Bargteheide, Germany – In a design change implemented from October 1, 2015, NORD Drivesystems will equip all motor-mounted and cabinet-installed frequency inverters with new, more versatile microcontrollers and a new firmware. Notably, this architectural upgrade enables the inverters originally designed for asynchronous motors to also control synchronous motors, which is becoming increasingly important particularly with the advent of IE4 efficiency motors. Highly dynamic drive tasks can now be executed even without encoder feedback. There are substantial benefits: for instance, customers who have been using IE3 motors with an encoder can save energy and costs by switching to IE4 motors without an encoder. Moreover, new generation NORD inverters are capable of performing drive-related PLC functions, which can significantly relieve external controllers. In some cases, previously used mini-controllers may even become redundant and be completely omitted.

The inverters support the manufacturer-independent PLCopen function blocks for motion control. They can be freely programmed according to IEC 61131-3 in “Structured Text” or “Instruction List”. This makes application development less complex and reduces the associated costs. Customer-specific drive-related functions can be implemented by means of the inverter PLC without an application-specific firmware and free from cost-intensive verification and validation.

NORD Drivesystems develops, produces and sells drive technologies with around 3.000 employees, and is one of the international leaders in the industry. In addition to standard drives, NORD supplies application-specific concepts and solutions, even for special applications, for example with energy-saving drives or explosion-protected systems. The company produces a wide variety of drive units for torques from 10 to 200,000 Nm, electric motors with powers from 0.12 kW to 1,000 kW as well as the necessary power electronics in the form of frequency inverters and servo controllers.