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.”

The Solution

Control Techniques started supplying STYLE with around 250 servo axes and 100 spindle drives every year, with STYLE ordering standard ‘kits of parts’ for just-in-time delivery. These include software options for functions not supported by the STYLE CNC controller and implemented within the Unidrive SP applications module – spindle positioning for rigid tapping and gain switching for increasing the speed range are just two examples. The customer also uses special option modules for non-standard encoder simulations for feeding back position to external controllers. Control Techniques Commander drives are used for open-loop spindle control, Unidrive for closed loop control (from 5.5 to 15 kW), whilst servo drives teamed with Control Techniques Dynamics’ Unimotors with SLM control were chosen for the X,Y and Z axis servo control.

The Benefits

STYLE have experienced many benefits from the relationship. "We particularly like the SLM technology that gives high precision and stiff servo control – and it’s easy to commission too. It is very straightforward to add additional functionality that a customer may require by programming the application module in the Unidrive – it’s a very flexible drive. We also like the fact that both the Unidrive and Commander have the same footprint and connection arrangements, which simplifies our design and build requirements. The just-in-time arrangement we have with Control Techniques works very well and has saved us at least 100,000 because we don’t hold drives in stock.", said Anton Lammers, STYLE Technical Director