Years of expertise in drive technology
Over the years, our employees have acquired a wealth of expertise, which they can skillfully apply to meet your requirements.
Availability
We are available daily from 7:15 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on +41 61 417 17 17, and outside our opening hours until 10:00 p.m. on +41 79 688 40 48.
Unique location
With our unique assembly and repair plant, we can carry out repairs and assemblies at any time and send them to you within 24 hours.
Whether for balconies or terraces, conservatories or facades – as a leading Swiss manufacturer, STOBAG from Muri AG offers a wide range of customized shading systems for all requirements. Alfred Imhof AG, as a strong supplier and partner, ensures that production does not come to a standstill.
The automated 30-meter-high high-bay warehouse from Trafö-Förderanlagen plays an important role in the production chain. The parts stored in 32 aisles and a total of 1,678 storage locations are transported to the raw materials processing department, where they are processed according to customer requirements. They are then returned to the high-bay warehouse in a cassette with all components until they are called up for final assembly of the awning.
We use almost exclusively SEW drives and the corresponding electronics in our warehouse, assembly and conveyor lines. The products are durable and require very little maintenance, which guarantees us high system availability. The support provided by Alfred Imhof AG, which assembles and distributes SEW products in Switzerland, is also very good. We wouldn't want to use anything else.Matthias Braun
MOVIDRIVE® B application inverters from SEW-EURODRIVE act as the brain of the four storage and retrieval machines that “float” above the high-bay warehouse. They control the travel and lifting drives. While SEW bevel gear motors handle the travel function, 110 kW SEW flat gear motors of type FA157/G D315S4 with manual ventilation, brakes, and incremental encoders are used to move the gripper. The drives mounted on a rope drum move the grippers, which pick up the cassettes for removal and transport them to the removal point and set them down. A MOVIDRIVE® MDR power supply unit feeds the energy recovered from the lowering and braking movements back into the mains.
A few months ago, the flat gear motors manufactured in 2005 began to show signs of wear. Technical service employees at STOBAG AG noticed oil leaks on all four drives and reported their observations to the supplier, Alfred Imhof AG. For Rainer Trumpp, Service Project Manager at Alfred Imhof AG, it was important to respond quickly: “An oil leak usually indicates an anomaly in the drive. In the case of STOBAG, a sudden failure of the drive would have partially paralyzed the high-bay warehouse and caused a partial production stoppage lasting several days. This had to be prevented at all costs.” During a visual inspection of the drives, Rainer Trumpp finally determined that oil had entered the motor from the gearbox. Worn shaft seals seemed to be the most likely cause, as they had already been in operation for thousands of hours. The vibration analysis carried out afterwards also revealed that the bearings had reached the end of their nominal service life.
We are delighted to have the full support of Alfred Imhof AG for this challenging project. The drive specialist has not only proven to be a reliable partner in the overhaul of the drives, but the expertise of its employees has made the entire planning and implementation process possible. We can now assume that the drives will continue to operate smoothly for another 10 years.Urs Koch
It was therefore decided to overhaul all four drives. However, it was not only the requirement that ongoing production should be disrupted as little as possible that made the project considerably more difficult. In addition, there was extremely little space available for removing the drives. There was also no crane available for handling the drives, which weighed over two tons. A detailed plan had to be drawn up. This problem also interested the plant manufacturer Trafö. The specialist for storage systems had not really given any detailed thought to replacing the drives. So an employee appeared at the construction site to learn from the end customer's experience. Since a replacement drive was available, the principle of ring exchange was the optimal solution. The first drive was to be replaced with the replacement drive. The first revised gearbox was to replace the second gearbox to be revised, and so on.
1. First of all, the replacement drive, which is in stock at STOBAG, was brought to Alfred Imhof AG in Münchenstein for inspection. It showed slight damage from standing idle, was overhauled, and made available in mint condition.
2. A temporary overhead crane was installed at STOBAG to remove the drives that needed to be overhauled. This consisted of a steel girder with two trolleys (equipped with chain hoists), which was suspended from a ceiling beam.
3. Due to the heavy weight and unfavorable center of gravity, the motor and gearbox were separated on site so that they could be transported away separately. To do this, the motor was hooked onto the crane and the flange was loosened. In order to expose the gearing, the motor had to be tilted slightly; only then could it be removed from the gearbox.
4. Once the motor had been freed, it could be pulled onto the crane rail to the running platform, where it was lowered 11 m using a cable winch.
5. In the next step, the gearbox was hooked onto the overhead crane. The gearbox's attachment points on the steel girder were loosened and the gearbox was removed from the shaft.
6. The gearbox was then also hooked onto the pull ropes, moved, and lowered using the cable winch.
7. Finally, the replacement drive, also in two parts, was lifted up using a chain hoist, moved into position using the overhead crane, and mounted on the cable drum.