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.

The solution

The Swiss and UK team at Control Techniques have worked closely with Schulthess’ R&D department to provide the best match to their needs. Commander C, with the built-in laundry specific software, proved to be the right solution. 

Commander C can detect imbalances caused by laundry becoming tangled into large lumps and initiate a tumbling sequence to untangle the load. Thanks to this feature the wash cycle is much smoother and the machine life is extended as there 
is less stress to the mechanical parts. 

The on-board PLC has allowed the joint teams to further expand the laundry specific capabilities while also reducing the size of the installation as an external controller was no longer required. 

Commander C is built to cope with harsh environments. Control Techniques are so confident in its durability it is supplied with a free 5 year warranty, yet another valued benefit to guarantee the quality of the Schulthess machinery 

The benefits

“Since switching to Commander C, we have been able to simplify the system design. For example, we no longer need an imbalance sensor. Imbalance detection and broken belt detection are all built-in the PLC. Commander C’s motor control performance is outstanding, and it has greatly improved our testability and troubleshooting compared to the previous drive.

Throughout this project, we have had excellent support from the Control Technique teams in the UK and Switzerland and it’s been a great working partnership. We will most certainly use Control Techniques’ inverters for our future projects.”

Remo Bucher
Engineering Manager, Schulthess

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