Case Studies

Q: Major Time, Energy and Cost Savings for Animal Feed Suppliers

THE CHALLENGE

A feed mix is made from up to 26 ingredients, which is then separated out and particles larger than specification are fed in batches to a hammermill. Each mill has eight rows of 22 hammers (rotated at up to 3,000 rpm) and meshes of 3mm to 12 mm fitted around the diameter to determine the final particle size. Four hundred varieties of processed feed can then be extruded to the required pellet or nut size for a certain animal feed. Bouman experienced several problems with direct on line power, it was taking a whole minute to run the mills up to speed and with a fixed speed, it was difficult to make the product fine enough. Due to inertia, the mills took 15 minutes to stop, so downtime could also be considerable.

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Q: Simplified System Design

THE CHALLENGE

As they’ve embarked on a new product development, the Schulthess team has been on the lookout for an inverter drive supplier that can meet their demands for quality and performance, while also offering a technological advantage and satisfying the regulatory requirements. Inverter drives are crucial components in the design of the laundry solution as proprietary inverter drive technology provides smooth, reliable power for better wash and extraction, reduces energy and water consumption and improves the customer experience.

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Q: Drive provides cool energy saving solution at Henry Denny

THE CHALLENGE:

The plant has a large ammonia compressor to keep the rooms within carefully controlled temperatures. The compressor controller calls for more or less compression of ammonia coolant with immediate response from the drive. Previously the compressor was soft-started and run up to full speed on demand but when the company had to replace the soft starter, Ciaran McSherry, Henry Denny’s Electrical Engineer, recommended a change to a variable speed AC drive.

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Q: Compressor Boosts Performance

THE CHALLENGE

Imagine a state-of-the-art recycling facility that processes 120,000 tonnes of mixed waste per year, from which it produces aggregates and refuse-derived fuel. Avelair won the prestigious contract to design a full compressed air system, including four 110kW rotary screw air compressors, air treatment equipment, compressor management, and the complete pipework system, for a new recycling facility designed to do just that.

The new site deposits mixed wastes via processes that are mainly automated and consist of shredding, optical sorting, trommels, ballistic separators, magnets, and baling.

To guarantee the plant’s efficiency, Avelair required a drive to power the compressors, allowing the ramp-up of the motor speed to produce the compressed air to meet onsite demand.

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Q: Control Techniques Drives Chosen for Italian Crane Refurbishment

THE CHALLENGE

One of the last cranes to be refurbished was a ship- to-shore (STS) gantry crane manufactured by Italian crane company MGM OMG. LSCT required rapid container handling, fast and precise crane positioning to provide the required productivity, maximum crane availability and reliability, as well as excellent technical support and effective preventative maintenance using an improved faults analysis facility.

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Q: Improved Efficiency for STS Crane in Honduras

THE CHALLENGE

Due to tough global competition in the international container shipping market, the port of Puerto Cortés is constantly seeking ways to enhance efficiency. As part of the ongoing drive, ENP decided to refurbish one of the two 20-year-old PACECO manufactured STS cranes to improve its performance. The goal was to improve container handling, provide more rapid and precise crane positioning, and reduce downtime and maintenance.

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Q: Unidrives Retrofitted to Floating Grab Cranes

THE CHALLENGE

On conventional cranes the slewing motion is controlled by a system of slip-ring motors and rotor resistors, which doesn’t work well at low speeds. The sudden changes in torque between resistor steps waste energy and the system requires regular maintenance. When replacing the slip-ring motors with a modern drive system the results can be disappointing. It is almost impossible to control the swaying of a crane’s load with a conventional speed-controlled drive system hence why a different solution was sought.

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Q: Unique Control Software Enables Superior Crane Operation

THE CHALLENGE

The operational software used by luffing cranes usually needs to perform static weighing by a load cell after the initial lift, which creates an uncomfortable jolt for the operator caused by the startstop- start of the hoist. NTK Technik GmbH wanted to develop more sophisticated crane control software that would eliminate this jolt, making the process more comfortable for the operator and the hoisting system more efficient.

