A servo drive, motor and cable that can function as a system without a controller, has been introduced.

The growing consumer demand for more product variety and packaging sizes is creating a need for smaller, more flexible machines. The new drive aims to offer a more cost-effective option for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) that manufacture smaller machines.

The drive has multiple control modes available to support a wider range of high-speed, low-power motion control applications. It can be used with a Micro800 controller, a Logix controller or on its own, allowing OEMs to choose the functions most suited to specific applications.

The system is said to work especially well for small- to mid-sized packaging machines that require cost-effective servo control. The design bundles the drive, motor and cable together in order to create a more competitive system pricing. OEMs are able to select the products based on a machine’s power ratings, which aims to save time and help to get to market faster.

The servo system also aims to make OEMs more productive. With the increasing use of stock keeping units used to track inventory in a store,  manufacturers are required to make multiple changeovers, which may often involve a manual process. The servo drive gives OEMs the ability to create a motorised or automated system that can help speed up changeovers.

In addition, the built-in safe torque-off allows users to remove motor torque without removing power from an entire machine, allowing a machine to restart faster after it has reached a safe state. Dual-port ethernet industrial protocol also supports device-level ring topologies.

The Kinetix 5100 servo drive from Rockwell Automation is designed to provide a migration option for users of the Allen-Bradley Ultra 3000 digital servo drive, which is to be phased out in favour of the new servo drive.