Drive Obsessed. Safety Obsessed.
January 12, 2022
At Control Techniques, we take safety very seriously. Our engineers put a lot of effort into the development phase of our products to make sure they are as safe as possible to the customer. We’re drive obsessed and equally obsessed about the safety of our drives.
Integrated safety is the new paradigm of system design. The modern industrial processes face a significant challenge – the constant demand for increased machine throughput and a parallel need to reduce points of failure, all while ensuring the health and safety of human operators.
Modernising system design, replacing traditional safety components with the capabilities of the latest generation of variable speed drives, is the new standard across industries to increase efficiency and availability.
December 2021 has seen the release of a new generation of Safety modules which have taken our offering to market leading proportions, providing maximum flexibility in functional design and the choice of components and protocols to integrate.
Unidrive and Digitax have long since offered integrated dual Safe Torque Off (STO) inputs, certified to SIL3 / PLe, providing an elegant and more reliable solution over traditional motor contactors.
The latest generation MiS210 and new MiS250 safety options extend the built-in STO with the ability to monitor and/or restrict the scope of motion safely. Integrated safety in the drives simplifies the functional safety architecture, making it a cost-effective, high performance and flexible solution for customers.
Simple, Cost-Effective & Functional
Integrated safety supports the decentralisation of the motion safety functions for a machine by bringing many benefits. It reduces complexity, design and wiring time, it’s easy to commission, and it acts quickly. That consequently reduces the overall costs for the customer
Also, an onboard STO safely switches off torque to the motor without the need for external contactors.
The addition of a MiS2x0 Safety option enables sophisticated motion monitoring directly on the drive using the existing motor encoder.
Performance Without Compromises
When protecting people and equipment from hazards, time is key. Integrated safety offers faster reaction times, thanks to the close-coupling of safety functions and the drive.
All Control Techniques integrated safety functions are externally certified to control category SIL 3 and performance level PLe.
Flexible Safety Solution
With an integrated safety solution from Control Techniques, the customer gets maximum flexibility in functional design and the choice of components and protocols to integrate.
The MiS210 and MiS250 options support several encoder protocols on up to 4 different channels wired to the drive. Onboard Motion Safety Functions support multiple instances, and safe logic blocks are also available to allow implementation of complex safety chains.
Control and monitoring of the functions and transfer of safe position and speed values are available over the main safety fieldbuses: CIP Safety and Safety over EtherCAT (FSoE).
More Safety. Less Wiring
Network safety allows for complex safety configurations to be implemented with minimal wiring and without changing the existing network topology.
MiS safety options support all the main industry standards for easy integration in any automation architecture. Support for the Safe EnDat protocol reduces further costs by requiring less wiring and the need for additional feedback devices.
The free Connect PC tool is the hub for commissioning, optimising and monitoring the drive and system performance, allowing customers to easily manage integrated safety via the drive’s built-in communication port.
