Drives manufacturer Nidec Drives offers a wide range of drive technologies, motion control products and support services designed to improve efficiency, reliability and productivity across multiple industries.

Nidec Corporation acquired Control Techniques and combined Control Techniques and KB Electronics to form the Nidec Drives brand. Control Techniques is focused on delivering variable speed drives and power conversion technologies that are used in industry, commerce and renewable-energy schemes.

Control Techniques products include:

• General-purpose drives
• High-performance drives
• Freestanding drives
• Specialist drives
• Servo drives and motors
• DC drives
• Industrial control

The general purpose drives series includes the Commander C200, C300 and S100 products, all of which are backed by a five-year warranty. Commander products are used in applications such as pumping, ventilating and compressing, moving applications such as conveyors, treadmills, automatic doors and barriers, processing such as mixers, crushers, agitators, centrifuges, kneaders, spinning and braiding machines, and lifting, hoisting and winching functionalities.

Control Techniques affirms that it is the first drive supplier to implement Near Field Communication (NFC) technology as standard on a drive and offers the Marshal app interface as a free additional tool. The interface allows users to commission, clone, diagnose system issues and monitor the drive using the app. NFC technology enables data transfer between the drive and mobile device in less than a second.

The company’s range of high-power drive solutions includes the Unidrive M700, M600, M400, and DFS series free-standing drives, which are also backed by a standard five-year warranty. Applications for the Unidrive include hoists, winding, cutting, web handling, test stands, packaging machines, woodworking, textiles, printing, tyre manufacturing, and speed and position control for gearing and ratio control.

While low power accounts for most of the growth for variable speed drives, energy-saving applications are driving growth in high power drives, explains the company. Fans, pumps, compressors and extruders are common uses of drives that increasingly need a higher power option. The company’s new high power drive offers 500 kW of power in a single module and is said to be up to 60 kg lighter than competitors’ drives.

The company’s specialist drive portfolio includes the Pump Drive F600, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) Drive H300 and, M700, M701 and M600 high power modular drives. The modular approach to building high power systems is aimed at providing machine builders with flexibility while keeping complexity low.

The high power free standing DFS Series drives are employed in general automation, fans and pumps, and compressors. The pre-assembled, ready-to-install drive cubicle system is designed for use in high power applications where energy saving and high ingress protection are key.

Control Techniques specialist drives include the Elevator Drive E300, Pump Drive F600 and HVAC drive H300, all with a five-year warranty, used in HVAC, elevator and pump applications.

Beyond drives, Control Techniques offers a comprehensive range of industrial automation products, including Digitax HD servo drives, Unimotor HD servo motors, Mentor MP DC drives, machine controllers, human-machine interface panels and remote I/O solutions. These products are designed to support applications in robotics, packaging, manufacturing, printing and process industries.

Nidec Drives will be exhibiting its product portfolio at the Electra Mining Africa expo to be held on September 7 to 11 at the Johannesburg Expo Centre, Nasrec.