InterConnecting Automation was brought on by a company in Nevada that crushes rock for gravel and other products. Up until this point in time, all of their automation was completed by using outdated control systems or by using hardwired interlocks. Essentially they have a series of conveyors that feed into and out of different crushing equipment, and when one of those conveyors or pieces of equipment goes down, they need everything up stream of it to stop. With hardwiring the interlocks this was time consuming to wire and change when needed.
The solution we came up with was utilizing the Productivity 2000’s High IO capabilities and array features. The user can now enter which Output is tied to which auxiliary coil on a input, and it is completely variable and can be changed by the user. When they change the configuration of their systems they don’t have to change the wiring anymore, they just change the software interlocking and the machine will now run a different configuration.
The next phase of the automation at their facility was upgrading an outdate water purification system from a mess of relays to a PLC. To be consistent with the other systems the Productivity 200 was chosen and a 7slot base was used. This system as a fiber optic photoeye that gives feedback as to the clarity of the water. This adjusts a flocculant pump that will add flocculants to help settle the mud out of the water. There are then other controls to pump the mud and other conveyors on the system.
Finally, The customer wanted to be able to have remote access of the systems at all times. To do this, all of the HMI’s, PLC’s, and Modbus TCP/IP weight scales were added to a ethernet network and put onto a StrideLinx VPN router. The customer can use that and access the facilities from anywhere in the world. Additionally, we enabled the WIFI hotspot so that the operators can utilize the Cmore app and an Ipod to operate the system.