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Q: 200,000 Trips and Many Passengers Later, 30-Year-Old Drive gets a Refurb

THE CHALLENGE

Client to The Motor Control Warehouse, Aberystwyth Cliff Railway, had a challenge to solve. The company realised the railway’s control system was becoming harder to maintain due to components being made obsolete. The original control panel was built in the 1980s and utilised Control Techniques’ first-generation Mentor DC drive - the world’s first variable speed drive to use a microprocessor in its control system.

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Q: Drives Have a Major Part to Play in RSC Automation

THE CHALLENGE

The challenge was to automate the movement of back-drops and scenery, and the complex system of lighting arrays, which included the development, design, manufacture and installation of 60 winches plus hoists for 30 light arrays. Often different productions are performed in the matinee and the evening and the RSC has just two hours to complete the changeover, so it must be swift and easy to control. The theatre renovation was designed to bring actors and audiences closer together with stage remodelling and lighting effects that could only be achieved with the cutting-edge electronics offered by Trekwerk and Control Techniques.

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Q: Fan Power Keeps Dutch Skydivers Flying High

THE CHALLENGE

The indoor skydive centre was set up as somewhere for both professional skydivers and the general public to practice. The large fans that provide the air for the two flight chambers within the 23.5-metre tower needed a softstart, simple speed control and maximum energy efficiency to keep costs down. In addition, the system had to bring fresh air into the tower to keep ambient temperatures within acceptable limits.

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Q: Stage Effects Lift Music Productions

THE CHALLENGE

Top bands and their managers recognise that their audiences have high expectations of show performance throughout, which is why WIcreations hire in specialists to carefully choreograph their shows. 
“These designers come to us to develop the technical aspects of their ideas,” explains Willems. “All bands, of course, want to put on shows with exclusive elements, something that will appeal to and astound their audience, something that they’ve never seen before. We facilitate these creative ideas into technical reality, mainly using well-known techniques and technologies, such as electric motors, AC drives, linear guides and so on.

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Q: Unidrive Drives Chosen for Theme Park Ride Refurbishments

THE CHALLENGE

Owners of the theme park, the French ‘Compagnie des Alpes’, have invested heavily in refurbishing many of the rides, with a focus on safety. When updating The Dalton terror, the company required the same faultless and precise movement of speed profile of the previous Control Techniques drives originally installed in 1998 to haul the ride’s seats to the top of the tower.

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Q: AC Drives Improve Safety of Woodworking Machines

THE CHALLENGE

Tighter requirements for the emergency stop feature on woodworking machines, which stops the heavy, high-speed vertical milling heads moving when an access door is opened, were brought in, meaning that DC brakes were no longer up to the task. Krüsi turned to Fichter and Zimmerli for a solution.

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Q: Drives cut operating costs at Swiss sawmill

THE CHALLENGE:

To be able to compete in a very aggressive European marketplace, Scierie Zahnd SA needed to significantly increase their timber output without experiencing a corresponding rise in energy consumption and operating costs.

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Q: Latvian Boiler Company Cuts Costs with Commander SK Drives

THE CHALLENGE

SIA GRANDEG was seeking expansion and to do so needed to develop its range of boilers. The biggest growth potential for the company was the domestic sector in northern Europe, Russia and other (CIS) countries, where a sophisticated product is required. To meet customers’ demands, SIA GRANDEG wanted to supply a boiler with much better performance and greater reliability.

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Q: Digitax boosts performance by 30% at Italian food packaging plant

THE CHALLENGE

Automation One sought a solution for its customer, ENCA, to increase productivity and performance in its bespoke welding machines. Its systems are used to produce bags and packaging for fresh and frozen products, including food, medication and bodily fluids. Transporting these items requires complete thermal stability, which is achieved through the unique manufacturing processes provided by ENCA and Automation One’s innovative solutions.

