Servo Capper Modification

Customer: Consumer Products Customer

Project Type: Controls upgrade to place servo motors on an existing mechanical system

Project Scope: Matrix Technologies provided the engineering design for the new combination PLC and Servo Control Panel. The goal of this project was to upgrade an existing Inline Capping Machine. The existing machine control system was replaced by a ControlLogix based PLC with a PanelView Plus 6 operator interface terminal. The Variable Frequency Drive and pneumatic control of the existing system was replaced with a new Allen Bradley Kinetix Servo System. The machine safety circuit was upgraded to meet the requirements of the client and was integrated into the packaging line. The scope of the project included the electrical demolition of the existing control panel and installation of the new control panel and field instrumentation.

The Inline Capping Machine installs and torques caps onto bottles. As a bottle enters the machine, a cap is dispensed from the feed system on to the top of the bottle. As a bottle moves through the machine, torque discs seat the cap onto the bottle and apply torque. This process was implemented into the new control strategy using the calculations provided by the customer, to control the velocity of the motors to operate in both Manual and Automatic modes.

Matrix completed integrated system emulation and testing in a virtual environment prior to the factory acceptance test.

Engineering Challenges: The goal of the project was to provide more precise control of the cap torque and provide for more advanced operator interface with the system.

Products and Technologies Used: Rockwell Automation ControlLogix PLC and Kinetix Servo drive systems utilizing Sercos networking

Project Outcome: The new systems perform much more effectively than the existing system, provide greater accuracy on the torque requirements.