Control Panel Pictures

[jdbrandt]

Line reactors MIA?

Dude, where's my line reactor(s)

You'd better hope you don't have power line quality issues with those inverters.

 

[Eric Nelson]

This panel is for our newest 30 motor conveyor line. It's the first panel my current employer has allowed me to build. Not shown is the Panelview in the left door.

Perhaps "Not shown are the line reactor(s) in the right door", Jeff?...

beerchug

-Eric

 

[Rube]

I've built panels with reactors and without them. The plant is 6 years old and none of our nine lines have reactors in the panels. This is a year-old panel and we've yet to have ANY drive/motor issues.

 

[ndzied1]

Rube,

Nice job.

What's that little yellow do-ga-ma-hicke to the right of the distribution block?

What voltage is on that distribution block... and how do you get away with different color wires for each phase?

Lastly, how are those drives protected? Are there fuses on the top row for them or do they have internal fuses or equivalent branch circuit protection?

Just curious really, I'm relatevly new in the power side electonics and always looking to learn.

nOrM

 

[Rube]

Thanks Norm.

The yellow component is a three-phase monitor from TimeMark. If three-phase 480 is present, it has a switch that closes. I use the input from that switch to allow the program to call the motor controls on.
We use brown, orange, yellow (BOY) for 480 3-phase. I don't remember where I saw it first but we've been using it for the ten years I've done this type of work.
The drives are not protected by anything except the Main Disconnect which is a 60A breaker. We have been in discussions recently about protecting these drives. In a previous panel I had added onto, we protect three 1HP motors on a 10 breaker (X3 for a total of 9 motors), but I'm not sure that's how I want to do it here. I've seen motors protected by fuses but that allows for single-phasing the motors running on contactors. The PowerFlex drives have built-in overload protection. We will ultimately answer the VFD protection question.
The breakers at the top of the panel provide field device, Panelview, and PLC protection/isolation. The relay bank in the center of the top row will ultimately be replaced by a relay card in the PLC Chassis. The fuses to the right of the Main Disconnect protect the 480/120VAC XFMR mounted outside the right of the panel.

 

[elevmike]

Rube,

We use Timemark RPRs also, but I prefer the octal plug-in type. Regarding the self reseting RPRs: We recently lost a motor due to single phasing on an older unit, so I had our techs install a RPR when the installed the new motor. Apparently there was a loose lug on the building distribustion panel that nobody noticed. So within a week we lost both the starter and new motor. We replaced the RPR with a manual reset when we installed the new new motor, and new starter.

Anyway, very neet panel!

Mike.

 

[Rube]

Yep. No matter how well you try to build these panels you still have to depend on the "Sparkies upstream". The nice thing about this monitor is it's continually checked every scan and unlatches the conveyor start routine if all 3 legs are not present. This prevents momentary loss of one leg causing single phasing in ALL motors at one time. I use to work at a metal fab shop where we lost a motor per month due to age, fuses, etc. I started installing the TimeMarks and we lost one motor the next twelve months.
Thanks for the compliment!

 

[ndzied1]

Alright Rube, Here's my first panel layout job. Although I can't take total credit/blame as I got a lot of good advise from the guys in the shop. The job actually consists of three panels. This is the larger, main panel.

 

[ndzied1]

And here is what the two smaller panels look like.

 

[Rube]

Well if these are examples of your first work, you should be fine. There appears to be room to work/expand, wiring is routed well, etc.
Looks like good work.

 

[gbradley]

Cool.
What's the Clear Andon (or is that Blue?) Light for?

 

[ndzied1]

Rube said:

Well if these are examples of your first work, you should be fine. There appears to be room to work/expand, wiring is routed well, etc. Looks like good work.

Thanks, I've been around industrial panels for around a decade but only programming them not layout. This was the first schematic and layout job I did and as I said, I had great help from the electricians in the shop.

gbradley said:

What's the Clear Andon (or is that Blue?) Light for?

Each panel controls a zone of an industrial oven. The White light will be on whenever there is flame present in that zone. The red boxes in the center of each panel are flame control units and the black boxes in the lower right are over-temp relays.

Now I get to get back to the "fun" stuff of programming it. It has a 15" touch panel which if you are used to PV600's (Or the Moeller 5.4" screens) is like programming a screen the size of an ocean WooHoo

 

[Rich1955]

I think my panel looks the best

 

[93lt1]

I think my panel looks the best

Yes, but it won't look so good when you have to shoe-horn a couple more components into it.

It looks pretty tight in there.

 

[Rich1955]

Thats the beauty about this panel, Its fully loaded. The Machine can't do no more than this and will stay this way for the next 30 years. I'm now making the sister to this machine and the panel is going to have a lot less and can do the same amount of work as this panel.
I just love PLC, It's made my job so easy.