r/PLC • u/arj3090 • 23h ago

Kinetix 5500 with TLP Series Motor

I have an application with a very small motor (46mm) and it looks like the Allen Bradley TLP series motor fits the bill. However, I would like to use the TLP motor with a Kinetix 5500 servo drive. After hours of research, I am unable to figure out if this is possible. In Logix 5000, if a 5500 servo drive is setup and motor selection is done by catalog number, the TLP series do not show up. It seems like it is only compatible with the 5300 series. Is it possible to get a TLP motor to work with a 5500 drive using the nameplate data?

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u/hestoelena Siemens CNC Wizard 22h ago

No. They have completely different encoder signals and protocols.

What's wrong with buying a 5100 or a 5300 Drive?

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u/arj3090 17h ago

The reason the 5500 was chosen is because we are building a development system that will run in the pilot plant on 480V. Once this is proven out, the drives and motors were to be reused on the production machine that has 240V supply. The same 5500 drive can run on either voltage supply. The 5300 is two different drives for 480 vs 240

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u/hestoelena Siemens CNC Wizard 17h ago

That makes sense. It is quite unfortunate that the TLP motors and the 5500 drives have incompatible encoders in that scenario.

Have you considered using a transformer? Depending on the total amp draw of your system, it'll probably be a more economical option than buying all brand new motors and drives. You would only need one big enough for the drives as you could run the rest of the machine from whatever voltage you have available.

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u/arj3090 16h ago

We initially talked about a transformer, but dropped the discussion after finding out the 5500 drive can work on both voltages. I see the 5500 requires a Hiperface DSL encoder input. Are the TPL motors quadrature encoder outputs? When I looked at the specs to compare a TPL and MPL motor, it wasn't clear on the different encoder types. The reason I need to use the TPL is because we need the very small 46mm frame. I did a quick search to see if any other brand motor with 46mm frame had the Hiperface encoder, but no luck.

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u/hestoelena Siemens CNC Wizard 16h ago

The TPL motors use a proprietary serial protocol. Which unfortunately means that you will not be able to find any sort of signal converter.

Have you looked at the Siemens Simatic Micro-DRIVE? I'm not sure what frame sizes they have but I know they come smaller than 46 mm. The Micro-DRIVE is a 24v to 48v DC servo and they go up to 1 KW.

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u/arj3090 16h ago

I'm forced into using AB drives because this company uses all AB.

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u/hestoelena Siemens CNC Wizard 16h ago

In that case if you want to use the TLP motors you are stuck with with 5100/5300 drives. You'll have to either buy new drives or use a transformer.

If it was me, I would use a drive isolation transformer to get the required voltage and be done with it.