As iTek Drives continues to expand its reach into Africa, the company is preparing to build motor control panels for a mine in Uganda.

This order will be shipped with variable frequency drives and replacement electric motors, allowing a complete refit of the hoist, long-travel and cross-travel on one of the mine’s cranes, says iTek Drives sales director Ryan Bisnath.

The order follows several similar deliveries of control panels to Zimbabwe for borehole pump and mine pump motors.

“We are expanding our reach into Africa south of the Sahara. Whereas we have been shipping drives for fan, pump, compressor and lifting equipment applications for several years, we are now supplying the control panels as well.”

The drive for a motor provides it with voltage and current as demanded by the control panel, which is itself the link between operator and machine.

The panel comprises an arrangement of resistors, chokes and other electrical components which, working together with the drive, also known as a variable frequency drive, or inverter, allows fine adjustment of a motor’s speed, direction, acceleration, deceleration and torque.

This can also improve the efficiency of the application.

iTek Drives has been an Africa-focused distributor of British-manufactured Invertek Drives’ Optidrive variable frequency drives since 2016, supporting them with a full range of service and training facilities from its headquarters in Raceway Industrial Park, Germiston.

The company expanded its product range last year to include the supply of resistors and chokes, with motor control panels the most recent addition to the product range.

“We source resistors and chokes from reputable manufacturers; so, in addition to drives, we can also supply the necessary control panel components, or we can supply these without the drive. We can also design and assemble the complete control panel,” Bisnath continues.

Control panel assembly is currently subcontracted to an independent manufacturer, an arrangement that will continue until iTek’s Germiston workshop has been sufficiently developed for formal authorisation by Invertek, allowing iTek’s own technicians to take over panel-building.