News from Westin Drives

Have you seen the AEMT (The Association of Electrical and Mechanical Trades) “Renew” magazine?

Covering the latest news, innovations, applications and expert opinion, a story on Westin Drives has recently been featured about how a retrofit kept our customer’s Mangle operational.

Find "Retrofit keeps textile firm’s Mangle operational" on page 14.

Here at Westin Drives we are delighted to announce that we are now a Radicon distributor for West Yorkshire and will soon become a stockist and assembly centre.

We are also able to offer an in-house specification and support service, and crucially our assembly service will include emergency fast-builds.

With decades of proven reliability, Radicon, a brand we are proud to work with, are a premier Manufacturer of high quality, standard, modified standard and custom engineered gearboxes.

See here to find out more about Radicon and watch this space for further details.

​We love a good before and after opportunity... on this occasion, here is another great retrofit by our team – this time we worked on a Mangle in a North Yorkshire based Textile firm.

Here you can see a 40+ year old 9.5kW Elektra-Faurndau variable speed brushed AC motor direct coupled to a W.Bothner & Co gearbox. The motors commutator had failed badly resulting in the speed not varying as it should.

Whilst this would no doubt have been repairable, it wouldn’t be a 2 minute job and the machine would have to be down whilst it was in the workshop.

A retrofit was opted for. We therefore assembled a WEG 5.5kW IE3 motor with Force vent kit with a Radicon K-Series Helical Bevel gearbox. To vary the Speed a WEG CFW500 IP66 inverter was used and controlled from a potentiometer on a dancing arm – this created a very efficient system.

We were able to maintain the shaft centre height so no major modifications were required other than the existing coupling machining to suit the new shaft and 4 new holes for the feet. The old unit can now be repaired as a spare for another machine.

A 16-year-old 15kW VACON inverter was beginning to fail intermittently on a critical AHU (Air Handing Unit) at a West Yorkshire hospital.

The onsite engineers had checked all the usual culprits for inverter overheating but to no avail. A repair may well have been an option but the downtime would cause more issues than the cost saving.

With the old drive being of a slim design an inverter of a similar footprint was required to avoid any extra downtime when moving the isolators, conduit, etc.
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Westin Drives quoted an IP55 Invertek ECO HVAC drive IP55 which was available the same day from stock. Engineer Adam Daffern and apprentice Mason Seed completed the retrofit with minimal downtime.

The onsite facilities team said: “as always a 5-star service – the engineers are great with very good knowledge”.

A customer brought in a non-standard motor from one of their machines. In this case, the motor was in very poor condition and a repair wasn’t feasible.
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We used one of our stock WEG IE3 motors and modified it to suit their requirements – the shaft was turned down and a new keyway was cut and at the NDE, a socket used for locking the shaft was fitted. We got it back to the customer the very next day.

Here we have a motor and gearbox in for repair – the gearbox drives a feeder for an industrial biomass boiler. The bearings are worn but the main problem here is that the input pinion and spiral bevel gear have failed.

​The solution? New gears from Tramec, SKF bearings fitted, servicing, re-charging with oil, testing and painted – job done.

Here we have a pair of pump control panels for a valued customer in the water treatment industry. They're designed and commissioned to be stand alone or remotely controlled as part of a bigger system. During a challenging time for sourcing electronic goods, Invertek P2 inverters offer reliable variable speed, safe torque off and fast availability – what's not to like?

​Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year from Westin Drives!

​As 2022 is upon us, we'd like to thank our customers for their support in what has been yet another challenging year – we’re now looking forward to what 2022 has to offer…

Also, just a quick reminder that we’ll be closing end of play 24th December and reopening on 4th January. If not before, we'll see you in the New Year.