Tutorial 2: Electric motors

Goals:

In this tutorial you will:

• Get in touch with motors and motor contactors.
• Make a mechanical port connection between components.

Start by loading the tutorial system into the workspace, and then navigate through the components in the tree and the scene to explore them.

Note

To be able to follow this tutorial, make sure you have already done the Basic Tutorial 1.

System description

The system includes two assemblies:

• main: With a table, an electric box, a 3-phase power supply, a 24V DC power supply, a button, and a motor contactor.
• motor_group: With a 3-phase motor and a simple fun component.

System assets

Systems may contain assets, linked documents or files, that are available to all users having access to the system. Assets can be documentation, such as drawings or functional description documents, or even screenshots or video captures.

To access the system assets select the system in the left panel and click on the asset icon.

The asset explorer will appear on the right side of the workspace and you can download any of the assets by simply clicking on the download icon. Let's download the system drawings.

You should now see the drawings in your browser, but if not, you can also view the downloaded file in a regular PDF reader.

The drawings show how the components should be connected. The motor 'M01' will be powered through the motor contactor 'KM01', which in turn is activated using the button 'S01'. Following the same steps as in the previous tutorials, you should be able to make the necessary electrical connections between the components. Make sure you connect all three phases between the 'SUPPLY', 'KM01', and 'M01'.

Mechanical ports

In addition to electric, pneumatic and hydraulic ports, Simumatik OEP has two types of mechanical ports: rotational and translational. These allow transferring angular or linear speed between components.

In the case of the 'M01' (AC motor 3 phase) component, the 'axis' output port provides the actual angular speed (rad/s) of the motor. On the other side, the 'FAN' component has a compatible mechanical rotational input to make the fan rotate.

Select the 'FAN' component and make the connection according to the drawings, connect the 'motor_axis' input to the 'M01.axis' output:

Time to play!

Now you should be able to start the emulation and test the system. The fan should rotate when you press the button.