PowerFlex 523 AC Drive offers ‘Just Enough’ Control

By admin November 30, 2013 9:27 am IST

Economical PowerFlex 523 AC drive increases user competitiveness with customer-inspired design to reduce configuration and installation time and costs
MILWAUKEE, Oct. 7, 2013 — Inspired by global drive-user input, Rockwell Automation engineers designed the Allen-Bradley PowerFlex 520-Series of compact AC drives, including the new, economical PowerFlex 523 AC drive, with flexible features that help users be more competitive. Ideal for builders of simple, stand-alone machines, the PowerFlex 523 AC drive balances user needs for “just enough” control with a design that lowers the Total Cost to Design, Develop and Deliver machines.
“When we designed the PowerFlex 520-Series drives, we traveled to hundreds of drive users around the world to learn firsthand which features they value most today and would want five years from now,” said Jimmy Koh, global marketing manager, RockwellAutomation. “Stand-alone machine builders wanted ‘just enough’ motor control and emphatically shared the need for features that ease configuration and speed installation. This is where their profitability was most affected, and we designed the PowerFlex 523 drive to meet those needs.”Ease of Configuration. To make configuration easier, machine builders can use a standard USB connection for uploading and downloading drive-configuration files. They also can program the drive through its built-in human interface module (HIM), which displays data on the drive’s LCD with scrolling QuickView text and detailed explanations of parameters and other codes. The HIM also has multiple language options to address global needs. Unique to the PowerFlex 520-Series AC drives, AppView and CustomView tools help speed up configuration by providing groups of parameters for common applications and by allowing users to save their settings to new parameter groups. These tools can be easily accessible via the HIM, as well as configuration software tools.
Connected Components Workbench software from Rockwell Automation also helps speed up drive configuration and further reduces development time with online and offline configuration, AppView and CustomView groups, and startup wizards. Machine builders gain more time to focus on design and improve a machine’s competitiveness.
For more sophisticated networked machines, builders can take advantage of an optional dual-port EtherNet/IP adapter for the PowerFlex 523 AC drive. This module supports ring topologies and provides device level ring (DLR) functionality, which can help provide network resiliency and drive machine availability. When a DLR network detects a break in the ring, it quickly provides alternate routing of the data to help recover. The dual-port adapter supports linear topologies in addition to ring configurations. Ring topologies can remove the need for an external switch and reduce necessary cabling. Adding a dual-port EtherNet/IP adapter to a PowerFlex 523 AC drive provides automatic device configuration, which saves time by automatically downloading configuration files when a drive is replaced.