Kollmorgen has extended its value-tier motion platform into washdown and hygienic machine design, widening the scope of its Essentials servo drive so it can now be paired with AKMA aluminium washdown motors and AKMH stainless-steel hygienic motors. The move gives machine builders a lower-cost route into applications that still demand sealed, cleanable, high-performance servo motion, particularly across food, beverage, and pharmaceutical packaging lines.
That matters because washdown-ready servo systems have often forced OEMs into a more expensive jump, either through premium feedback options or motor constructions designed for frequent high-pressure cleaning. Kollmorgen is trying to narrow that gap by bringing its SFD-M smart feedback device to both motor families, allowing the Essentials drive to support absolute multi-turn positioning in environments where washdown resilience and repeatable motion control need to coexist.
The technical shift is not just about sealing. Absolute multi-turn feedback removes the need to re-establish position after power cycles, while SFD-M avoids the maintenance burden associated with battery-backed encoder arrangements. Kollmorgen also says the embedded motor data can speed commissioning by enabling automatic drive configuration across its wider servo range, including KED, AKD, and AKD2G platforms.
Chris Cooper, Global Director, Product Management at Kollmorgen, said: “High resolution, absolute multiturn feedback has traditionally required stepping up to a higher-cost servo system. By integrating SFD-M into our AKMA and AKMH motors for use with the Kollmorgen Essentials Servo Drive, we’re delivering that same precision and control in a cost-effective solution designed for food and beverage, pharmaceutical packaging and other washdown applications.”
On the hardware side, the split between the two motor families gives machine builders room to match protection level and cost to the job. AKMA covers medium to heavy washdown duties with an anodized aluminium housing and IP69K protection, while AKMH is positioned for more demanding hygienic zones with a stainless-steel body, IP69K sealing, and a geometry intended to reduce moisture traps and simplify cleaning. Kollmorgen also positions AKMH as suitable for open machine designs where hygiene rules rule out protective covers and awkward fasteners.
The broader play is standardisation. A single drive platform with native support for EtherCAT, EtherNet/IP, and PROFINET lets OEMs target different customer networks without changing out the core servo architecture, while choosing between washdown and hygienic motor constructions at the machine edge. In sectors where cleaning compliance, uptime, and bill-of-materials pressure all land on the same design brief, that is a more useful proposition than another top-end servo announcement.
For food and pharma machinery builders, the result is a more pragmatic one: premium feedback capability is starting to move downmarket, and washdown motion is becoming less of a specialist exception and more of a configurable part of the standard machine platform.
