NORD gearmotors help to improve aperitif quality

TMCI Padovan supplied to a known italian producer of flavoured drinks an award-winning Dynamos machine provided with NORD gearmotors. The machine is targeted to the final processing of the grounds resulting from the cross flow filtration of vermouth-base wines and from clarifications with decolorizing carbon.

Picture 1: TMCI Padovan Group is the reference technological partner of the wine industry and, more generally, of the food and beverage industry.

The customer was looking for an innovative solution to replace a traditional vacuum filter. Due to the large volumes processed, a reliable and low-energy machine was required, able to operate every day of the year for 8 to 10 hours on average. After identifying in Dynamos filter a possible solution to the problem, the customer asked TMCI Padovan to perform a test in the production plant.

Provided with NORD gearmotors, Dynamos offers many advantages, that were conclusive for the final choice. First, the software flexibility, that allowed to match the operating parameters to the final products. Second, the compactness and the cleanliness in operation: the cross-flow filtration in closed room allows a better hygiene and reduces the overall size. Besides being a cost advantage, the operation without adjuvants is also a benefit in terms of safety and environment. Moreover, during filtration energy consumptions are decreased. Temperature pick-up is neglectable and, being Dynamos a closed system, the product oxydation is virtually null.

Also the reduction of filtering adjuvants and therefore of wastes resulting from operations was among the points that lead to replace with Dynamos the traditional filtration technology previously used.

An awarded rotary cross flow filter
TMCI Padovan’s Dynamos is the first rotating dynamic cross flow filter provided with an innovative calibrated back-pulse system, a new machine that, from now on, is going to be the most valid alternative in the filtration of must and wine grounds without adjuvants, i.e. liquids having a high level of suspended solids. The principle used is cross flow filtration applied on disks. This low energy consumption process prevents lock-ups and allows an easy cleaning. It requires long filtration cycles (up to 72 hours without interruptions) and high rated yelds (25 to 50 l/m2/h with no lees), without reduction of the red colour and with low oxygen absorption. The available models, compact and easy to operate, are in the range 2 to 40 m2 and multiples.

Recently, Dynamos received the prestigious Innovation Award during SIMEI 2011 fair, the most important international event in wine-making industry, thanks also to cutting-edge technologies that allowed a unique system to be assembled. Like NORD technologies, widely used in Dynamos filters. In fact, on the smaller machine there are 4 NORD SK3282AF parallel axes gearmotors with SK205E inverter on board and a 2.2kW motor. The larger machine has a double number of drives: as the NORD gearmotors rotate the filtration disks, their number varies as a function of the number of disk-holding shafts (1 to 16) on the machine. Finally, the machines have one or two tanks for the product; in each tank there are four gearmotors, therefore it is necessary to double the gearmotors when the tanks are two.
The gearmotors with sensorless vectorial inverter on board – an inverter that doesn’t require any speed sensor - and the SK205E inverters ensure a time-constant rotation, resulting in a good quality of the process. The drives adjust the system speed by communicating with the control PLC through fieldbus. The Dynamos filters are also provided with a 4-pole 3kW motor with a NORD SK205E inverter for the circulation pump.

SK 200E inverters are available in models either for the installation beside the motor or integrated in the motor, with the same function range of the centralized inverter series SK 500E for cabinet installation. Besides offering a large overload capacity of 200%, the distributed inverters allow the users to place the driver with high accuracy. The relevant posizions (incremental or continuous axes) or the absolute values (rotating tables/repeatible fixed positions) can be controlled by binary values entered through SK 200E inputs and stored in the drive. As an alternative, they can be set through a fieldbus system. The positions can be detected through incremental encoders (in the basic supply of inverters an on-board reference function is included), or it is possible to directly set the values provided by an absolute encoder on CANopen. The configuration is simply, quick and essential – it is enough to set only few parameters for commissioning and optimization.

Winning features
Many features of NORD products contributed to the success of the application. In particular, the high rotation accuracy (that is directly related to the quality of the final product), the energy saving function that allows to use only a fraction of the rated power when the filter doesn’t require the full rated power, the mounting simplicity due to the great compatcness, the local storage of all the programming data on removable EEPROM and the possibility of matching safety standards like EN 61508: SIL3 were fundamental.

Moreover, the possibility to talk with the PLC through the fieldbus specified by the customer using a single node for multiple users, allows to interface the gearmotors with the CANOpen-based fieldbus always present on inverters, resulting in cost savings. A further cost saving results from the smaller size of the inox steel electric cabinet, due to decentralization of inverters on the motors.

Finally, is to be noted the fully modular construction of the assemblies, the extremely simple solutions for the addressing of nodes, the full set of status LEDs on-board the gearmotors and the diagnostics that can be read via RS232 both on inverters and on distributed nodes through a free software for computer interfacing to a scope function tool.

NORD supported the customer in the selection and commissioning phases of the machines, and ensures the customer an accurate supply and service.
“We selected NORD mostly because of the quality, the robustness and the typology of material, that we consider to be suitable for prolonged industrial use,” says Narciso Gatti, Purchase and Operations Manager, TMCI Padovan. “Our company already used NORD products, specially for vacuum filters, vegetal oil processing machines and tunnel pastorizers. NORDE is a supplier of TMCI Padovan since many years. The first contact was established about 11 years ago following a research that we made internally”.

Before NORD gearmotors with on-board inverter, belt transmission motors were used in Dynamos filters.
“The new technology allowed us to obtain several advantages, like a greater energy saving, a greater reliability, a more simplified machine design and a greater safety for operators,” says Gatti. “In the future, we will probably use NORD solutions also in other products of ours. In particular, we’ll replace the current transmissions based on motors and pulleys with toothed belts and in plants for industrial use”.

Notes on TMCI Padovan Group
The roots of TMCI Padovan were thrust in the soil of history until 1919, when the Officine Meccaniche Padovan were established, specialising in machines for the wine industry. They developed on a worldwide level in 1984, when they were bought by the TMCI international Group, and then ramified with increasing success in the food sector. Padovan is the reference technological partner of both the wine industry and, more generally, of the food and beverage industry, with a constantly growing turnover.
TMCI Padovan Group is specialized in five areas: Wine & beverage industries (TMCI Padovan); Food industries (Parma Food Machinery); Food packaging (TMCI Newpack); Bakery, candies, cocoa and jelly industries (TMCI Chemtech); Brewery industry (TMCI Brewtech).
In the Wine area, the full range of machines for filtration, clarification, pastorization, evaporation and refrigeration for which TMCI Padovan is a world leader, results from the professional experience acquired in almost one century of activity. The top quality with superior performances combines with simplified functionality and long life guarantee, making company products unique.



Picture 2: In the Wine area, TMCI Padovan is a world leader in machines for filtration, clarification, pastorization, evaporation and refrigeration.



Picture 3: Dynamos is based on the principle of cross flow filtration applied to disks.

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