Mondel's solid state brakes

Mondel Engineering of the USA has launched the most sophisticated version yet of its braking system for industrial shoe and disc brakes on factory cranes. The solid-state drives are claimed to be much lower maintenance than hydraulic braking systems.

Product manager Scott Pastorius claimed that the device also costs a third of the price of hydraulics. It can be installed on new cranes or as a replacement and is claimed to provide fail-sale emergency braking.

The company says that intended applications include duty cycle work and metals industries overhead cranes. Crane users can use a foot pedal, master switch or radio controller to adjust the amount of brake stopping power. The device can control multiple brakes. The controller can also be configured to gradually apply the brakes by pre-programmed ramping, initiated by the use of single-step control devices, the company claims.

The Braketronic controller can run on 250V DC, 115V or 230V single-phase AC or 230V, 460V, 575V AC three phase.