IMO has demonstrated the superior control and braking qualities of its Jaguar VXR drive on a demanding grinding wheel braking application for a customer that manufactures and refurbishes machine tools.

The Jaguar drive has succeeded, where several others failed to meet the customer’s requirement to control a very high inertial flywheel mass, and decelerate it from nearly 6,000 rpm to a complete stop in less than 20-seconds.

IMO was asked to help with the grinding machine application, following unsuccessful trials with competitors’ drives. The high speed machine is equipped with an 8 kW, 400 V motor, driving a large 300 mm diameter wheel weighing 30 kg. As the wheel is driven at speeds up to 5,860 rpm, it presented a very high inertial mass in braking terms.

Initially, the machine builder tried 7.5 kW inverters from several manufacturers to control the load, but found the control provided by them to be totally unsatisfactory.  The best performance that could be achieved with these drives fitted 47 Ohm brake resistors, was 50% speed (3000 rpm) and a 40-second deceleration time.

Attempting to raise the speed or shorten the deceleration time resulted, in both cases, in over-voltage trips. The builder was not happy with this level of performance, and at this point invited IMO to participate.

The invitation was impromptu as the IMO engineer was visiting on another job. However, he did have a VXR13A-4 (5.5 kW equivalent rating) in the boot of his car.  He calculated that by using an 80 Ohm resistor, the drive could deliver full speed and a deceleration time of around 20-seconds.

The resulting trial immediately proved the calculations; the VXR13A-4 proved to be better than twice as good at stopping, even when using a smaller drive and a 60% higher resistance.    Moreover, these results were achieved at less than 100% motor FLC rating, so there were no stresses or strain on the motor.

This performance demonstrated conclusively the excellent control in braking mode provided by the Jaguar drive compared to typical competitors. On the strength of the successful trial the customer purchased a 7.5 kW VXR18A-4, 7.5 kW Jaguar drive.

This unit, in common with all IMO Jaguar drives, offers the security of a 5-year guarantee.

See our range of IMO Jaguar inverter drives all from stock, at discounted prices and including a 5 year warranty