Industrial Safety & Variable Speed Drives
Published on : Wednesday 03-02-2021
Tushar Narwade presents a variable speed drive manufacturer’s perspective on industrial safety.
Industrial safety is a fundamental requirement, and it is the responsibility of hardware manufacturers to offer products with market-leading safety features, so that factory managers can provide a safe working environment for employees. In India, as in many other countries, employee safety is increasingly moving up the agenda – and rightly so. Functional safety is about reducing risk of accidents to an acceptable level, and it is prescribed by a series of safety standards: IEC, ISO and EN. Safe torque off (STO) is the most common and basic drive-integrated safety function.
The ability of STO to perform the safety function is measured by the Safety Integrity Level (SIL). SIL 3 is the highest level applicable for industrial equipment, which results in a very low probability of failure. STO guarantees safe machine stop without using additional contactors. Replacing magnetic contactors reduces both cabinet size and installation costs; and it is also safer because it prevents the possibility of arcing events. Additionally, STO offers greater reliability than with using a contactor because it has no moving parts. STO works by blocking the pulses of the drive, ensuring that no torque-generating energy can continue to travel to the motor, and preventing unintentional startups.
Here at Inovance – a $1bn+ global industrial automation company with pan-Indian sales and support – we offer a full range of industrial automation products from variable speed drives and servos, to CNCs, PLCs and HMIs. Our SV660 single axis EtherCAT servo – which is equipped with STO functionality – is one of our leading servo products. The drive offers high dynamic performance with a compact footprint (30% smaller than the equivalent previous generation product), is user friendly, and is extremely easy to set up and tune. An ultra-fast 4.5 kHz current loop bandwidth allows the motor to follow the motion profile with minimal error. The drive achieves a radically improved system performance with a shorter settling time and higher throughput. An isolated cooling channel prevents dust contamination of internal electrical components, and conformally coated PCBs are resistant to 3S2 and 3C2 environments providing further protection.
The drive has been designed from the ground up with safety in mind. That’s why it features both STO SIL 3 and also short output winding – which ensures safe breaking even in the case of a failure in the motor holding brake. While, in the Indian market, STO is often an expensive addition to a drive, this is not the case with the SV660N servo drive. STO comes fitted to SV660N as standard, and the drive is highly competitive in price with similar non-STO products in the Indian market. All our latest products have STO capability, such as the MD810 AC MultiDrive and the IS810 MultiAxes EtherCAT servo.
Tushar Narwade is a Specialist – Servo Motion at Inovance Technology India. Founded in 2003, the Inovance Group is a leading global provider of industrial automation solutions. To continue the conversation about industrial safety, get in touch with Tushar Narwade directly: [email protected]
