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Drives and PLCs for cranes and hoists

Efficient and safe material handling

Your crane business thrives on moving workloads quickly and safely. Our variable frequency drives (VFD) and PLCs provide the intelligence, performance, flexibility and safety for your crane applications. Wherever the cranes are installed, our global service and support is always near.

ACS880 drives with built-in crane control software and range of safety functions help various types of cranes move efficiently. Our ACS380 drives are an excellent choice for standalone cranes.

Your own solutions from small to complex crane applications can be developed with our AC500 range of PLCs. Area safeguards and anti-collision can be programmed with the trigonometric functions of AC500-S safety PLCs.

Safety. Performance. Efficiency. Speed. Everything counts when your business relies on efficient material handling.

Crane types served

Overhead cranes
Tower cranes
Grab cranes
Process cranes, including paper, metal and waste handling
Ship-to-shore (STS) container handling cranes
Rubber tyre gantry (RTG) cranes
Marine and offshore deck cranes
Stacker cranes
Hoists
Construction elevators

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Highlights

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Drives do the heavy lifting of autonomus cranes

Smart safety for material handling with ABB PLCs and drives

Via this E-brochure contains information, animations and links connecting with AC500-S Safety PLC and ABB drives - for simple and complex safety on machines as well as process safety applications.

Tower crane control with ACS880 industrial drives

The ACS880 drives provide precise control across a wide range of crane types and for all movements, hoisting, trolleying, slewing and luffing. This short video explains the key features of the ACS880 drives for tower cranes.

Hoist magazine article: Sway control

Read more about the advanced features our drives offer for crane applications.

Taking tower cranes to new heights of performance and safety

Recom Moritsch, a pioneering manufacturer of luffing jib tower cranes, has worked with ABB to develop a new automation system for its second-generation towers.

Overhead cranes video

Learn the key feature of ACS880 drives for overhead cranes from this short video.

Hoist magazine article: Driving safety

Hoist magazine visited ABB’s drive factory in Helsinki, Finland, and talked with product manager Risto Tiihonen about the company’s crane products and applications.

Crane safety solutions

This page gives you information on designing and implementing functional safety in cranes.

ABB crane lab article in Lift & Hoist International

Read how ABB's application test laboratory helps customers learn about, configure and test crane solutions.

Crane control solutions feature article

Learn how safe crane operation and control can be simplified by using flexible IEC 61131-3 programming and certified safety functions inside the drives.