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Article: Variable speed drives save money for the food industry.
- Article from:
- Food Trade Review
- Article date:
- January 1, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 Food Trade Press Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The food manufacturing industries have used drives since their inception 20 years ago, but there are still many machines and processes that would benefit from an upgrade to variable speed capabilities. This is particularly true with the most modern drives that are now becoming available.
Drives control the speed of motors, and thus the machines, pumps, fans, mixers, conveyors etc to which they are attached. Normally a motor will run at one fixed speed; a drive gives them variable speed capability, opening up a world of machine control possibilities.
UK mains frequency is fixed at 50Hz. A drive effectively varies this just before it is fed into the motor, ...