n TECHNOLOGY November/December 2024 www.drivesncontrols.com 18 SIEMENS SMART INFRASTRUCTURE HAS announced its rst fully electronic motor starter which, it says, oers short-circuit protection that is 1,000 times faster than conventional devices such as circuit breakers or fuses, and is almost wear-free. This ensures optimal protection for motors and their loads. The compact Simatic ET 200SP e-Starter requires minimal space in control cabinets, and is expected to be attractive to sectors such as food & beverage and intralogistics, where higheciency motors are used in demanding applications such as driving pumps and conveyors. Malfunctions and failures in these sectors can quickly lead to considerable damage and costs. The electronic starters will not only switch motors reliably, but also protect them against overloads and short circuits. The starters use SiC Mosfets (silicon carbide metal-oxide semiconductor eld-eect transistors) for ultra-fast, wear-free switching. Conventional feeders with short-circuit protection devices have relatively slow response times. When a short circuit occurs, they often need to be replaced. By contrast, the e-Starter detects short circuits extremely quickly and switches o in less than 4µs, making it around 1,000 times faster. It oers unlimited short-circuit shutdowns and does not need to be replaced after being tripped, increasing availability and cutting storage costs for replacement parts. High inrush currents are typical for higheciency motors and this can lead to unintended trips of protection devices. The phase-optimised switching and “Smart Start” capabilities of the new starter neutralise the inrush currents, reducing starting currents and therefore the electrical load on the grid during start-up. In addition, the torque surges that occur during a direct start are much smaller, reducing mechanical wear. “Our fully electronic e-Starter is a real innovation that oers many bene ts over traditional electromechanical or hybrid motor starters,” says Andreas Matthé, CEO of Electrical Products at Siemens Smart Infrastructure. “We developed it in close consultation with potential users. That is why it responds to their challenges exactly as needed. It makes demanding motors and applications more available, durable, and user-friendly than ever before. “Siemens is the rst manufacturer with a fully electronic starter that is completely integrated into ET 200SP and TIA Portal and speci cally addresses two challenges in the industrial sector – applications prone to short circuits, and high current peaks when starting high-eciency motors,” he adds.The e-starter will typically be used in areas where short circuits occur frequently. In the food industry, for example, the high-pressure liquids used to deep-clean conveyor systems can cause short circuits on worn cables between starters and conveyor motors, resulting in costly downtime. The new starter detects short-circuit currents extremely quickly and switches them o immediately, avoiding potentially damaging currents. Once the cause of the short circuit has been eliminated, the device ican be switched on again immediately. Procuring spare parts or replacing devices – as has previously often been needed after short circuits – is no longer required. www.siemens.com/global/en/products/ automation pBoston Dynamics and Toyota Research Institute (TRI) have formed a research partnership to accelerate the development of humanoid robots using TRI’s Large Behaviour Models (LBMs) and Boston Dynamics’ Atlas robots. TRI pioneered the application of generative AI to dexterous manipulation in robotics. The partnership will deploy Boston’s new electric Atlas in a variety of tasks and collect data on its performance. This will support the training of advanced LBMs. The joint teams will also conduct research on training of humanoid robots, and understanding human-robot interactions. www.bostondynamics.com http://tri.global pCambridge GaN Devices (CGD), the UK semiconductor company developing high-eciency GaN-based power devices, is partnering with the US connectivity specialist Qorvo to oer an evaluation kit (EVK) for motor control and power eciency applications. They are combining Qorvo’s PAC5556A 600V BLDC/PMSM motor controller/driver with CGD’s ICeGaN ICs in a board that they say improves motor control applications “signicantly”, achieving 400W peak performance without a heatsink. The kits oer precise control and high torque at low speeds for industrial and other applications. https://camgandevices.com p The world’s rst commercial manufacturing facility for rare-earth-free permanent magnets has opened in Minneapolis in the US. The 6,500m2Niron Magnetics plant is producing an alternative to the rare-earth magnets used in high-eciency motors. The Clean Earth magnets are made of iron and nitrogen – two abundant, safe and non-toxic materials that can be sourced sustainably in the US. The pilot facility has can produce more than 5 tonnes of magnets a year. Niron’s rst full-scale facility is due to open in 2026 and will produce 1,500 tonnes a year. pODVA has announced that the CIP Safety on EtherNet/IP technology now allows the use of Concurrent Connections for applications requiring high availability and functional safety. Concurrent Connections allow redundancy between multiple producing and consuming devices for critical processes. CIP Safety provides failsafe communications between nodes such as safety I/O blocks, interlock switches, light curtains and safety controllers up to SIL 3. pHoneywell and Google Cloud are collaborating to connect AI agents with assets, people and processes, to accelerate safer, autonomous industrial operations. The partnership brings together the multimodality and natural language capabilities of Gemini on Vertex AI (Google Cloud's AI platform) with the large data set on Honeywell’s Forge industrial IoT platform. Honeywell says it will cut maintenance costs, boost productivity and upskill employees. TECHNOLOGY BRIEFS Wear-free solid-state motor starter is ‘1,000 times faster’ Siemens’ new solid-state starter oers short-circuit protection 1,000 times faster than conventional technologies, cutting downtime and maintenance costs
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