There are many ways to reduce energy consumption, pollution and the negative environmental impact. Nowadays, saving energy means reducing its daily use. The increase in cost of raw materials and energy forced the Foundry Industry to bring substantial improvements to process efficiency and plants. Inspired by its customers, since 1998 SAVELLI is reducing the application of the traditional hydraulic units (with oil pumps, valves, cylinders, related piping etc…) to move, transfer and lift the pallet cars and flasks favoring electro-mechanical drive units (El-Mecs) with “brush-less” servomotors and servo drives (today SIEMENS S120).
Since 2013 the new El-Mecs generation is characterized by complete uniformity of electrical and automation hardware and software by SIEMENS. SAVELLI El-Mecs guarantee to the flask molding lines many advantages in terms of efficiency and performance, and they ensure:
- Remarkable energy savings;
- Optimal transport speed adjustment along the entire line and constant movement “repetitiveness”;
- Performances not influenced from external environment conditions;
- Easy installation;
- Easy and minimal maintenance;
- Management and control software, flexible and completely developed by Savelli’s automation department;
- Greater plant safety;
- Less environmental pollution.
The fundamental aspect of the SIEMENS architecture is the fact of having a single power supply that allows the power supply of all drives through its DC bus (therefore it is defined as a common DC bus). Depending on the number of motors installed, it is possible to use different sizes of power supplies (from 35Kw to 120Kw in booksize configuration, the most compact). This type of power supply allows energy recovery during the braking phase of the axis. In this way, energy is not wasted on a resistance and avoids overheating of the entire control room. This configuration also allows to have less space occupied inside the electrical panels.
New advantages compare to the first El-Mecs generation are:
- Common DCbus for powering multiple drives;
- Energy recovery in the network during the braking phase;
- Drive-cliq connection via pre-wired cables for motor encoder control;
- Absolute encoder: no need to homing in the event of a fault on the drive;
- Profinet interface for connecting the control units that manage the drive to the device network;
- Possibility for connection to drives through the same Profinet interface with which you connect to the CPU;
- Motor management: ability to manage the axes with the dual configuration of position control/speed control and the possibility of changing parameters during axis movement (change on fly);
- Drive-cliq architecture: much more reliable, possibility of using pre-wired cables without problems related to the configuration of the connection pins (especially on the encoder connection);
- Quick replacement of the inverter and without the need for parameters’ changes.