Automated Plating Line

Customer's Problem:
A motorcycle parts manufacturer requires brilliant chrome plating on much of its product. The manufacturer purchased 6 plating line hoists with laser type distance meters and supporting structure and tanks and peripheral equipment. The manufacturer requires a state of the art control system to control hoist sequence automation, process control of 48 temperature loops and process control of 44 large amperage plating rectifiers. The manufacturer requires individual recipe control for every product to be plated, workbar tracking, and data logging of all process parameters for each workbar through the system.

MPT Inc.'s Solution:
MPT Inc. engineered and programmed the electrical / electronic control system for the entire line. Devicenet communications and modules were used to reduce long wire runs to discrete I/O points on the floor. Two Allen Bradley SLC 5/04's PLC's were used. One PLC to provide the closed loop positioning and velocity control of the 6 automated hoists with line tracking and anti-collision sequence control. The other PLC to provide closed loop process control of 44 rectifier's voltage and amperage profiles, workbar data logging, and communications with 48 stand-alone temperature controllers using ModBus.

MPT Inc. integrated a Rockwell Software RSView32 70k tag runtime application installed on a Pentium II Windows NT server computer in the control room and a Rockwell Software Remote Access Client installed on a Pentium II Windows NT computer housed in a NEMA 12 console on the plant floor. Both computers accessed the same application on the server. Specialized Visual Basic code in conjunction with MS Access databases provides data storage and retrieval for each product recipe, hoist sequence schedules, and process parameter data logging. The plant floor operator scans in the current racked workbar product with a bar code scanner and releases the workbar to the system for fully automated chrome plating of the product. 

Result:
Consistent high quality chrome plated finishes on a wide variety of components without human process control intervention. Reduced scrap and rejects. Improved Profits!!

M.P.T. can help you with all your process improvement programs

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