Machine Wireing

Ok I have never really wired a machine I did maintenace for a while and then went to work for a machine shop

I did take classes and got a degree in electronics but it has been a while.


The shop I work at agreed to build a small assemble machineat first was going to be all air logic but they want plc controlled now I have wrote the program ect.

My question is are there any codes or generall ways to number a machine electrical wires.

Like I know inputs will be I:0/ect and out puts the same

but what do you label your estops power transformers ect

I normally create an electrical diagram of the wiring. The drawing will have line numbers. I will label the wires based on the line number on which they start. For example, if a wire begins on line 14, I will give it the number 140. A wire that begins on line 72, might be 723, etc.

Paul

OkiePC said:

I normally create an electrical diagram of the wiring. The drawing will have line numbers. I will label the wires based on the line number on which they start. For example, if a wire begins on line 14, I will give it the number 140. A wire that begins on line 72, might be 723, etc.

Paul

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I dont really have a way of doing an electrical diagram of the wireing. Unless I draw it out by hand But I might doo that since it is so small of a build 16 inputs and 7 outputs.

Or I might look online and see if there are any free or very cheap programs to make electical drawings

That sounds like our numbering system as well.

We don't label our In and Out wires by PLC address though. Some companies do that, but I prefer the consistency of using the wiring diagram line numbers for everything...

Or I might look online and see if there are any free or very cheap programs to make electical drawings

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You may want to consider the free 2D drafting component of Solid Edge:
http://www.plm.automation.siemens.com/en_us/products/velocity/solidedge/free2d/index.shtml
We use the full-blown version here for mechanical design, and I've just started using the 2D Draft portion for my electrical drawings. I previously had used AutoCAD Electrical, and my main gripe was that it had so many features and options, I couldn't use it efficiently. Plus, the drawings that it produced just weren't very... pretty. Sounds trite I know, but I'm a neatnick and I want my drawings to look good.

Solid Edge has a learning curve and it takes a little patience to switch over from AutoCAD, but I'm starting to really like it. It does include a symbol library, although not as complete as ACADE's, and it handles blocks and layers. It doesn't have most of the automated functions of ACADE, like automatic wire numbering, but my drawings are usually small enough that I can do it all manually without much trouble.

I highly recommend you label the I-O by the address. It makes troubleshooting so much easier because it instantly correlates I-O to the PLC.

Then the "label by line number" method makes a lot of sense to me, as Brother Paul (Okie) stated. For someone just starting out you can't go wrong if you do it this way. It's logical and when you are looking inside the panel and see a number you instantly know where to go in the drawings.

If you don't have CAD software just hand-sketch the circuit and put numbers off to the left for every line and you'll have the same thing.

Have Fun!!!

I used to label I/O connections with the PLC address, but not anymore. My reasoning is this: On a large system with remote I/O (i.e. Devicenet), if you have to add I/O later in the game, existing I/O modules could possibly be remapped with new addresses. If this were to happen then suddenly all of your wire labels are wrong. For this reason, I use 3- or 4-digit wire numbers everywhere and correlate them to the PLC address on the schematic.

For the most part, we do like Okie. I/O of course gets the PLC address. Control wiring gets sheet and line number of the wiring prints. Motor wiring gets a motor number with either L1,L2,L3 or T1,T2,T3. Say Motor number 5 would get M5L1, M5L2, M5L3. Our fuse block labels in panels also reference print. Fuse block FU0703 would refer you to sheet 7 Line 3 in our prints. And so on...

At one point we entertained the idea of using sheet and line numbers for I/O, but then we decided that if you don't have an electrical print handy, it would be harder to find the address. I feel that its handy to quickly check out I/O without a print. And also, if you are staring in a box, you can easily see the separation of I/O from control wiring.

spidermonkey said:

I dont really have a way of doing an electrical diagram of the wireing. Unless I draw it out by hand But I might doo that since it is so small of a build 16 inputs and 7 outputs.

Or I might look online and see if there are any free or very cheap programs to make electical drawings

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At the very minimum, grab a D size sheet, pencil, and eraser, and draw it out by hand. The maintenance guy that has to service the machine later will thank you.

inside a cabinet you can use 0-numbers in rising order.
Like the first wire would be named 001 and the second wire 002 and so on.
If you need to add more wires after that you will know what the last number is and you wont have multible cables with the same name.

Another method is just marking them with the connection point like A1 and A2 (or whatever the name is) for the coil on a contactor.

For this reason, I use 3- or 4-digit wire numbers everywhere and correlate them to the PLC address on the schematic.

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Koylur,
Your reason for not using the Input & Output addresses as wire numbers is valid, but I have never and will never like it or do it. I have been in the field without drawings, trying to figure out which wire number goes to a certain Output. If you ever find yourself in that situation, with people jumping around and asking "when are you going to have it running?", then you would never ever again put any numbers on the I/O except the I/O addresses.