Category Archives: Drives Upgrades

Any upgrades of old drives to new

Scalable motion control systems from Siemens and Optima

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Optima are pleased to present our holistic system approach for motion control applications in the field of basic automation

Using the single-axis servo drive systems, SINAMICS S200, S210, and the new controller SIMATIC S7-1200 G2 we are able to offer a competitive solution for Kinematics, Positioning Cams, Speed axis and a host of other functions.

SINAMICS S200, S210, and the new controller SIMATIC S7-1200 G2.

Performance and Scalability

• Enhanced processing power with dedicated communication performance and extended memory
• Supports up to 31 PROFINET devices and synchronized
program execution with PROFINET IRT
• High drive performance due to a fast current controller

Flexible machine safety

• A cost-optimized fail-safe safety hardware portfolio
• PROFIsafe communication for safe data exchange
between the controller and the drive system for safety
applications
• Drive-integrated basic and extended safety
functionality up to SIL3, PLe and Category 4

Efficient motion control

• Control of single axes, coordinated axes, and simple kinematics
• Integrated motion control technology objects simplifying
configuration
• Drive-integrated basic positioner function, SINAMICS EPOS

Increased data transparency

• Near Field Communication (NFC) for wireless access
to diagnostic and device data of the PLC
• SINAMICS Smart Adapter for wireless access between
the drive-integrated webserver and mobile devices or
to the SINAMICS Startdrive engineering software
• Drive-integrated webserver for easy commissioning

PLC and drive overview

All images (c) Siemens Automation

Optima are an approved Siemens Drive Systems Integrator with a 30 year track record of delivering results on complex automation applications

Efficient Motion Control ATEX Coating

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The upgrade has resulted in the Coating Line being significantly more efficient and notably easier to operate

A coating machine installed in 1988 was facing increasing reliability and operational challenges due to its age. Key issues included:

  • Unpredictable Start-ups: The machine suffered from erratic start-ups, impacting the consistency of production
  • Frequent Recalibrations: Maintenance required regular recalibration of controls to maintain system reliability
  • Obsolete Motor Components: The DC ATEX-certified motors were no longer available on the market, and existing units were becoming increasingly unserviceable.
  • High Energy Losses in Transmission: High energy losses occurred due to inefficient PIV transmissions and aging gearboxes
Coating Machine Drive and Motion Upgrade

Solution: 

The customer needed a comprehensive solution to address the following:

  • Motor Obsolescence: Replace outdated motors to improve operational reliability and reduce unpredictable start-ups.
  • Improved Product Quality: Frequent poor coating quality, wrap-ups, and web breaks needed to be minimized.
  • Flexibility in Production: The upgraded system should be versatile enough to accommodate various products without requiring extensive reconfiguration.
  • Full PROFISAFE Integration: The machine was eqipped with a full PROFISAFE solution that incorporated safe speed monitoring. This improved operational safety and reducing risks during maintenance and production changes.
Siemens Sinamics S120 Drives in a Coating Application

Benefits: Following the upgrade, the machine achieved several substantial improvements, making it one of the most energy-efficient unit in the factory, even outperforming newer equipment. 

 
Key benefits included:
 
  1. Enhanced Energy Efficiency: The new servo motors and optimized drive system minimized energy waste, eliminating the need for ventilation or purging, which reduced fan energy consumption.
  2. Increased Production Speed: The upgraded machine operates at a higher production speed without compromising product quality, resulting in improved throughput.
  3. Reduced Mainternance Requirements: The new configuration eliminated the need for regular recalibration, easing the workload on maintenance staff.
  4. Improved Operator Satisfaction: Operators appreciated the simplified “one-touch” start functionality, which made operation straightforward and reduced the likelihood of errors.
  5. Minimized Product Losses: By eliminating web breaks and improving coating consistency, the machine reduced material waste and product rework.
This comprehensive machine upgrade resulted in a safer, more energy-efficient, and flexible production process, meeting the customer’s needs for reliability, flexibility, and operational efficiency. With improved equipment uptime, increased production speed, and lower energy costs, the customer has a future-proofed machine that supports long-term productivity and cost savings.
 
Optima are now in place to provide ongoing support and uprgades using our Remote Access system
 
Optima are an approved Siemens Drive Systems Integrator with a 30 year track record of delivering results on complex automation applications

Parker SSD Microtach Replacements

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Microtach encoders, manufactured by SSD Drives for many years offered reliable transmission of sensitive high-frequency information in an electrically noisy environment.

The technology used a combination of an incremental encoder disk combined with micro-electronics to facilitate the use of single fibre optic transmission of the encoder pulses.

This gave a huge advantage of being able to transmit a noise-free signal over considerable distances.

However, time moves on and the Microtach is no longer available. The fibre optic cable, sending and receiving optics also degrade over time, affecting system integrity and reliability.

