A new era of drive train design has arrived—one that is cost effective and offers the most flexibility within the tube mill system. Individual shaft drive systems which utilize two (2) AC motors; each coupled to their respective gear reducer driving one shaft of the roll stand (i.e. two motors per roll stand).
When utilized, these Drive PODS offer tube mill operators unlimited flexibility:
- In adjusting for product tension not only from pass to pass but also top to bottom (flexible drive ratios)
- Tooling management in the form of allowing users to regrind one roll and being able to electronically “gear in” the roll correctly
- Reduced tooling wear as the system can learn the exact spinning ratio of a roll for a given product (most tooling designers assume this to be the root diameter which may not always be the case)
- Ease of maintenance but allowing the removal of you drive POD from the system and the system is able to continue running
- Improved spare parts management as it is much less expensive to keep a spare motor (which is lower horsepower than its grouped drive or individual stand drive counterpart) and/or spare reducer on the shelf – OR even a complete drive POD on the shelf
- Improved system electrical efficiency (grouped drives or individual drives will often overcome various degrees of “roll fight” which is lost energy – with the drive POD, the natural roll speed can be determined improving the overall efficiency of the system).
Formtek, Inc. – Yoder has recently supplied a drive POD system for a large tube mill producing HSS products in the Midwest United States (as a retrofit). Within days of startup, the tube producer was experiencing speed improvements of 43%.