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PowerFlex^® and Kinetix^® Safety Drives

PowerFlex^® and Kinetix^® Safety Drives

In the past, routine tasks such as machine setup, cleaning, removal of jams and other maintenance work required removal of power from the entire machine, resulting in extensive downtime. Today, you have a better option. You can benefit from safety-rated Allen­Bradley variable speed and servo drives which offer features to help improve machine uptime. Drives capable of performing the safe-off function (also known as safe torque-off per IEC-61800-5) provide a mechanism for disabling the drive output power transistors, preventing the production of torque at the motor. This allows the drive to be continuously powered during maintenance tasks that do not present hazards associated with electricity. Since the drive remains powered, it can be returned to its operating state quickly, resulting in faster machine restarts and enhanced system availability. In addition, since the drive remains powered, the power-up delay is completely eliminated, increasing the amount of time the drive is available to operate. This can significantly enhance machine productivity.

As an example, consider a press system that requires a traditional drive to be in the safe-off state for the operator to remove a part from the press station. The system may be limited in throughput by the drive’s power-up cycle time. Reducing the number of power-up cycles allows for increased throughput and also reduces the stress applied to the drive. As a result, Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) is improved, providing greater return on asset investment.

For many machines, there's another benefit as well. Using Allen­Bradley variable speed and servo drives with safe-off often provides an opportunity to eliminate extraneous components such as output contactors or resistive braking modules. As a result, you can simplify machine design, minimize panel space requirements and reduce overall system cost.

So if you’d benefit from a drive solution that can provide fast, simple recovery from safety mode to full production — along with the elimination of components — look to PowerFlex Variable Speed Drives with DriveGuard^® and Kinetix Servo Drives with GuardMotion™. Start benefiting from the use of high-performance drives that not only increase safety for personnel but also enable machine productivity enhancements.

Traditional Solutions	Safe-Off Solution
Pre-charge/discharge issues: - Availability only 3 cycles/minute - MTBF (stress on product due to high current) - Time to place the system in the safe state - Time to recover the system from the safe state	High Availability solution: - Fewer pre-charge cycles - Higher MTBF solution - Fast recovery times (25 ms reaction time)
Panel Space: - Additional components (contactor, Resistive Braking Module - RBM) - May require additional cooling	Panel Space: - Less components required - Simplified wiring (wiring headers)
Cost: - Additional component cost (contactor, Resistive Braking Module - RBM) - Bigger panel and cooling	Cost: - Lower total cost of ownership