Servo drive for hygienic and washdown environments

Kollmorgen has expanded its Kollmorgen Essentials Servo Drive for compatibility with the brand’s washdown motors and hygienic servo motors, creating a value-driven servo package. Distributed in the UK by INMOCO, increasing the flexibility means machine builders can achieve high-performance motion in washdown applications without the high cost associated with servo systems designed for these demanding environments.

The expansion to the Essentials Servo Drive now achieves compatibility with Kollmorgen’s AKMA aluminium motors that feature a cost-effective, anodised aluminium coating for medium and heavy washdown environments. The servo drive also integrates with Kollmorgen’s AKMH stainless-steel hygienic servo motors, designed for frequent, aggressive washdowns and strict hygienic requirements, achieving IP69K protection.

While a firmware upgrade has assisted in servo drive and motor compatibility, Kollmorgen’s AKMA and AKMH motors are now available with Smart Feedback Device, Multi-Turn (SFD-M). This enables Kollmorgen Essentials Servo Drives to support absolute multi-turn positioning in hygienic and washdown applications, giving machine builders high-performance motion solutions.

SFD-M delivers 24-bit, high-resolution absolute feedback without the cost and maintenance of battery-supported encoders. To achieve this, energy harvesting technology stores absolute position information through power cycles, while embedded motor data enables automatic drive configuration to rapidly speed-up restarts and assist with faster machine commissioning.

While Kollmorgen Essentials presents a cost-effective solution, the servo drives still support synchronous motion profiles and real-time communication protocols, including EtherCAT, EtherNet/IP, and PROFINET, to enhance servo performance and enable flexible design integration. Scalable across a range of washdown and hygienic applications, the Essentials drives can operate at up to 12 Arms continuous current, and 30 Arms peak current, with typical shaft power up to 5kW.

The servo drives are also equipped with integrated functional safety, including dual-channel STO achieving SIL2/Cat 3 PL d, that supports emergency stops and prevents unexpected restarts.

To speed up design and commissioning, plug-and-play setup is achieved with the new Express Setup feature in Kollmorgen’s WorkBench software. Configuration and tuning can be achieved even with little motion experience, while the full suite of WorkBench tools is also included to allow advanced motion programming and tuning tasks. The Essentials drive also includes a USB-C service port for configuration and diagnostics.