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Production lines

Food & Beverage

Hygienic design, accurate dosing and high-cycle reliability.

  • Typical axes3
  • NetworkEtherCAT
  • Control modeCSP · CST
  • Recommended seriesSD24-LP · SM06 · SM08 · SDU3
01
The sector at a glance

Food & Beverage

Washdown environments and food safety directly shape component choice.

Three things that decide it on the shop floor

  1. 01

    Dosing repeatability

    The same profile on every fill gives the same quantity.

  2. 02

    Hygienic environment

    Washdown and humidity decide cable and connector choice.

  3. 03

    High cycle rate

    Frequent accelerations raise RMS torque; size for it.

02
Our advantages

Why SMB TECHNICS?

One set, controller to cable

Controller, drive, motor, cable and connector arrive checked against each other; interface problems are solved at the desk, not on the shop floor.

Open standards

EtherCAT, CANopen, Modbus RTU, CODESYS and CiA 402: your machine is not tied to a closed ecosystem.

Engineer-to-engineer support

The same team from sizing to commissioning, on site and remotely.

Documented products

Manuals, CAD, ESI/EDS and firmware in the Document Centre; every product you choose comes with its documents.

Our application know-how for this sector
  • Servo dosing profiles
  • Torque-limited capping
  • Cable and connector choice for washdown
03
How we build the system

From control chain to commissioning, which product goes where

3.1

The control chain and the recommended products

How the machine is driven and the SMB products we choose for it.

In food and beverage lines the filling, dosing, capping and packing stations need volumetric accuracy to avoid product giveaway together with high-cycle reliability to keep the line running. Washdown environments call for high-ingress-protection components and suitable cabling. Servo dosing keeps fills repeatable even as product viscosity changes.

A rooted manufacturing and engineering background shows in the hygienic design and repeatable dosing reliability that food and beverage lines demand.

The control chain

Food machinery is judged twice: once on how it runs and once on how it washes down. That decides the mechanical envelope before the motion is even discussed. Inside it the chain is familiar — SD-LP and SDU3 drives on SM06 to SM10 motors for filling, capping and indexing, photoelectric sensors for presence and fill level, and an HMI-R9 panel an operator in gloves can actually use.

What decides the result

  • Dose repeatability, not dose accuracy. A filler that is consistently 2 ml over can be trimmed; one that varies cannot. Variation is a servo characteristic.
  • Changeover time. A line that runs three products runs them profitably only if the recipe change is quick — which is a controller and HMI question, not a mechanical one.
  • What survives the wash-down. Ingress rating and cable gland choice decide the maintenance interval more than anything in the motor datasheet.

Sizing it

Bring the container, the fill volume and the rate per minute, plus the wash-down regime the machine has to survive. The selection guide narrows the drive; tell us the required ingress protection, because that constrains the motor before torque does.

Select the products for this machine Enter power, torque and network; compare compatible drives and motors and add them to your basket. Selection guide
3.2

The architecture: which product goes where

The boxes show the real products; click one to open the series.

  • EtherCAT
  • Ethernet
  • Power and feedback
  • Safety
Where this machine sits on the full SMB system map
CPU / PLC & Motion Control 3 series Expansion Rack / IO 10 products Ethernet switch Ethernet Operator Panels 3 series Sensors 3 series EtherCAT Servo Drives 17 products CANopen Servo Drives 6 products Modbus RTU Servo Drives 4 products Servo Motors 6 series Power and Encoder Cables 2 series CODESYS IEC 61131-3 PLCopen Motion Control CiA 402 Drive profile
EtherCAT Ethernet CANopen Modbus RTU Digital I/O Power and feedback

CPU / PLC & Motion Control

Expansion Rack / IO

Ethernet switch

The industrial switch distributes Ethernet traffic between the controller, the operator panel and the engineering PC. It is part of the architecture, not part of the SMB catalogue.

Operator Panels

Sensors

EtherCAT Servo Drives

CANopen Servo Drives

Modbus RTU Servo Drives

Servo Motors

Power and Encoder Cables

CODESYS

SMB controllers are programmed in CODESYS: the IEC 61131-3 languages, integrated motion and a single project covering both machine logic and the axes.

PLCopen

PLCopen Motion Control function blocks give every axis the same standard interface, so proven machine code carries over from one project to the next.

CiA 402

SMB servo drives implement the CiA 402 drive profile: the same state machine and the same operating modes over EtherCAT and over CANopen.

3.3

Product placement, axis by axis

Each axis, its task, its control mode and the drive–motor pair on it.

  1. 01
    Filling heads Accurate dosing
    CSP · EtherCAT
  2. 02
    Capping Torque-limited tightening
    CST · EtherCAT
  3. 03
    Starwheel / conveyor Moving bottles between stations
    CSP · EtherCAT

CSP: cyclic synchronous position · CSV: cyclic synchronous velocity · CST: cyclic synchronous torque · PP: profile position. The series is confirmed by load and supply voltage.

3.4

The build, step by step

From requirement to support; the SMB products and tools each step uses.

  1. 1

    Requirements and sizing

    The motion profile, load and cycle time of every axis are collected; torque, speed and inertia ratio are calculated per axis.

    • Peak and RMS torque, top speed
    • Load-to-motor inertia ratio and gearing
    • Supply: 220 V AC, 380 V AC or 24–70 V DC
  2. 2

    Architecture and product choice

    The network (EtherCAT, CANopen, Modbus RTU), the controller and the drive–motor pair per axis are chosen; the safety and power side is drawn at this step.

    • EtherCAT for synchronised axes, CANopen for independent ones
    • Drive current covers the motor peak current
    • STO and braked motors come from the risk assessment
  3. 3

    Cabinet, cabling and EMC

    Power and encoder cables run in separate ducts with their shields bonded 360°; an EMI filter goes at the drive input and a braking resistor where the load regenerates.

    • Flexible cable for the cable chain
    • Shields are earthed at both ends
    • The braking resistor is sized from the braking energy
  4. 4

    Software and network

    In the CODESYS project the axes are defined with PLCopen blocks; the drives join the network through their ESI/EDS files and run the CiA 402 state machine.

    • IEC 61131-3 languages and PLCopen Motion Control
    • ESI (EtherCAT) and EDS (CANopen) in the Document Centre
    • EtherCAT coupler for remote I/O
  5. 5

    Commissioning and tuning

    After wiring and direction checks the gains are tuned and the axes homed; the operator panel carries the machine recipes.

    • Direction, limit and emergency-stop tests
    • Speed and position loop gain tuning
    • Backing up the parameter sets
  6. 6

    Support and lifecycle

    Alarm codes, spare parts, firmware and training, from the same engineering team.

    • Alarm-code and troubleshooting guides
    • Manual, CAD and firmware downloads
    • Remote and on-site support
3.5

The solution package: what comes with the product

Hardware, software, engineering and lifecycle.

02

Software and know-how

The CODESYS project, PLCopen motion blocks and know-how specific to this machine.

  • Servo dosing profiles
  • Torque-limited capping
  • Cable and connector choice for washdown
03

Engineering support

Sizing, architecture, commissioning and tuning, on site and remotely.

  • Motor and drive sizing per axis
  • System architecture and network choice
  • Commissioning, gain tuning and homing
04

Lifecycle

Manuals, ESI/EDS files, spare parts and training.

  • Document Centre: manuals, CAD, firmware
  • ESI and EDS files, parameter backups
  • Spare parts and user training
Engineering knowledge base

Commissioning this application

The topics engineers in this industry ask about most, each with answers, checklists and troubleshooting steps.

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