TURCK has released a motor starter economy module which can control up to 48 motor starters on a single node.
The BL20 module is said to have SWIRE technology, allowing multiple motor starters to be daisy-chained together using a ribbon cable. This eliminates the labour needed to hardwire motor starters to digital output points, and auxiliary contacts back to digital inputs.
The module allows three-phase motor controls to be connected to the same rack as standard input/output. Motor starters can be mounted on separate DIN-rails within the same panel.
According to the manufacturer, this configuration attains both the flexibility of standard motor starters and the advantages of Fieldbus control.
The module comes in sizes ranging from 0.08 to 20 horsepower, in both direct and reversing modes. Each starter module consists of a gateway, base modules, and electronic modules. They can be used on DeviceNet, PROFIBUS, CANopen, EtherNet/IP and Modbus TCP/IP networks.