Success Stories
<< Return to list

Baldor Inverter Drive Increases Production

January 6, 2000

Venango Machine Company, in Venango, PA had a big problem. The electrical controls on their 1954 Cleveland open side planer mill were breaking down so often that it was costing them $7,000 a month in machine down time.

They requested proposals from four companies to upgrade the motors and controls and chose Westburgh Electric Corp., a good Baldor distributor from Jamestown, NY, because of their innovative design.

A new Baldor 100 HP inverter duty AC motor and a new Baldor 100 HP inverter control replaced the old DC drive motor and generator. A Baldor 5 HP DC motor was also installed. Westburgh also installed new contractors, motor protectors, logic controls and a touch panel in the new design.

Working with Russell Merritt and Jay Clark from the local Baldor office in Auburn, NY, Ron Peterson, Westburgh's Design Engineer, designed separate feeder circuits for across-the-Iine motor starters and fed the electronic motor controls through a drive isolation transformer to eliminate line disturbances. "The Baldor 15H was nice and easy to work with because it has many and varied programming options," says Peterson. "It is easy to access and you can do so much with them."

Venango's Maintenance Supervisor, Joe Orsefskie comments, "We chose the Westburgh proposal because we knew Baldor products were of high quality and Baldor's reputation is so good."

Dave Cunningham, Westburgh's Sales Manager says, "Baldor is an easy supplier to work with because our experience with their Auburn, NY office has been nothing less than great!

Marty Quinn, Baldor's District Manager from Auburn, NY says, "Westburgh is an excellent customer. We've been doing business with them for many years and they do a fine job with all of our products."

Venango's Orsefskie continued, "The bottom line for us is that because of Westburgh's expertise and Baldor's quality, we now have a reliable, close tolerance, programmable, modern planer at a fraction of the cost of a new machine. The payback period Is about 10 months and our production is up 14%. We have recommended Westburgh to our parent company in Erie, PA and we have asked them for two additional retrofit proposals for this plant."

Westburgh and Baldor make a great team! We look forward to continued success with them for many more years.

Lance S. Spicel, a sales representative from Westburgh, supplied the text and photographs for this story. Lance recently attended a Baldor customer seminar in Fort Smith. Thanks, Lance, for the excellent Success Story.