Lenze, a specialist in motion centric automation, showcased its Smart Servo Axis set up, a scalable drive that uses Lenze’s latest technology achievement—an auto-tuning capability that will reduce the time it takes to do high-precision tuning of the control loop in a drive.
On display at the Lenze booth (C-1602) at PACK EXPO Las Vegas, the Smart Servo Axis consists of the company’s i950 servo inverter, the m850 synchronous motor, and the g700 planetary gearbox with One Cable Technology.
“The most important part is that the i950 drive itself comes with technology applications ready to go as part of the firmware of the drive,” said Daniel Repp, Lenze’s business development manager, automation solutions. “That means that you only set parameters, you don’t have to program the drive.”
The ready-to-go technology applications for speed control, positioning, winding, electronic gearing, etc., is part of the firmware of the drive. Lenze has engineering software, which can be downloaded for free, to connect to the drive and that’s where parameters are set. “You don’t have to be a super experienced engineer anymore because you just set parameters,” Repp said.
In addition, the company just released an auto-tuning functionality for use when setting up a machine. Usually, application engineers tune the machine themselves, and the result depends on how experienced an engineer is. Often the engineer has to listen to how the motor behaves and adjust settings depending on what they hear. It can take hours to tune a machine, so Lenze came out with the auto-tuning functionality which is embedded in the software. Just press a button and the software sets the set points to end up with an optimal tuned machine.
“It takes a few minutes versus spending hours to have the same optimal results,” Repp said, noting the company developed algorithms which are based on what an engineer would do. “This is nothing really new, but we came up with an easy, simple to use functionality which delivers really outstanding results.”
This procedure not only saves commissioning time, but also delivers reproducible ways to optimize machine performance. Errors that previously occurred due to model deviations, or during manual adjustment, are avoided.
The Lenze auto-tuning function can be executed with the Lenze tools Easy Starter and PLC Designer. Auto-tuning can be performed with all i950 and i700 servo inverters sold after April 2021. Devices sold before then can be extended with the auto-tuning function via firmware update.
