Complete changeover mastered

The Italian manufacturer IMA S.p.A. has converted its multi-format rotary filling machines from a mechanical to a fully electronic system by using a hybrid drive system. Yaskawa supplies control and servo technology for this.

The Italian manufacturer IMA S.p.A. has been developing and producing for almost 60 years. Machines for processing and packaging pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, food, tea and coffee. Now the company has converted the standard module of its Vega series of multi-format rotary filling machines for sterile ampoules and bottles from a mechanical to a fully electronic system by using a hybrid drive system: this is for the basic functions of the machine, conveying the bottles and managing the cleaning trolley Mechatronic subsystem of the axis control from the MP3300iec machine control with Sigma 7 motors and drives from Yaskawa.

Challenge

The project presented a major challenge: a non-digital, non-real-time subsystem should be integrated into a digital real-time control system. The conversion of the Vega range required the use of two special motors to lift the carousel, which were neither manufactured by Yaskawa nor equipped with a Yaskawa digital interface and therefore could not be managed directly by the chosen controller.

As a further challenge, the external 2-motor drive system is equipped with an incremental encoder, so it was a vertical gantry mechanical configuration. It was necessary to regulate the setting when starting up the machine, the management and correction of possible mechanical deviations during the normal cycle and in the event of an emergency stop.

Solution

Of the different solutions, IMA chose to control the external system via a special streaming of motion data generated by a virtual axis in the Yaskawa controller. The solution not only proved to be robust and reliable, but also enabled savings in components and cabling.

The tests to investigate the tolerance of the streaming solution attempted to overload the Yaskawa controller PLC with a dozen additional virtual axes in electronic cams, a few FOR_TO cycles and several subroutines. The result was excellent: the PLC did not exceed 60% of its computing capacity, confirming that the PLC's real-time management and multitasking behaved exactly as expected.

“The Yaskawa motion control system not only proved to be powerful in terms of hardware and software, but was also designed to ensure the durability and resistance of the final product thanks to the predominant use of standard parts,” concludes Maurizio Lodato from IMA together. “In addition, the solution is environmentally friendly due to its high performance, which allows for lower energy consumption.”