M&R Printing Equipment uses advanced servo, controller

Mitsubishi Electric Automation MR-J4 Servo and Q170 stand-alone motion controller help M&R Printing Equipment beat its own world record.

November 1, 2013

The MR-J4 Servo and Q170 stand-alone motion controller from Mitsubishi Electric Automation helped M&R Printing Equipment beat its own world record. M&R was building on a 20-year history of working with the automation provider and prior success of using the Mitsubishi Electric Automation MR-J3 B Safety Servo Drive and HF-SP Motor used in its production Challenger III press. M&R Printing Equipment selected Mitsubishi Electric products for the M&R Challenger III D J4 press, confident that Mitsubishi Electric’s successor to the MR-J3 would meet its needs.

Mitsubishi Electric chose its MR-J4 Servo System for M&R’s high-speed concept press because it provides fast index time, quick setting time, rapid closed loop control, and extremely accurate positioning control—all features that M&R required in its new press in to beat the T-shirt printing speed record.

M&R used Mitsubishi Electric’s Q170MCPU stand-alone motion controller in its Challenger III production press and was impressed with its superior performance. For the sophisticated demands of M&R’s concept press, Mitsubishi Electric recommended its Q170MCPU motion controller with built-in motion and logic control, as well as a built-in Ethernet network. With the Q170MCPU motion controller and PLC, motion control data is shared via the built-in EtherNet/IP port. Designed to handle the most complicated high-speed applications, the Q170MPCU includes built-in power supply, an external encoder interface, and high-speed registration inputs.

“Mitsubishi Electric maintains the legacy of its products, which is important to our future development needs,” said M&R’s chief electrical engineer, Bo Biel. “M&R and Mitsubishi Electric share the same vision for the development of our products.”

Testing new technologies for future product development improves performance and increases production output. “And, we know that Mitsubishi Electric will be there to support our development needs f5, 10, or 30 years from now,” Biel concluded.

– Greg Hookings, marketing communication manager, Mitsubishi Electric Automation. Edited by Mark T. Hoske, content manager CFE Media, Control Engineering and Plant Engineering, mhoske@cfemedia.com. 

ONLINE

See also, application article for more details and application photos: Printer breaks world record with advanced servo, motion controller, below

See a demo video showing the machine running prior to the record-setting run. Additional information follows, below.

– Mitsubishi provides information about the prior record setting machine

– Mitsubishi provides more information about the MR-J4