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Q: Cheese Becomes Fast Food for French Supplier

THE CHALLENGE

Director of Tippagral SA, Neil McAuley, explained, “We portion some 7,000 tonnes of cheese per year, mainly Emmental, but also Cheddar, Gouda, Edam and Mozzarella. Some 75% of our throughput is grated, but many customers, particularly wholesalers and manufacturers of pizza and sandwich/baguette producers, require the cheese to be cut into specific sizes and shapes, e.g. 9x9cm, 7.2x7cm and 12x5cm. This machine will dramatically streamline this aspect of our operation and cut our labour costs

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Q: Honey Harvesting

THE CHALLENGE:

For beekeepers globally, the most common method of harvesting honey is with an extractor. It is cleaner and allows them to replace the wax back into the hive for the bees to re-fill. Týča’s honeycomb extractors are fully automated honey extraction machines, where centrifugal force is used for the separation process. Jaroslav Týča, the company owner, said, “We were looking for a new supplier of drives for our honey extractor centrifuges. Control Techniques was recommended to us by an existing satisfied customer.”

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Q: Providing precision control in massive ice cream plant

THE CHALLENGE:

From portion control and assembly, through to the packaging and palletising section, the Algida (‘Walls’ in the UK) plant’s ability to produce ice cream products on a vast scale relies on precise motion control. Special-purpose machines, along the line, portion and shape the ice cream, add additional ingredients, and insert the stick. The completed ices are then wrapped, sealed and packaged prior to palletising ready for despatch.

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Q: The Drive to Produce More Pot Noodles

THE CHALLENGE

Production lines had already been improved and upgraded with Unidrive variable speed drives, reducing downtime and increasing throughput, and production line three had recently been automated to give greater reliability and production. Mark Edwards, Project Manager at Unilever explained, “Line three had been running Control Techniques Vector drives for 10 years, and these had performed well, but we wanted to bring the whole line under PLC control”.

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Q: The Variable Speed Drives Behind Swiss Cheese Production

THE CHALLENGE

Approximately 1200 dairies produce around 170,000 tonnes of cheese each year in Switzerland. Much of it is in the form of large blocks or ‘wheels’ up to 1 metre in diameter, weighing anything from a few kilograms up to 50 kg or more. When the cheeses are young they must be turned daily and washed with brine as part pf the maturation process. This is a heavy, labourintensive chore that must be carried out millions of times a day across cheese storage facilities.

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Q: Variable Speed Drives Save the Day at Danish Dairy

THE CHALLENGE

An elevator in the cheese drying system broke down, bringing the entire plant to a standstill. The suppliers estimated that it would take a fortnight to source the parts to rectify the situation with huge ramifications for the stocks of unfinished cheese that would need to be moved, meaning large storage and transport costs would be incurred.

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Q: Commander Stops Noisy Vibrations, Improving Customer Experience at Bowling Alley

THE CHALLENGE

Axxa LTD’s client All Star Lanes in Bloomsbury London, experienced noisy vibrations from their ventilation system, disturbing diners in the restaurant.
Being underground, the bowling alley needs to have a constant flow of fresh air. This was the job of the current fan system. All Star Lanes had two objectives: bring clean air in from above and extract fumes from the kitchen.

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Q: Energy Efficiency Improvements

THE CHALLENGE

The company is constantly seeking ways to optimise the productivity of its manufacturing operations including a strong focus on reducing energy consumption. In 2014, Zanardi approached GBM, a Milan-based supplier to the foundries industry. GBM in turn asked Control Techniques and Leroy-Somer to look at reducing the energy consumption of Zanardi’s central fume aspiration system. The aspiration system, which removes harmful gasses from the air inside the foundry, is essential to protecting the health of factory operators but consumes an enormous amount of energy. Zanardi wanted to investigate ways in which these costs could be reduced without impacting on employee safety.

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Q: Optimised Air Conditioning System

THE CHALLENGE

BnF had decided to replace an asynchronous variable speed drive assembly with a new drive system that would be used to power an air conditioning pump responsible for
half of the library’s reading rooms. This decision was made after an energy optimization study showed that the existing application’s operating efficiency fell to just 50 % in winter.

