Ultra reliable
The new drive comes with coated cards (IEC 60721-3-3 Classes 3C2 and 3S2) and can withstand extreme temperatures in the range -10°C to 50°C without de-rating – even when installed side-by-side. Its integrated electro-magnetic compatibility (EMC) also minimises power disturbances and electrical interference.
Easy to set up
“Auto-tuning, multiloader and 50 pre-loaded application functions to manage common facility processes make set-up and installation a breeze,” explains Davids. “The intuitive navigation, remote graphical keyboard and Bluetooth capability further enhance the user’s ability to optimise machine control from day one.
“The new Altivar drive redefines the concept of ‘ease of use’ by integrating the best-in-class features from the entire family of Altivar drives into its user interface. This starts with an intuitive rotary wheel for navigation and adjustments, as well as large control buttons on the face of the drive, protected by a snap-lock seal. Users also have advanced features such as the graphical keypad used with Altivar 61 and 71 drives, the new LED display of the Altivar 12 drive or even Bluetooth wireless technology.”
A common platform
The Schneider Electric SoMove software enables users to prepare, test and transfer the files for drive configuration. Configurations can be loaded in two ways, either directly from PC to drive using a USB/RJ45 cable or Bluetooth wireless network, or without a PC, via an SD memory card using multiloader.
Users can also duplicate configurations using Schneider Electric’s simple loader and multiloader technology, or the Altivar 312’s Bluetooth interface. The multiloader stores configurations for several drives on a standard SD memory card and allows users to simply load directly into their PCs or drives. The simple loader maintains the settings of a single drive for transfer.
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