Canter Infeed Line Upgrade

Canter Infeed Line Upgrade

Overview

CE Engineers was responsible for the electrical and controls re-design of a PLC upgrade for a double length infeed canter line.  The control system scans the log for rotation and position to get the best cut for maximum recovery of the log.  An obsolete Allen Bradley positioning controller was replaced with a ControlLogix L71, with new Allen Bradley HYD and M02 positioning modules and several discrete inputs and outputs.  The HMI was upgraded and consisted of over 100 screens that were developed using FactoryTalkView Site Edition.  It provided monitoring, actuation of every device in the system, alarming, logging and trending capabilities.

Challenges/Solution

The customer had no existing sequence of operations for the line, this was obtained through documentation that was extracted from the old controller, by evaluating how the machine ran and having discussions with operator and site electricians.  The HMI was also a challenge because it not only had to communicate with the new PLC that was upgraded but with an older PLC5 and QB modules that remained part of the system.

Results

The line was upgraded seamlessly.  After the 3-day scheduled shut-down to perform the upgrade the system started up with no issues and the customer was able to start running production and increase production.

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