Glass bottle manufacturer opts for decentralised drives

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August 2004 Motion Control & Drives

The installation of a complete new line at Consol Glass' bottle manufacturing plant at Clayville, Johannesburg has involved the changeover from installing central drives on separate panels to the use of fully integrated decentralised drives.

As part of this project, which was principally contracted to systems integrators high tech systems, Danfoss was asked to supply the drives. In previous applications at Clayville, Danfoss would supply drives and Consol would make up one panel for each drive, or else install all equipment in a central panel.

Using the Danfoss FCD300 product range, which comes fully integrated, Consol Glass has been able to do away with using panels. The FCD300 comes with IP66, has an isolator on board and runs on a Profibus network. With a 24 V power failure back-up option, should there be a power failure the drives can be continually monitored and then prepared for restart once the mains power is restored.

In certain cases there is still a need for central drives, which the Danfoss VLT2800 can be used to accommodate.

The FCD300 drive units are easy to swap out if faults do occur, without the need to remove any of the wiring or cabling, as a simple four-screw system allows a change of drive within two minutes. The IP66 enclosure means the units can be sprayed down with water and cope with dust and dirt in the working environment, so the chances of a failure due to external factors are minimised.

Although the decentralised concept may appear more costly at first glance, the savings on the use of less power cabling, less control cabling, and easier fault control, more than compensate for the initial investment made.

Says Johan Pool, who is the process electronics manager at the Consol Glass head office in Wadeville, "We have been more than satisfied with the running of the decentral drives in our new line. Operators no longer have handheld terminals where the settings can be altered, as the operation is all run from the PLC via the Profibus network. This means less unwanted changes being made and more control of the system overall".

Over a hundred drives were supplied by Danfoss and while most were off-the-shelf items, Danfoss customised some options to suit the requirements of its customer. Danfoss' matrix ordering system allows ease of customising the drive the customer requires. This can be done via the Danfoss website on the drive configurator, or the Danfoss sales department can assist the customer personally.

For more information contact David Dyce, sales engineer, Danfoss Drives, 011 803 8390, [email protected], www.danfoss.co.za

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Motion Control & Drives

Glass bottle manufacturer opts for decentralised drives

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