Sprint Electric now offers drives for slip ring motors. The new motor controllers will be introduced in November 2010 at SPS/IPC/Drives, the international trade fair for electric automation, systems and components, in Nuremberg, Germany.

A slip ring motor is a type of induction motor having a wound rotor connected to slip rings. Typical applications for slip ring motors include cranes, where the motors are used to control the hoist as well as the X/Y movement.

Sprint Electric’s JL/X range of slip ring motor drives is a derivation of the PL/X digital DC drive product range. It shares the same software and hardware platforms and delivers the same digital control functionality as the established PL/X range of DC drives. The main difference is that the thyristor stack configuration has been designed to provide a 3-phase output (U, V, W) suitable for controlling slip ring motors in either 2 or 4 quadrant modes. All the fieldbus options including Profibus, DeviceNet, CC-Link, EtherNet/IP, Modbus and CANopen, and configuration software packages used with the PL/X are also available for the JL/X range.

The JL/X range of slip ring motors covers output currents from 100 to 1850 Amps and comes in three frame sizes with standard supply voltage inputs up to 480 VAC. Overload capability is 150 percent. For high-duty applications, the JL/XHD range is available with an overload capability of 250 percent. There is also the option of high voltage units that are able to accept AC supply voltages up to 690 VAC. All models have the high current 3-phase supply terminals in standard top entry, with the motor connections being bottom entry. The JL/X is supplied configured for crane control as standard with joystick or analog demand inputs and outputs needed to control up to four external slip ring resistors, together with dedicated outputs for super-synchronous regenerative lowering and brake control.

Sprint Electric products are distributed in the USA by Bardac Corp.