HES Erkert modernizes plant with SIMATIC ET 200SP motor starters
HES Erkert GmbH is a contract manufacturer and special-purpose machine builder. The company is well known as a supplier to the automotive industry. In the control of the large number of motors in its conveyor system between machine tools, HES Erkert uses 1 inch-wide SIMATIC ET 200SP motor starters and, as a result, saves two-thirds of the space taken up in the control panel compared to the predecessor, the ET 200S – and all that with a power range up to 7.3 hp. Thanks to their integrated hybrid technology, the new motor starters are energy-efficient and low on wear and have consequently reduced the amount of service work required. In the past, the 33 employees in the electrical department had to replace several dozen contactors every year due to welded contacts.A lot of service call-outs are now unnecessary because the hybrid technology takes care of switching and the motor starters can work free of wear.Horst Schmid, head of the Electrical Engineering department at HES Erkert Präzisionsteile in Sulzbach, Germany
How does the SIMATIC ET 200SP motor starter reduce the amount of maintenance work?
If motors are monitored effectively, changes and imminent interruptions in ongoing operation can be detected early on. Diagnostic data is visualized in the TIA Portal engineering framework, where the SIMATIC ET 200SP motor starter is also integrated. The integrated current measurement also provides information about wear or operational disruptions: an important precondition for predictive maintenance. A further benefit is that, when service is required, a motor starter module can be simply pulled forward, removed and replaced thanks to the side-by-side set-up. Parameterization is then performed automatically via a parameter upload, which considerably speeds up service jobs.We benefit from the motor starters with hybrid technology in many ways – we save engineering work, space, installation time and also gain important information about the automation system.Horst Schmid, head of the Electrical Engineering department at HES Erkert Präzisionsteile in Sulzbach, Germany
