Leading Edge Automation

Not only do the 8903 Ethernet TechCards provide a fieldbus interface for simultaneous connections to the most widely used communications protocols, they also provide complete programming and troubleshooting capabilities over any LAN, WAN, or the Internet. Furthermore, a static IP address is not a requirement. All you need is your LAN or Internet access. Read on to discover how simple this is to setup.

Over a period of a few years Leading Edge Automation has successfully completed several different retrofit projects that have turned a 'well-used' 6-Colour, 120" wide, Cobden Chadwick CI Flexo printing press into a very reliable workhorse that has almost no downtime.

When the press first arrived on site it was clear that it had been neglected for quite some time. The analog DC drive system suffered from numerous undocumented wiring changes and failing components.

We first worked at optimizing the existing system in order to improve up-time and minimize web breaks. Then we stood back and came up with a long term plan that would eventually turn the press into a piece of equipment our customer could depend on to produce a high quality product when their customers required it.

We can now offer this world class lineup of industrial products at a very competitive price.

Leading Edge Automation was recently involved in upgrading a commercial printing press. The existing DC drives and motors were replaced by a pair of Parker-SSD
300 HP 890PX AC drives and two Reliance RPM AC Induction Servo motors with Heidenhain multi-turn absolute encoders.

The 890PX drive is a unique high horsepower AC drive with modular architecture. Besides adding an external DB resistor, the drives were ready to accept an AC supply as well as motor & encoder connections. The drives communicated with each other via ultra-fast firewire, and to a PLC via ControlNet. While running in Simplex mode (controlling the press’ lineshaft), one drive was a master speed regulator, while the second drive followed the torque demand from the master. In Duplex mode the master drive would follow an absolute encoder located on another press so that the webs from both presses could be combined into a common folder. Both the Simplex and Duplex operations were very successfully performed.

The standard RPM AC Induction Servo motor has the highest torque to inertia ratio of any induction motor. They include high vibration feature enhancements for use in fast response applications. The frame size of the 300 HP motors used on this project were the same as those found on conventional motors of less than 1/2 their horsepower.

On January 30th, 2008 Parker SSD Drives released a new version of the drive configuration software tool ConfigED Lite. Anyone already familiar with ConfigED Lite knows what a valuable resource this tool is when it comes to designing control strategies for all of our AC & DC drive products.

DSELite (Drive System Explorer Lite) is used to configure and commission the entire family of Parker SSD Drives' AC & DC drives. In addition to the off-line programming found in CELite, DSELite offers on-line setup and monitoring. You are able to monitor several parameters simultaneously on a built-in chart recorder and save the chart for future analysis. Parameters can be modified in real time for faster commissioning and troubleshooting.

There are some considerations to be aware of when using this software, so please read the contents of the Help Menu before using it. One thing to consider is backward compatability. Configurations created using DSELite cannot be opened in ConfigED Lite. But of course files that were created using CELite are fully compaible with DSELite.

Just go to the Parker SSD Drives website to download the latest version of DSELite at:

If you have any questions at all please go to our "Contact Us" page and send us an E-Mail.