Baldor stresses H2 Drive reliability, simplicity, performance

Initial size range of Baldor H2 Drives is 1 through 60 hp, offered from stock. Higher power models and custom design units will be offered soon.

“The most reliable industrial drives you can buy today,” is how Baldor Electric chairman and CEO, John McFarland, describes the company’s new H2 Drives family shown at National Manufacturing Week in Chicago earlier this month. What’s behind the claim? Extensive testing during each design phase and verification during each step of the manufacturing process, which consists of:

In-circuit and functional testing of each circuit board;

Stress testing;

FMEA testing; and

Full-load dynamometer testing of the final drive.

Ease of use and high performance are said to be integral to H2 Drives. For ease of use, a larger graphical display augments the keypad to increase an operator’s control functionality. The new keypad includes more keys, faster navigation with directional arrows, and enhanced soft programming keys. Multiple-line English display, selectable type sizes, and a simple programming method round out user features. “Extensive diagnostic information is available with new‘error logging’ and ‘help text’ features,” according to Baldor. “Point-and-click operation is available from a PC using either the supplied H2 Workbench application program or from any computer with connection to the Ethernet Server expansion board.”

For higher performance applications, H2 drives family offers choices of encoderless vector, vector, and ac servo control. Field-installed expansion boards are available to expand the number of input and output points. Bus communication boards handle various networking protocols, such as DeviceNet, Profibus, and LonWorks. Also available are a new Ethernet server board and Baldor’s Mint (Motion intelligence) expansion board. “Designed for positioning applications and special programming,‘Mint’ expansion board offers stand-alone and coordinated motion operations while providing flexibility in overall machine control,” says Baldor.

—Frank J. Bartos, executive editor, Control Engineering, fbartos@reedbusiness.com

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