Bagged it...

A leading manufacturer of plastic bags in North Wales were having problems with their aged DC extruder machine.

A call was put in to our Drives engineers to see if we could suggest something that could overcome the spiralling costs of repairing and maintaining their 78kw DC motor and controller. On closer inspection it was also found that the company was also experiencing high Energy bills.

The suggested solution was to replace the DC motor and drive with a Brook Crompton High Effieciency Motor and a Danfoss FC302 constant torque drive.

Years gone by we would have had to fit a Tacho on the back off this motor so the drive would get a true reflection of the shaft speed. But with Danfoss`s latest range of drives this was not necessary as the drive could monitor the torque/ current to sense a change in loading and react lighting fast. A problem would arise if their was an unstable load and the drive reacts slow to it, Then we would get what we call a ripple effect, which would create ripples on the plastic bags being extruded.

The timeline to install this solution was18 hours so the pressure was on! Installation started at 6.00am and was finished and drive commissioned for 7.00pm.

Believe it or not, production re-commenced at 7.15pm.

This company works 24 hours 7 days a week and we had one chance to get it right........

We have now commenced the second phase of replacing the sister extruder with the very same AC solution.

Energy was not a maasive winner in this instance, but what we achieved was to stabalise the current drawn from the supply and demand only what the application required.

Repair bills were costing £k`s per month and are now £0, fingers crossed.

What we have also achieved here is to minimise down time, as we have installed a standard motor and Drive which are available 1 hour away from our stock.