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Q: Top Marks for HVAC Drives

THE CHALLENGE

Finding a compact yet powerful drive was essential for Mark Eire as the units have a high throughput. Competitors’ drives can be up to 50% larger by volume with panel footprints typically more than 40% bigger, which could not be accommodated, so the company sought another solution.

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Q: Unidrive The Drive of Choice

THE CHALLENGE

The plant needed a drive with the programming flexibility and versatility to deliver on a vast range of tasks. This was across all three core areas of the facility (the body shop, paint shop and final assembly) to simplify maintenance and minimise downtime.

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Q: Variable Speed Drives Provide Cool Savings

THE CHALLENGE

Px limited, the power station’s operating company, needed to replace six two-speed motors for one quadrant of the Q501 cooling tower. The company hoped to overcome the maintenance problems it was experiencing due to shock loads on the blades, bearings and gearboxes, a result of the aggressive environment causing high corrosion. Px limited wanted to re-use the existing control cubicles to make the project cost effective but their narrow dimensions were creating an issue.

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Q: Advanced Elevator System Based on Drive Technology

THE CHALLENGE

The lifts at Peel House were in urgent need of refurbishment. Previously, the lifts had a creep-tofloor control profile, where a series of shaft encoders returned position signals to the controller, indicating when to slow to creep speed. It had been assumed that gearless lift systems (which don’t have the benefit of geared ratios to improve a drive’s effective response) needed a load weighing device to provide the lift controller or variable speed drive with an analogue signal as a torque feed forward signal.

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Q: Drive for Quality in German Lift Market

THE CHALLENGE

When OSMA launched a new gearless range, the company wanted to provide the flexibility and individuality it is known for with an extremely comfortable, accurate and smooth ride – while keeping costs down.

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Q: Variable Speed Drives Keep Up the Pressure in Swiss Elevators

THE CHALLENGE

Bucher is famous for its innovations, including their electronically controlled LRV valve that is insensitive to changes in pressure and temperature, and brought significant energy savings to elevator production, as well as shorter travel times and virtually eliminated creep-to-floor. Striving for further system improvements, Bucher was seeking a way to improve elevator control.

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Q: Drives Power Slitter Machines

THE CHALLENGE

Deacro’s current facility was designed to meet the tremendous demand for converting equipment, while providing the improved service that today’s converters require and a working environment geared towards quality control and optimised service.

In 2004, to ensure its machines retain the high standard of quality, precision and functionality the business has become known for, it began a search for more flexible, dynamic drives. Clarence Beishuizen, Deacro president, said: “There were many drives which were comparable price wise, but none offered the flexibility in programming and customer support as with the CT drives.”

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Q: Rapid Turn Around Saves the Day

THE CHALLENGE

Approximately 20,000 litres of water and a ton of fiberglass form the ingredients for the ceiling tile construction’s stock preparation stage. Central to the process is the pulper agitator. Zentia were let down by their current drive supplier, which could not deliver on time, when carrying out crucial updates to the application.

Kevin Ward, Zentia Control Systems Leader, says, “We could not wait for the drive we had ordered as we couldn’t delay the project any further. The drive had to be in place to reduce the start-up load on the mains supply”.

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Q: Servo Control In a Vacuum

THE CHALLENGE

The most significant challenge in deploying electrical motors in a vacuum environment is avoiding the possibility of corona arcing between electrical conductors. As vacuum levels reduce air pressure within the environment, the rarefied air atmosphere will easily ionize, creating a corona arc that allows current to flow between unprotected high voltage conductors. Once the arc begins, motor winding insulation erodes and results in turn-to-turn short circuits that render the motor winding damaged, thus necessitating replacement of the motor.

In order to prevent damage to the motor and extend its life the voltage applied must be controlled to levels below the application’s Corona Inception Voltage (CIV), a value derived from the pressure and composition of surrounding air. 

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Q: Automated Welding Boosts Towbar Production

THE CHALLENGE

Witter wanted to automate the handling task, previously done manually, and required the solution to integrate with the welding robots. A number of specialist machine manufacturers offered Witter solutions that required PLCs to provide the control and interface but these were deemed too costly.