 

Link Rack

Fortunately, Optima can upgrade your ageing Microtach units with a modern equivalent that has exactly the same mounting arrangement. We also supply a new coupling with every encoder.

We use our own proven high-quality multi-sheathed cable to give the same reliable signal quality for the wired encoder equivalent. Distances up to 100 metres have been achieved with no signal degradation.

For this, or any other LINK hardware or software support, just get in touch. With over 100 years of combined experience engineering (and for some, designing!) the Link hardware, we have a solution for your obsolete hardware.

Parker SSD Link Upgrades
Link Programming Services

Accelerate your digital and sustainability transformation at Siemens Transform 2024

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Transform 2024: Transform the everyday

We are delighted to invite you to join us for
Transform 2024 – the technology showcase from Siemens.

Join thousands of participants and accelerate
your digital and sustainability transformation to transform the everyday, for
everyone, on 17-18 July at Manchester Central.

·     Hear from, engage with, and collaborate with industry experts on key industry topics – from AI to the
industrial metaverse and decarbonisation.

·     Experience where the real world meets the digital in an extensive technology marketplace and discover
Siemens Xcelerator – the open digital business platform.

·     Work with an expert community to solve real-world challenges and co-create solutions to make your
organisation more competitive, resilient and sustainable.

As a proud partner of Siemens, we hope you will join us at Transform and become part of a community solving today’s most pressing challenges, together.

Click below to register your interest and to receive updates from Siemens on their unmissable schedule of talks and experiences.

https://www.siemens.com/uk/en/company/transform.html?stc=ukcg200474

 

Optima’s Siemens Solution Partner Accreditation for 2024

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Optima are proud to maintain both our Siemens Drives and Motion and Factory Automation accreditations for 2024. Our Solution Partner status as Automation Drives verifies our status of application and system expertise, industry knowledge and project experience with Drives, IOT, Cloud and Edge Applications.

We implement tailor-made solutions with exceptional quality. Our partner accreditation forms part of Siemens’ commitment to their principle of “Ingenuity for life”. We use ingenuity and engineering skill to work on sustainable solutions for your automation tasks.

Siemens Solution Partners are the number one choice for the engineering, system integration and implementation of superior, tailored, future-oriented solutions. Under the Siemens Solution Partner Program, Optima join forces with Siemens by merging our application and industry knowledge with their product and systems expertise to deliver added value to our Customers.

This includes: Consistent, High Quality, State-of-the-Art solutions that increase plant productivity. Confidence that your current project will go well and will be easy to maintain because as a certified Solution Partner, we will use “Best Practices”. We have on-going training that demonstrates our expertise via a bi-annual certification exam which measures our engineers capabilities on both the theoretical and hands-on abilities with the system. Coordinated project planning, supplied with the software tools, training and premium hotline support for fast, smooth and highly efficient implementations of your projects.

 

Up to 5 Years Warranty as Standard on our Motor and Drive Upgrades with Siemens

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As a trusted Siemens Drive and Motion Partner, any machine upgrade that Optima engineer that uses Siemens Drives and Motors, Siemens will provide a 5 year warranty on the drive and 3 years on the motor/ motor gearbox Free of Charge. Optima can also extend this standard warranty further for you at preferential rates as a trusted partner of Siemens. See the below link for more information:

https://new.siemens.com/uk/en/products/drives/extended-warranty-packages.html

To be accepted as a Solution Partner of the “Drives & Motion” arm of Siemens, Optima must fulfill the following qualification criteria:

  • A proven track record of many years of experience in implementing projects in drive systems engineering using Siemens components
  • Qualified management our own projects, configuration and quality
  • Regular auditing of partner performance by Siemens Automation and Drives

Completion of Large Motor Test Rigs

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Siemens G-Series drives have just been incorporated into a bespoke motor test rig.

We’ve just completed another set of control panels for a large motor test rig using Siemens G-Series drives. The work was carried out at our fully-equipped panel workshop in Blackburn. We’ve two more to build now!

Large AC Motor Test Rig Panel

Large AC Motor Test Rig Panel with Two Siemens G120 Drives

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Drive System Retrofit for MasterDrives

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Optima’s innovative approach to motor and drive upgrades significantly reduces the installation time and minimises risk to your site. All of our systems are thoroughly tested before they are shipped to site, completely eliminating any “out of box” failures. By replacing legacy equipment, your production machine can be future-proofed with the latest technology features and efficient operation.

Some of the benefits you will realise are:

  • Extended life span of your machine and increased availability due to continued spare parts supply with full support by Siemens
  • Improved productivity through lower energy costs and faster production cycles, through:
    • Simple operation monitoring using operator panel
    • User-friendly diagnostics with the STARTER tool
    • Additional interface options via PROFINET or PROFIBUS
  • Future-proofed due to access to the new world of TIA Portal

Optima’s innovative approach to upgrades significantly reduces the installation time and minimises risk to your site. All of our systems are thoroughly tested before they are shipped to site, completely eliminating any “out of box” failures.

