The selection of a variable speed-drive from Control Techniques has given a South African automated door company a superior, more reliable product with the added benefit of an electrical warranty.
Coroma, part of the Trellicor Group, of Cape Town, makes a wide range of custom-designed garage and industrial doors for the commercial, industrial, local authority and domestic markets. Recently, the company approached automation specialists Control Techniques Southern Africa Pty with a view to upgrading its design of Fire Station doors, which have to be fast-opening and completely reliable.
Previously the company had supplied a purpose-made PCB panel which offered no soft start or stop, no auto-reverse and which carried no third party warranty for peace of mind. Control functions were limited, with no automatic pull-back on closing, for example, to release chain tension. The system was difficult to programme and there was no load monitoring, so wear and tear was often excessive.
Control Techniques’ solution was both simple and yet provided all of the functions, and more, that Coroma required for its quality products. The new panels have at their heart a 0.37kW Commander SK general purpose AC drive, with comprehensive software pre-loaded onto a LogicStick. This software was developed, in close consultation with Coroma, by Control Techniques’ reseller, SK Technologies.
The result? A much simpler, easy to programme panel that gives a smooth operating profile with soft start and stop, auto-reverse, load monitoring and both manual and automatic closing, fully programmable on delay. It even offers a time programmable courtesy light.
The customer was absolutely delighted with the result and, to date, over 50 fire station doors have been upgraded. The system is so easy to apply that Coroma has upped its production from a couple a week to, currently, one a day, with ambitious plans to boost this to 50 a month.
A two year warranty is offered as standard on Commander SK drives, giving customers absolute confidence in the system and cutting Coroma’s maintenance costs.
“The Commander SK solution has a higher initial capital cost than our previous solution, but just look at all of the features it brings,” enthuses Mr Craig Meekers at Coroma. “Most important of all is the inherent reliability of the drive. We haven’t had a single failure.”
The Commander SK is small, yet powerful, taking up very little panel space and is renowned for its reliability. It is easy to fit, set up and use, with all the 10 parameters most users need being accessible from the display keypad, which is included as standard. Very important in today’s carbon-aware economy is its energy-saving efficiency and its state-of-the-art manufacturing standards which are responsible for its outstanding reliability.
Coroma sectional overhead garage doors are ideal for adverse weather conditions and can be custom-made to suit existing openings. The tracks are made from hot-dipped galvanised steel for maximum corrosion protection with robust bearing rollers to ensure a lifetime’s smooth, trouble-free operation. Their wedging action excludes dust, wind and rain. With over 40 years’ of manufacturing, Coroma backs its quality products with a nationwide after-sales service. Doors are available in galvanised steel, sectional aluminium, aluminium and glass or in sliding or up-and-over formats.