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Q: Bulk Handling Aids Product Quality

THE CHALLENGE

The standard method of material handling found in South Africa is inefficient, threatening to cause product degradation due to the high contact of the fertiliser with machinery. Contact increases the risk of crushing the fertiliser, resulting in fine dust particles that decrease the product’s value while causing problems for farmers.

C. Steinweg Bridge needed to rebuild its facility after a massive fire in the Durban precinct in 2017. What was a considerable blow provided an opportunity to improve the company’s handling solutions and the control over the end product - the aim to give customers a higher quality product that is more profitable and more beneficial to the end-user.

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Q: Innovative Companies Need Innovative Suppliers

THE CHALLENGE

For a company that manufactures top-of-the-range process weighers; high-speed bagging machines, batch mixing controllers, blending systems, and live Mill monitoring systems (AMIC). Finding the right drives for their customised machines is crucial, ensuring that every machine exceeds customers’ expectations in terms of quality, technological advancements, precision, and reliability. In a crowded drives market, AccuTech needed a drives partner that not only could provide drives to meet their needs but a company that also understood the needs of their customers. Throughout its 30-year history, AccuTech has worked with numerous suppliers to find the right drives, and for the past 15 years, Control Techniques have been the preferred supplier for a number of reasons.

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Q: Compact Drives Handle the Heat

THE CHALLENGE

For more than 20 years, Columbus Stainless has worked with Control Techniques to ensure operations run smoothly. The Control Techniques team recently used its expert engineering
capabilities to upgrade the main hoist of the steel plant’s ladle cranes. 

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Q: Control Techniques drives continuous slab caster at Corus Steelworks

THE CHALLENGE:

Continuous Caster 3 (CC3) was a completely new operation, designed to increase plant output 25%. Previous contracts for Control Techniques had been upgrades, re-utilising existing DC drives. On this project, the team considered the potential benefits of reduced motor maintenance and the reduced downtime from a switch to AC.

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Q: Intelligent Drives Chosen for Precision Metal Cutting

THE CHALLENGE

In order to meet market demand and produce a more competitive product, CAMU needed to reduce the maintenance required and increase reliability of their drives.

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Q: Revolutionary Rotacaster Rocks and Rolls with Commander SK Drives

THE CHALLENGE

Precise and independent control of acceleration, final speed, and deceleration of both axes is crucial in the production of quality castings. The new Rotacaster evenly distributes moulding compound within an empty mould, to create a hollow and light weight model. The dual axis machine also has a “Rock and Roll” feature, ideal for long, narrow moulds that require a gentle rocking motion instead of a complete spin. In this mode, the primary arm is controlled by two adjustable proximity switches that limit the degree of swing, while the turntable simultaneously rotates at the required speed.

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Q: Servo Drives Used for Precision Cutting with Style

THE CHALLENGE

STYLE was searching for more dynamic and flexible drives to incorporate in their machines when they came across Control Techniques’ Rotterdam Drive Centre. Anton Lammers, STYLE Technical Director said, “We looked at 12 drives suppliers and found that Control Techniques was the best for us in several ways.”

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Q: Automation Takes the Strain to Lower Costs of Paving

THE CHALLENGE

“We recognised there was a significant market need for such a vehicle,” explained Mr A. van Wijngaarden, Technical Director of Robostreet. “Here in Holland, the heavy work involved in street paving is a major contributor to 5.9% of employees being off sick through back injuries – a national cost of around 120,000,000. And most countries of the world have a similar problem. Local health and safety legislation is now limiting the amount that can be laid manually and the race is on to build street paving machines that are accurate, safe, fast and cost-effective.”

