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Hybrid servo system brings positioning accuracy to palletizing

The L7 palletizer has standard AC motors and a machine control code accessed on a familiar PLC interface. But servo drives in place of VFDs bring big benefits.

Compact drives. One thing Top Tier engineers and machine designers like about the servo drives is that they neatly fit in a relatively small controls cabinet.
Compact drives. One thing Top Tier engineers and machine designers like about the servo drives is that they neatly fit in a relatively small controls cabinet.

With its L7 All Electric Palletizer, Top Tier has created a “hybrid” servo system by keeping standard AC motors, from SEW Eurodrive, but replacing Variable Frequency Drives with B&R Industrial Automation ACOPOSmulti drives in what B&R calls a “motion subsystem.” Why? Because the ACOPOSmulti drives are better able to operate a standard AC motor in an improved closed-loop mode compared to the VFDs used previously. This motion subsystem translates into much greater positioning accuracy and improved throughput, and this is what permits Top Tier to offer what they call PerfectPattern technology.

There might be as many as 25 or 30 drives per palletizing system, and these all fit nicely in a single control panel. They drive the SEW Eurodrive AC motors that are out along the palletizing system wherever they are needed for actuation of one kind or another.

In addition to sticking with standard AC motors in their controls architecture, Top Tier is also sticking with a Rockwell PLC, which provides all machine logic. Between this PLC and the B&R motion subsystem, communication is carried over EthernetIP. The B&R drives, like most standard VFDs, are essentially electronic slaves to the main PLC code. By keeping the Rockwell PLC in the picture, Top Tier acknowledges the simple fact that so many end users are so accustomed to Rockwell architecture and Rockwell PLC code. This way, Top Tier can say to its customers, “You want Rockwell code? You got it. But because we’ve replaced the VFDs with ACOPOSmulti drives, you now get the added benefit of PerfectPattern positioning. And don’t worry, your employees who operate and maintain this palletizer need not have any knowledge of B&R code.”

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