iTek Drives has received an order to build motor control panels for a mine in Uganda. They will ship together with variable frequency drives and replacement electric motors, allowing a complete refit of the hoist, long-travel and cross-travel on one of the mine’s cranes.
iTek Drives sales director, Ryan Bisnath, said that the order follows several similar deliveries of control panels to Zimbabwe, for borehole pump and mine pump motors.
“We are expanding our reach into Africa south of the Sahara,” Bisnath said.
“Whereas we’ve been shipping drives for fan, pump, compressor and lifting equipment applications for several years, we are now supplying the control panels as well.”
Clarifying the different terminology, Bisnath explained that the drive for a motor provides it with voltage and current as demanded by the control panel, which is itself the link between operator and machine. The panel comprises an arrangement of resistors, chokes and other electrical components which, working together with the drive (also known as a variable frequency drive, or inverter), allows fine adjustment of a motor’s speed, direction, acceleration, deceleration and torque. This can also improve the efficiency of the application, including reduced energy consumption.
Based in Johannesburg, iTek Drives has been a leading African distributor of British-manufactured Invertek Drives’ ‘Optidrive’ variable frequency drives since 2016, supporting them with a full range of service and training facilities from its headquarters in Raceway Industrial Park, Germiston.
iTek expanded its product range last year to include the supply of resistors and chokes. Motor control panels are the most recent addition to the product range.
“We source resistors and chokes from reputable manufacturers, so in addition to drives we can also supply the necessary control panel components, or we can supply these without the drive. We can also design and assemble the complete control panel,” Bisnath said.
Bisnath explained that control panel assembly is currently sub-contracted to a qualified, independent manufacturer.
“This arrangement with the subcontractor will continue until our Germiston workshop has been sufficiently developed for formal authorisation by Invertek, allowing our own technicians to take over panel-building,” he said.
Bisnath said that Optidrive is gaining market share in Africa because of a competitive pricing strategy that delivers product at a price up to 25 percent lower than the market average.
“Full Optidrive service certification will be important for our expansion programme. It will complement it,” Bisnath added.
“Until then, working with our external assembly partner, we can supply the customer with the drive itself, or just the resistor, or just the choke, or – ultimately – the optimised, turnkey solution of drive and control panel assembled and ready to plug in and go to work,” Bisnath concluded.
