Conveyor Machines

Conveyors are widely used for material handling and speeding up the production process. Optima has been involved in conveyor controllers upgrade projects on a number of occasions. The diagram below depicts one such project for a paint palletising line.

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The states of diverter bar switches signal the required routes. Once started, all used conveyor sections run.

If a conveyor section or the shrink wrapper on a route goes faulty or a missing lid is detected, the filling machine and all of the conveyor sections upstream of the fault are stopped. Downstream sections continue to feed the palletiser.

If, on a route, no tin is detected at the ‘jam detection’ photocell and there is a fault with the palletiser, tins are transported as far as possible until the first tin reaches the photocell. At this point the conveyor feeding the palletiser stops.

If, on a route, a shrink wrapper is being used and there is a palletiser fault, the in-feed conveyor to the shrink wrapper is stopped and the filling machine continues running until all conveyor sections upstream of the shrink wrapper in-feed are backed up. At this point the filling machine and all conveyor sections on this route stop until the palletiser fault is cleared.

If on a route, a shrink wrapper is not being used and there is a palletiser fault, as soon as a tin is detected at the jam detection photocell, the filling machine and entire route are stopped until the palletiser fault is cleared.

Conveyor section photocells (not shown on the diagram) are used to detect the presence of tins to create a buffering system. These photocells detect the presence of a tin for more than 5 seconds. When this occurs, the motor of the conveyor section on which this photocell is mounted is switched off until the downstream conveyor section is clear.

The conveyors self empty whenever a filling machine has finished production.

When a shrink wrapper is not to be used (i.e. for large tins) automatically actuated diverter bars divert the flow of tins around rather than through the shrink wrapper.

 

Optima was involved in replacing the main enclosure containing the PLC, associated control equipment, operator HMI and emergency stop controls. For other conveyor projects, AC/DC drives have also been upgraded.

The following control system design stages were within the scope of this project:

Project Specification Control system design Electrical circuit diagrams PLC software Enclosure build Full functional test of both hardware and software elements.

Would you like to know more about other control system projects we have completed on conveyor machines? Please, leave us a short message here and we will send you additional information within 24 hours!

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Recent Posts

Safety Scanner Issues and EN999

Optima were recently asked to advise on a safety guarding application for one of our customers. 

There had been a number of false trips of the laser scanner causing the machine to stop. As a result of this, a plastic chain ‘barrier’ had been fitted as a temporary measure with instructions to operators to not breach the barrier whilst the machine was running. 

The customer naturally wanted this rectifying as soon as possible, so Optima performed a short-notice service visit to site.

On the site visit, our engineer noted that the scanner was showing a code which indicated that the front screen required cleaning.

Once the screen was cleaned thoroughly the scanner did not show any faults or errors and was in normal run mode.

However, we performed further checks on the original software to ensure that the scanner configuration still met the requirements of the safety guarding application. 

The diagrams to the left show the Warning Field configuration (Yellow) and the Protective Field (Red). Both of these were confirmed to be operational. 

The warning field causes the klaxon to operate and the protective field caused an emergency stop of the machine.

We did, however find a few concerns that needed to be addressed.

1. None of the scanner safety circuit had been documented on any drawings.

2. Non-compliance with EN999 ‘Safety of machinery – the positioning of protective equipment in respect of approach speeds of parts of the human body’ includes a formula to be used to calculate the distance from a hazard that a safety zone must be triggered. Based on the stopping times of the machine, the scanner was placed too close to the machine to be effective in an emergency.

We are working closedly with our customer to assist them with this application and help them achieve a safe and effective solution to this.

If you need any support with safety applications or other upgrades, please get in touch.

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