As a control system integrator it is very satisfying to help out manufacturers with their industrial automation. Sometimes controls components keeps chugging along for years past when the hardware went obsolete. I went to a bakery customer that makes bagels and they had a bagel forming machine that had a indexing table that was servo controlled with a Electro-Cam controller. The servo had stopped working, but the rest of the machine is fine. The motor power and encoder cables, servo controller and servo motor all needed to be replaced. The controller was obsolete, but the servo motor was still available through Elwood in Minnesota, and they recommended the Kinetix 5000 series controllers to replace the Electro-Cam. This meant that we had an identical servo motor to the original so the machine didn’t have any problem accepting the new servo. Of course the Kinetix 5300 needed a Logix PLC so a CompactLogix was selected to pair with the Kinetix drive.
After waiting for parts I was able to install and commission the` equipment in 3 days and then stuck around 3 more days to ensure it ran smoothly. Biggest problems during the startup? Encoder wiring is always a bit tricky, but it worked out well this time. Rockwell motion commands seem to get stuck sometimes, so had to put in some extra ‘initialize’ logic to reset the motion bits. Also the discrete inputs were sourcing and not sinking so I had to add a point I/O module 1734-IQ8 to the Compactlogix.
Lessons learned. Machine modernization can take a while as planning, parts procurement and installation can take quite a while. Luckily the PLC programming was minimal here and the machine did not have an operator interface requiring hmi programming. Old machines often don’t have good drawings, so having an old controls engineer to figure out what another old controls engineer (that designed the bagel machine) put together 25+ years ago is essential.
If you have a control system migration or machine modernization need, feel free to contact us. We can do a surgical replacement (only replacing essential parts) as we did for this customer or a complete machine refurbishment to reduce the risk of your machine failing. Saga Automation is more than willing to evaluate your needs (for free if you are within driving range of our home office).