Drive cables in accordance with manufacturer standard

Motor drive cables serve as essential conduits for transmitting electrical energy from power grids or batteries, which is then converted into mechanical energy. These cables play a crucial role in various industries, including machine tools, automation, robotics, and material handling machines in motion. They are designed to withstand the demands of dynamic applications and ensure reliable power transmission. The most popular cable types used for drive technology applications are servo power, servo motor feedback, and hybrid cables.
At igus®, we have fine-tuned our servo cables specifically for motors that operate on Variable Frequency Drives (VFDs) or even converters. These high-frequency-controlled drives and motors are both demanding and technically sensitive. 
Servo motor feedback cables are required to transmit signals between the position sensors of servo motors and their control systems within industrial plants and machinery.
The igus chainflex® and readycable® business units develop and produce cables that are sold by the metre with plug-in connectors for direct connection to electric drives. chainflex® cables are thus the means of transport for electrical energy and set machines such as machine tools, robots, and handling machines in motion.
For more than two decades, igus® has rigorously tested the service life of chainflex® cables in our 41,000 sq. ft. test laboratory at our headquarters in Cologne, Germany. All of our chainflex® cables undergo through testing to earn a UL-verified mark, which is based on our 4-year guarantee, lifetime calculator, and batch testing process. These tests ensure the highest quality and reliability of our cables, allowing them to perform optimally in various applications. 

Single-cable solutions in drive technology

Hybrid technology has been a hot topic for several years. Machine designers obviously would like to have only one cable that carries both energy to the motor and movement data such as direction of rotation, speed, and acceleration back to the frequency inverter. In addition to saving installation space on the cable and connector, the customer also eliminates the cost of processing a second cable and of the additional material.
We take all these advantages into account in the CF220.UL.H (PVC jacket) and CF280.UL.H (PUR jacket) cable series. Here, the electrical wire/cross-section combination is constantly being expanded to be fully compatible with drives from various manufacturers, such as Beckhoff, SEW, and Siemens. We use the digit after the letter "H" in the part number to mark this affiliation to the manufacturer's requirement. The advantage for our customers is that, if the article number is identical from the "H" onwards, they can choose freely between PVC and PUR jackets without putting themselves at electrical risk. This can result in great savings.

The topic of drive cables is currently being considered in detail in our energy supply blog. There are especially many articles dealing with hybrid cables - Find out about the latest technical developments, directly from the producer!

"We need to know the expected chainflex cable service life in order to be able to reliably plan the replacement cycles. Unplanned system downtimes must not occur under any circumstances. So we would like to be able to make statements to our customers about the durability of all components installed in our SRUs."

Friedbert Dannenhauer, Deputy Head of Design at viastore on the relevance of igus online service life calculation

"chainflex ... at home in the world" - This applies to drive technology, too, of course
All our cables have many approvals that allow worldwide use.
We have compiled a great deal of information about the world of standards in a booklet that we would be happy to send you.

Customer applications for drive technology in use