New Danfoss VLT® Decentral Drive E cient, reliable and powerful

TECHNOLOGY
Motor-mounting
drives ‘offer widest
power range’
THE FINNISH drives manufacturer Vacon
has announced a family of motor-mounting
AC drives with ratings from 1.1kW to
30kW – which, it claims, offer the widest
power range in their class. The drives have
been designed for use in harsh
environments, and to cut space and costs
by avoiding the need for extra enclosures.
“The Vacon 100 Motor Mountable AC
drives are our most robust AC drives,
featuring a die-cast frame, and large and
open cooling ribs,” says Vacon’s executive
Decentralised
debut:
Vacon’s motormounting
drive
vice-president, Heikki Hiltunen. “The
enclosure is rated up to IP66 and designed
to withstand severe vibrations, so it's really
made for a rough ride. These drives are not
bound to a specific mounting location, so
they open completely new ways of using
AC drives.
“Unlike most of the competition, these
AC drives are intelligent and flexible,” he
adds. “They have built-in PLC programming
capability and the powers go up to 30kW,
which is highest in this class. All these
features give an edge, for instance, for
machine-builders who want to offer their
customers a complete, optimised solution
with a minimised installation cost.”
The new drives also mark Vacon’s entry
into the decentralised drives market. They
are designed to be located close to the
motor, either mounting on the motor itself
or on the machine it is driving. They allow
engineers and machine-builders make the
most of the space available in and around a
machine, avoiding the need for separate
electrical rooms, long shielded motor
cables, and drive cabinets.
The RoHS-compliant drives incorporate
harmonic-filtering chokes and can be
connected to electrical networks without
extra precautions. The drives’
components do not contain
environmentally harmful substances.
www.vacon.com
Decentralised
drives support
PM motors
DANFOSS HAS launched a range of
decentralised drives that can be
mounted on or near motors for
applications such as conveyors. The VLT
Decentral Drive FCD 302, available in
ratings from 0.37–3kW, offers similar
functions to Danfoss’ AutomationDrive
family, and can be used with highefficiency
permanent-magnet motors
as well as standard induction motors
(with or without encoder feedback).
The decentralised drives avoid the
need for space-consuming control
cabinets and for long runs of screened
motor cables. They are also said to cut
installation costs as well as reducing
the risk of failures.
The range includes versions certified
by EHEDG (the European Hygienic
Engineering & Design Group) for use in
plants where hygiene is critical.
The drives incorporate Safe Torque-
Off capabilities and ten LEDs to indicate
their status when an optional graphic
display is not being used. Many options
are built in, reducing the number of
boxes that need to be mounted,
connected and terminated.
www.danfoss.com/drives