Loads need to be lifted and moved in almost all industries all over the world. For example, on construction sites, at transshipment stations, in warehouses and in assembly and production halls.

These loads are lifted and moved by tower and gantry cranes, trolley traveling winches, hoists and trolleys. The drives on this machinery must be operated either manually (ground-controlled) or remotely (radio-controlled). It goes without saying that required safety instruments such as load recognition and limit switch controls must also be installed.

A typical crane control application is the gantry crane. In this case, crane control can be used not only for the travel axes but also for the hoist axis. The travel distance on both travel axes must be limited with a limit switch. In addition to limit switches, speed reduction switches are normally installed to reduce the speed towards the end of the stretch. For safety reasons, limit switches must also be monitored. Load-controlled speed reduction optimizes utilization of the power installed on the hoist axis.

The drive solution with MOVIDRIVE^® is based on the “Crane Control” application module. The “Crane Control” application module is part of the MOVITOOLS^® software for MOVIDRIVE^® and is avialable with the application version of MOVIDRIVE^® B. The user-friendly interface guides you through the process of setting the parameters. Only those parameters required for the specific application, such as fixed setpoints, ramps and speed, must be entered.

The application module uses this information to create the control program and loads it into the inverter. MOVIDRIVE^® then takes over the entire motion control. Users can also opt to control the inverter with variable speed selection or by fixed setpoints.

No matter how large the variety of applications for crane control, the wide range of functions provided by the application module provides the right solution for every task.

One of the main MOVIDRIVE^® features used in the application modules is IPOSplus^® positioning and sequence control. Based on the specifications, an IPOSplus^® program in MOVIDRIVE^® controls the entire motion sequence with the application module as machine-oriented as possible.

In addition to gantry cranes, the "Crane Control" application module can be used for further applications. Examples are: