Mclennan takes on stepper drives after SmartDrive enters liquidation
The Cambridgeshire motion control specialist SmartDrive has gone into liquidation after more than 30 years of business. The rights to its stepper drive designs have been acquired by Surrey-based Mclennan.
SmartDrive, founded in 1985, designed, manufactured and integrated motion products including stepper motors, servodrives, encoders, control panels and motion controllers. It went into liquidation shortly before Christmas, with Richard Cacho of Parker Andrews being appointed liquidator.
Mclennan has purchased the design and manufacturing rights for SmartDrive’s D- and DM-series full- and half-stepping and microstepping Eurocard-format drives. These had been a flagship range for SmartDrive since their inception in the mid-1980s and had become a key product for many OEMs and end-users.
Mclennan says that by securing the manufacturing rights to the drives, it can guarantee existing users continuity of supply. Its new D and DM series drives are form-fit replacements for the former SmartDrive models, using the equivalent components, manufacturing techniques and quality control procedures. The drives offer continuous current ratings from 2.8–16.5A at supply voltages from 27–94V DC.
The D series provides 200/400 full/half step resolution, while the DM series offers microstepping up to 51,200 steps/rev binary or 50,000 steps/rev decimal.
