Bradford based electrical engineer, Appleby is undertaking complete electrical refurbishment of venerable Heidelberg embossing and cutting machines, including a total rewire and replacement of old slip-ring electric motors. The package includes a PLC based control system, a Lenze smd drive and a touch screen HMI. The drive was chosen because it was small enough to fit into a tool storage cabinet originally fitted to the machine. The drive programming is also flexible without being too complicated, so commissioning is easier.Finishing machines bring an added challenge because the drums tend to be very heavy. The spinning mass provides a smooth process but this creates fast cyclic load and unload sequences that must be managed by the drive. Moreover, the additional torque required at start-up and during speed control, demands a high power handling capacity from the drive. The high peak load handling of the smd drive takes care of the drum inertia when accelerating, while a dynamic braking kit is used to reduce speed. This arrangement provides the fine speed control needed to ensure accuracy of print registration.