Most of us are old enough to remember the oil filter commercial tag line, “pay us now or pay us later.” Well, those oil filters are made in a facility in Greenville OH and are stamped out on several large stamping presses. These presses were designed with eddy current clutch and motors to drive the press flywheels to enable variable speed operation. Over the last 30 years, the clutch drives have required high maintenance and were undependable.
Now on to the solution; Mark Russell (outside sales) had several meetings with engineering staff with assistance from Dave Whited (product sales), Kim Shellabarger (shop supervisor), Jim Delawder (field supervisor), and Don Kerr (controls guru). Horner Industrial proposed retrofitting the eddy current clutches to Marathon AC motors driven by ABB AC variable frequency drives. The customer decided to retrofit a total of three presses with our proposed upgrades.
Horner corporate management approved the project and then we encountered the first hurdle. The payment terms on the purchase order we received from the company were unacceptable so Horner’s accounting department worked out a mutually acceptable agreement with the company’s accounting department. Remember the pay us now or pay us later slogan!
Lori Beam (Springfield purchasing) ordered the AC motors and drives, as well as other materials for the job. The motors were upgraded at the Springfield shop with insulated bearings and shaft grounding rings to prevent bearing deterioration from the AC drive currents. The Springfield machine shop fabricated new motor bases, per Kim Shellabarger’s drawings, to replace the clutch bases on each press.
Jim Delawder coordinated the job on-site and supervised the field crew installing the motors and drive controls. Don Kerr assisted with integrating the drives to the existing press controls and programming on the three presses. Field service then performed successful startup service on the presses with the company’s engineers.
This job demonstrates the teamwork required to successfully execute a project of this magnitude, with minimal downtime for the customer. Thank you to all Horner Industrial employees involved in this successful project. Special appreciation goes out to Mark Russell for his dogged determination to make this job happen.
