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Excellent VLT® control of Australian wine centrifuge

18 June 2009
A VLT® solution eliminated the need for special heat resistant motors and a 1000 litre water tank - and significantly improved productivity and profit driving wine centrifuges at Southcorp, Karadoc in Australia.

The Southcorp company wine centrifuges drew high start-up currents from the mains and demanded expensive heat resistant motors - and stopping the centrifuges took one full hour.
In a trial, Danfoss installed a 45 kW VLT® frequency converter, and the result was considerably less current draw. The currents never exceded the motor name-plate value, and therefor no overheating occurred - enabling a less expensive standard motor to do the job.
Stop time reduced to 10 minutes
Having the VLT® drive decellerate the centrifuge using a 40% duty brake resistor decreased the stopping time from 1 hour to 10 minutes. This means that 50 minutes operation time is gained each time the centrifuge is stopped for maintenance, production or emergency reasons. In the former set-up, the centrifuges were fed with water from a 1000 litre water tank to stabilise the centrifuge during stopping. Using the common DC-link, the drive will utilise the regenerative energy from the centrifuge to maintain the controlled braking of the centrifuge - saving 83 % of the water consumption.

1000 litre water tank omissible Furthermore: the regenerative energy from the centriufuge can operate another VLT® drive controlling a water pump to supply the required water to the centrifuge. This way the water can be pumped in from the normal water supply even during power loss - and the 1000 litre water tank to provide water by gravity is omissible. An additional benefit is that there is no need for the tank and its associated maintenance.

B-option for safe speed monitoring
The new B-option for safe speed monitoring of a separator can be used to ensure safe monitoring of the max. speed. This has to be done in every separator in order to avoid critical situations and mechanical demolition resulting from high g-forces.
Using the B-option, the separator manufacturer will saving installation costs and will need fewer components, as the safety functionality is integrated as an option within the VLT® drive.

Better process control
A side benefit from applying a VLT® drive is the ability to trim the centrifuge speed to improve the separation results. All centrifuges on site have since been fitted with VLT® frequency converters.

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