40 n PRINTING AND PAPER January 2024 www.drivesncontrols.com Remote commissioning cuts printing machine build times Sicosa is a Spanish company with 30 years’ experience of producing and selling exographic printing machinery. The Girona-based company manufactures the machinery for a variety of applications. The company’s eight-colour central drum Xtrem exographic geared printer operates at a top speed of speed of 300m/min and can print in widths from 650–1,200mm. When designing the printer, Sicosa needed a control system that would deliver speed, power and accuracy to the machine’s eight print stations. It was also looking to introduce smart elements such as remote commissioning and monitoring, and advanced HMIs. The Xtrem printer has automatic coil change capability and a drying system that operates using electric resistance and gas, an automatic ink-cleaning option, and machine control via 15” touchscreens. The machines can be customised for individual clients, so Sicosa had high requirements for its automation system. The company approached the Chinese supplier Inovance for a suitable system. Several products have been combined to achieve the required performance. These include Inovance’s MD520 AC drives and MD500-ECAT communications cards. Together these deliver unied AC asynchronous and PM synchronous motor control with the benets of fast EtherCat connectivity. The system meets the IE2 eciency level and has Safe Torque O (STO) built in. In addition to the AC drives, an IIoT plug-in allows remote monitoring. The intelligent controller is used for multi-layer networking and provides support for EtherCat remote I/O modules. Inovance’s IT7150 HMI was also chosen based on its ability to support VNC remote access via mobile devices, as well as its Ethernet connectivity. The installation is supported by Inovance software, including monitoring software as well as a CodeSys tension control library. The new control system has improved the accuracy, speed, and performance of Sicosa’s printing machines, while its rapid installation and remote commissioning capability have cut build times. Other benets have included: n smaller machine cabinets; n optimised motor sizes, without sacricing performance; n easy commissioning with HMIs, allowing components to be replaced by nonspecialist sta; n real-time information, allowing on-the- y optimisation; n an open architecture that supports integration with third-party products; and n the safety functions integrated into the servodrives. n A Spanish manufacturer of exographic printing machines has turned to an Chinese automation supplier for high-performance controls. Sicosa’s Xtrem exographic geared printer operates at speeds of up to 300m/min
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