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Q: Commander SK Proves Cost Effective for Specialist Welding Machine

THE CHALLENGE

Automatic Technologies International required precision control for the production of a heater assembly for a central heating boiler, which entails welding a 22mm pipe to a blank tube end, welding the tube end onto an 80mm tube, then completing the task by welding a flange to the other end of the tube. When welding the flange and vessel end, the motor speed is 80 Hz, but for welding the smaller 80mm pipe in place, the rotation speed is much slower at 20 Hz to give the same surface speed for welding. With two welding speeds, a variable speed drive was required, as well as overall process control. Yet the extra cost of even a small PLC with its associated power supply and larger control box would have made it prohibitively expensive.

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Q: Commander SK Provides Timely Solution for Crevoisier SA

THE CHALLENGE

The individual parts of a watch require polishing before the watch is assembled. As the standard of finishing has risen, the size of parts has become more precise, often to within 1 microm. This makes assembly difficult as many of the parts can hardly been seen by the naked eye. “When polishing small parts, you need to be confident of the speed,” said Crevoisier’s Research & Development Project Manager. “Also important is torque, at a low speed constant high torque is required to ensure the quality of polishing.” In addition, the new C-5001 lapping and polishing machine needed to provide variable, accurate speed and fit a compact table-top design.

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Q: Control Techniques Provides Sweet Solution at British Sugar

THE CHALLENGE

The upgraded ‘Maguin’ beet washing plant comprises a rotary drum driven by two variable speed electric motors, a high-pressure spray water pump, a new stone catcher and a sand screen. The plant processes up to 10,000 tonnes of beet per day so control is very important as poor control lowers efficiency and reduces sugar yield. Graham Goodrum, Electrical Engineering Team Leader, explained “Beet slicers require precise speed control to ensure that beets are cut to exact chevron shapes, to give enough strength for pressing to give maximum yield

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Q: Maintaining the Pressure at German Aluminium Plant

THE CHALLENGE

The two biggest extrusion lines accept billets of aluminium alloy of around 265mm and 412mm diameter and lengths between 400 and 1350mm, pre-heated to between 300 and 550°C. The billets are then extruded through two high pressure extruding presses at 56 MN and 33 MN respectively. Both extruders are hydraulically-powered, with the oil pressure of 250 Bar being generated by pumps. The pumps on the original hydraulic plant sent additional oil through a by-pass to give the required thrust, so they effectively ran at full speed all of the time, which is very inefficient.

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Q: Servo Drives Used for Precision Cutting with Style

THE CHALLENGE

STYLE was searching for more dynamic and flexible drives to incorporate in their machines when they came across Control Techniques’ Rotterdam Drive Centre. Anton Lammers, STYLE Technical Director said, “We looked at 12 drives suppliers and found that Control Techniques was the best for us in several ways.”

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Q: Digitax boosts performance by 30% at Italian food packaging plant

THE CHALLENGE

Automation One sought a solution for its customer, ENCA, to increase productivity and performance in its bespoke welding machines. Its systems are used to produce bags and packaging for fresh and frozen products, including food, medication and bodily fluids. Transporting these items requires complete thermal stability, which is achieved through the unique manufacturing processes provided by ENCA and Automation One’s innovative solutions.

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Q: Driving Success

THE CHALLENGE

What started as an operation to repair and refurbish old bag making machines – many of them from European OEMs – has become a South African manufacturing success story. Gerhart Mischinger, MD Technimac, says, “When the exchange rate made it increasingly difficult to maintain a margin on imported new machines, we realised that we could design and manufacture from scratch, using a high percentage of local content.”  

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Q: Perfectly Packed

THE CHALLENGE

Previously Baumer had worked with various drive brands, but none offered the flexibility that distinguishes the Control Techniques offer. The company sought an energy-efficient solution to control airflow and temperature in the high-speed processes typical in food and beverage packaging production.  

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Q: Switch Out Sees 30% Energy Savings

THE CHALLENGE

BPI Packaging Solutions is a manufacturer of flexible packaging film, with seven sites across the UK and Romania. The Winsford, UK site produces innovative, sustainable film used in various applications from NHS PPE to surgical waste bags. The facility has two engineers on-site, so occasionally outsources motor repairs to Rewinds & J. Windsor.

