DickDV
Member
I've been involved in a number of multiple motor on one drive applications and, aside from saving a little money, they are nice and simple which is always a plus.
You cannot expect precise speed or torque control from any of the motors, each one basically free to vary within its normal slip speed range as the load on that individual motor changes. The motors will even load share although the sharing will be rather crude and imprecise.
Some years ago, I did a steel mill roll table with 47 rolls, each driven by a 1.5hp motor through a fused disconnect and overload block. The drive was rated 150hp to deal with the extremely low resistance the drive sees when starting all 47 motors. The idea was to be able to remove up to 15 damaged rolls from the roll bed and still keep the roll bed working. It worked just fine. Precise it wasn't but it definitely was simpler than any other solution that came to mind at the time.
You cannot expect precise speed or torque control from any of the motors, each one basically free to vary within its normal slip speed range as the load on that individual motor changes. The motors will even load share although the sharing will be rather crude and imprecise.
Some years ago, I did a steel mill roll table with 47 rolls, each driven by a 1.5hp motor through a fused disconnect and overload block. The drive was rated 150hp to deal with the extremely low resistance the drive sees when starting all 47 motors. The idea was to be able to remove up to 15 damaged rolls from the roll bed and still keep the roll bed working. It worked just fine. Precise it wasn't but it definitely was simpler than any other solution that came to mind at the time.
