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Siemens drops Robicon name from its MV drives
Published:  10 January, 2014

Siemens Drive Technologies is renaming its Robicon range of medium-voltage (MV) drives, which, it claims, are the global market-leader, with more than 10,000 sold since their launch in 2004. In future, the MV drives will be marketed under the Sinamics brand that Siemens already uses for its other drives ranges, and will be known as Sinamics Perfect Harmony.

Siemens acquired the Robicon brand when it rescued the former Robicon Corporation from bankruptcy in 2005. It paid around $197.5m for US-headquartered Robicon’s assets, which included the stock at its subsidiaries in the UK (the former Hill Graham Controls), China, Brazil and Canada. Robicon’s former parent, High Voltage Engineering (HVE), had been suffering from financial problems for several years and filed for bankruptcy in February 2005.

Since acquiring Robicon’s assets, Siemens has invested in the business, including spending $7.2m to expand its production facilities in New Kensington, Pennsylvania, in 2006. It says that the addition of the Perfect Harmony drives to the Sinamics portfolio shows its commitment to the technology.

Siemens calculates that the Robicon products now have an installed base capacity of 2.2GW. The drives are produced in both air-cooled versions (up to 6.7MW) and liquid-cooled models (up to 14.2MW).

Siemens says its is committed to the future of the former Robicon MV drives

The modular drives incorporate more than 50 patented technologies. For enhanced reliability, they use a cell-based design that allows cells to be bypassed during operation, while maintaining the full output voltage. Siemens claims that the drives’ MTBF is 200,000 hours.

The drives incorporate transformers with phase-shifted secondaries that provide 18-pulse or higher harmonic cancellation, with a power factor above 0.95 under all operating conditions. This eliminates the need for input harmonic filters or power factor compensation, while avoiding common-mode voltages being imposed on the motor.