Recently in a bid to be more efficient and overcome ongoing maintenance challenges, the company decided to convert all DC motors to AC on their 25-year-old main blown film extruder – the heart of the machine.

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Q: Future-Ready Labeling Technology

THE CHALLENGE

Nita has consistently been at the forefront of offering unmatched innovation and technology and superior performance when it comes to inline labeling systems. Luc Harvey, Chief Engineer at NITA explains “We build the world’s most technologically advanced labeling systems right here in North America. Every NITA machine is designed to increase production efficiency, reduce operator headaches, eliminate downtime from unscheduled (or unplanned) maintenance and repairs, and generally make everyone’s lives easier! In today’s highly competitive, quickly evolving technological environment, innovation is essential and is the key to securing our growth.” Always on the lookout for ways to improve the performance of its machines, NITA turned to its trusted control partner Control
Techniques, for an upgrade to its current solution.

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Q: 9 Million Tyres Get New Lease of Life

THE CHALLENGE

Bandag’s manufacturing facility comprises various multifaceted operations starting from processing raw material, right through to extruding, pressing, finishing, trimming, quality control, and eventually warehousing. First in the operation line is the mixer – an enclosed automated mixing machine - that breaks down rubber and other constituents into working compound batches of approximately 220kg — an energy-intensive mechanical operation requiring consistent speeds and considerable force.

For a plant of this nature to run efficiently, it is essential to continuously look for new ways to improve the use of resources and decrease downtime, using everevolving industrial technology.This was Bandag’s aim as it looked to maximise the motor performance and the system reliability of the mixer, that previously used analogue DC drives, which became increasingly unreliable. Bandag then switched to Control Techniques’ Mentor MP digital DC drives – locally distributed by Nidec Automation.

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Q: Accelerated ROI for Port with Diesel Saving System

THE CHALLENGE

Diesel generators on board Rubber Tyre Gantry cranes (RTGs) and mobile harbour cranes (MHCs) usually run at constant speed to provide the drive system and auxiliaries with a constant supply voltage regardless of whether the crane is in operation or standby, thus making them inefficient to run. With huge energy demands, rising diesel prices and the carbon tax, the port authorities sought to increase energy efficiency to reduce fuel costs, and invest in a solution that would also bring them a rapid ROI

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Q: Coal Loader Down Under Relies on Control Techniques Drives

THE CHALLENGE

The expansion added a new berth and shiploader to the existing 2 berths/2 shiploader combination. The 7,200 tonne per hour shiploader travels alongside a berthed ship on rails on a 200-metre wharf. Reach across the holds is provided by a shuttling head on the boom to ensure even loading and a telescoping loading chute minimises dust generation. The chute directs coal 360° around the hold to make sure the hatch is fully and evenly loaded.

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Q: Mexican Port Cranes Updated with Cutting Edge DC Drives

THE CHALLENGE

With cranes that were nearly 40 years old, keeping them operational had become difficult due to increasing downtime and escalating maintenance costs. Mechanically they were in good condition but electrically they were not. Replacement parts for the old DC drives had become almost impossible to find and could take weeks to obtain, leading to unacceptable downtime.

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Q: Drive Improves Control and Cuts Energy Usage

THE CHALLENGE

Pantec sought to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of ultraviolet drying and curing systems widely used in the printing and manufacturing industries. Machine printing and production speeds are limited by the UV curing rate, so improvements in the accuracy of control of the UV curing system can have major effects on the overall output. The company’s vision was to use a standard drive platform merging cost-effectiveness and the reliability of a proven technology. Having worked closely with the Control Techniques for several years, Pantec Engineering had experienced the Unidrive SP range’s versatility, which met most of the UV-application’s requirements – voltage, current and frequency control, communication with all industry-standard networks, as well as having powerful on-board processing capabilities.

