LOW INERTIA MOTORS RESPOND WELL TO RAPID CHANGES

Quiches are delivered to the system from a main conveyor at random time intervals, the sensors identify the position of the next quiche on the main conveyor, calculate the time until its delivery and adjust the collating conveyor to optimise the spacing between the quiches. If there is a long wait until the next quiche arrives, the collating conveyor will pause.

The collator is made up of three smaller independently controlled conveyors, each of which is driven by a Mitsubishi HF-KP73 servo motor and associated MR-J3-70B servo amplifier and co-ordinated by a Q-series controllers.

The HF-KP73 motors used by WMH are low inertia units that respond well to rapid changes in speed and are energy efficient. As loads in the quiche project are predictable, small and do not fluctuate much, low inertia motors are ideal; high inertia motors tend to be used where speeds and loads fluctuate more.

The MR-J3 servo amplifiers offer motion control performance to a high level of precision and are popular with many machine builders because of their plug and play installation and simple operation. Of the many MR-J3 functions, WMH found the advanced vibration suppression system particularly useful considering the quiche filling is liquid, while the advanced real time autotuning ensures maximum precision for aligning and positioning the quiches.