Some of the benefits you will realise are:

  • Extended life span of your machine and increased availability due to continued spare parts supply with full support by Siemens
  • Improved productivity through lower energy costs and faster production cycles, through:
    • Simple operation monitoring using operator panel
    • User-friendly diagnostics with the STARTER tool
    • Additional interface options via PROFINET or PROFIBUS
  • Future-proofed due to access to the new world of TIA Portal

Optima’s approach for upgrades is to:

  1. 1.Analysis of your current machine configuration and potential further customer request
  2. Recommendation on the best replacement scenario
  3. Installation, configuration and commissioning of new  components and creation of circuit diagram and documentation
  4. Acceptance test and machine handover.

If requested, we can also provide training for all your relevant engineers and instruction of the operating personnel

Why Optima?

  1. We’ve been upgrading complex drive systems for over 20 years
  2. We are one of only 7 authorised Siemens Drives and Motion partners in the UK
  3. We provide a complete solution provided by one retrofit supplier including mechanical installation of motors and/or supply of adaptor plates and flanges to suit

About Masterdrives:

Because of their superior functionality, comprehensive performance range and application flexibility, the Siemens Simovert MASTERDRIVES in CUVC, CUMC, Compact form and other variants has been a very successful drive system for single motor and multi-motor applications. The established common DC bus system enabled it to be used on demanding production machine processes across a wide range of industry sectors.

All good things must come to an end, but that doesn’t mean the end of the line for your production machine.

Improved Performance And Reliability Following Upgrade From Hydraulic Motors To AC Geared Motors

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Hydraulic motors have their place in industrial controls but when precise speed and torque control are required, they can be wild beasts to tame. With unreliability plaguing one paper mill, followed by complete failure of the hydraulic process control system, Optima were able to step in and provide an upgrade solution in double-quick time.

When a major paper producer was faced with increasingly temperamental performance from the existing hydraulic drive control system on their Valmet KL Winder, they turned to Optima for assistance. The system suffered from uncontrolled starting from cold until the hydraulics had reached normal temperature. However, even at normal operating temperature, there were still issues with tension control being unpredictable.

Optima were asked to suggest possible upgrade solutions for the winder. Our solution was to use a Siemens Sinamics drive system, controlled from our own custom-written winder blocks. Optima’s winder blocks are PLC-based and provide all the functionality required of any winding application.

The new drive system was specifically designed to suit the exact material tensions, roll diameters and operating speeds of the winder to ensure both performance and cost needs were met. The actual products run on winders sometimes differ from the manufacturers own design.

A complete new control suite was built to house the new PLC and drive hardware. Installation was managed by Optima.

Final Commissioning was carried out by our own engineers specialising in web transport systems.

Tuning of the fully-compensated system was carried out over a series of product trials on different grades of paper. The drive control system is complex, not just for accurate tension control but also to drive either end of the paper unwind with separate AC geared motors – not an easy task to achieve. Optima’s control algorithms ensure that control of the unwind reel is shared equally between each drive whilst also preventing ‘slippage’ of the driving mandrel within the unwind core.

Optima will be pleased to provide a no-obligation site visit to discuss how we might improve the performance of your existing winder or for a completely new upgrade.

Please telephone: Andy Coverdale or Mark Lane on 01254 272829 to discuss your requirements in more detail.

Automax and PLC 5 to PowerFlex Drives and Control Logix Upgrade on Metalliser

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In this upgrade, carried out during a planned shutdown, an Automax controller and obsolete DC drives were removed and replaced by new AC Powerflex 753 drives and AC vector motors. The SLC500 rack was replaced by a new Control Logix rack and remote IO on Ethernet. The now redundant PanelMax HMI was replaced by a new InTouch system from Wonderware.

The full scope of work, carried out by our own engineers in-house included:

  • Hardware calculations/rating for drives
  • Customer project specifications for upgrade
  • Project design specification
  • Full Circuit diagrams for the upgraded equipment
  • Test documents to validate the new equipment operation
  • Software specifications and sequence diagrams

Details of a typical metalliser drive control system are shown below. Optima know the metalliser drives process intricately. We have upgraded over 10 metalliser drive systems from various manufacturers and can offer a comprehensive upgrade to bring control of your machine drive system up to the standards of a new metalliser.

Optima will be pleased to provide a no obligation site visit to discuss how we implemented this upgrade and how we can help upgrade your machine to new supportable equipment.

Please telephone: Andy Coverdale, Mark Lane, Michael Hill on 01254 272829 to discuss your requirements in more detail. Alternatively e-mail us at  E-Mail Sales.