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Q: Giving Back To Nature

THE CHALLENGE

Singapore Botanic Gardens is the first and only tropical botanic garden on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Its new Gallop Extension is eight hectares of framed landscapes composed of native plants and forests, contributing to the gardens’ rich heritage and its role in research, conservation, education, and recreation. As a natural extension of the gardens’ nature area, it covers the Rain Forest and the Learning Forest, educating visitors on forest ecology and conservation significance. With the new addition to the visitor attraction, the Botanical Gardens required an irrigation booster pump system to supply water to the entire Gallop Extension field of plants and forests. On winning the contract, Success Electric set about the mission to find the right drive for the job. 

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Q: Smart Control Saves Energy

THE CHALLENGE

Setonsa Cove is home to a unique installation, known as the Dolphin Fountain. Visitors to the area can witness the spectacular sight of a pod of dolphins ‘playing’ among sprays of water. It was time for the landmark to undergo a refurbishment and Sentosa Cove’s M&E contractors, Navitech, were looking for variable speed drives that could provide smart, efficient control of the fountain jets.

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Q: High Performance Drives Crucial to Green Project

THE CHALLENGE

By successfully controlling and linking several interlinked renewable energy sources at West Beacon Farm, Beacon Energy is able to be virtually independent from the national grid. When the company was developing the integrated system, it searched the market for high-performing drives.

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Q: Versatile Drives Chosen for Wave Energy project

THE CHALLENGE

One of two 250 kW counter rotating turbines at the ‘Limpet’ (Land installed marine powered energy transformer) unit was removed to provide a test-bed for a new design of small turbo-generator that can be incorporated into breakwaters, coastal defences, land reclamation, port walls and community power schemes. Due to this being a development project, flexibility with on-board programming was essential.

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Q: Wind Turbine Company Chooses Unidrive SP

THE CHALLENGE

Electrical engineering company, HS Harbon & Sons, went into partnership with local businessman Richard Crowe to set up Harbon Wind Turbines. The company’s aim was to design an advanced cost-effective concept turbine that would outperform the products of established suppliers. For the turbine to be efficient, it needed the ability to change the rotor speed.

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Q: Advanced technology meets cutting edge innovation

THE CHALLENGE

Georg UK service research and development facilities in academia, aerospace, rail, and the automotive sectors. They primarily work with universities, research facilities and industrial manufacturing companies. Many of the dynamometer projects they are involved in are so cutting-edge that the applications themselves are highly confidential. Georg UK has chosen Control Techniques drives to provide the foundation for ease of operation and reliability of these highly complex and customised solutions. 

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Q: Big Thinking for Testing Big Motors

THE CHALLENGE

Recently, Rewinds & J. Windsor’s test rig broke down. At 250 kW, it had limitations on the size of the motor it could test. The company took action to find an easy to use alternative which could test bigger motors, to allow it to expand in-house capabilities.

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Q: Michelin Dundee Dramatically Cuts Energy Usage

THE CHALLENGE

While making considerable investment into its Dundee plant to boost production and create new jobs, as part of its commitment to the environment, Michelin wanted to cut its annual energy consumption by a massive 1,500 MWh. In addition to supplying cooling water for production requirements, the new cooling plant at the Dundee plant also needed to supply chilled water to the air handling units to cool the factory in the summer months. In the winter, the same system needed to provide heating.

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Q: Drives Provide Unique Cost Saving Solution in the Water Industry

THE CHALLENGE

‘Ragging’ – the fouling of pump impellers – is a costly, ongoing problem faced by water companies the world over. As well as it being a dirty unpleasant task, the cost of clearing a blocked pump in a dirty water facility is expensive, involving a maintenance team and sometimes a crane. Downtime may extend to several days during which time back-up systems are under additional pressure. A total system failure can result in effluent leakage with implications for the environment, human health, cleanup costs and breaches of legislation.

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Q: Guaranteed Free Water Supply To Winer

THE CHALLENGE

Txakoli Bikandi needed a solution to enable them to take advantage of natural underground water, to raise it above ground level to a holding vat until it is needed in an area where no electricity source was available. Their two options were to make a big investment outlay to bring grid electricity to where it was needed or a more cost-effective method of using a solar pump solution, using drives and dedicated software that would enable them to harness the natural energy of the sun to run their pumps.

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