We are preparing to replace an obsolete conveyor control scheme. The current system has a conveyor that accepts the part at high speed from the upstream conveyor then transfers it to the next conveyor at slow speed. This is acomplished with a motor tach, a Fenner closed loop speed controller, and a SECO DC drive. The 5/40E uses an ASCII module to set the high and low speeds on the Fenner.
The speed match does not need to be exact, 5% difference is fine. The part is very light, the difference in a loaded and unloaded conveyor will be almost nothing. With this in mind we think the closed loop speed control is overkill and are proposing a sensorless vector control with the powerflex 70. Since the timing of the ramp up and ramp down is pretty critical I was thinking of going with hardwired I/O to the drive, probably Flex I/O. (Please comment if you think this can easily be done over the network and therefore doesn't need to be hardwired)
Main PLC 5/40E Available communciation RIO, DH+, and Ethernet. The RIO is talking to 2 full racks and an AB IMC (I think this is also a full rack). The only thing on the ethernet is an Ultra5000. The DH+ is programming and 2 other 5/20s
So to my question, What is the best way to communicate with both the drives and the flex i/o? Would you put them all on RIO (I might need to add a scanner)? Should I communicate with the drive over ethernet and the flex I/O over RIO (The way I am leaning)? Am I going about this the wrong way?
Thanks for your thoughts.
The speed match does not need to be exact, 5% difference is fine. The part is very light, the difference in a loaded and unloaded conveyor will be almost nothing. With this in mind we think the closed loop speed control is overkill and are proposing a sensorless vector control with the powerflex 70. Since the timing of the ramp up and ramp down is pretty critical I was thinking of going with hardwired I/O to the drive, probably Flex I/O. (Please comment if you think this can easily be done over the network and therefore doesn't need to be hardwired)
Main PLC 5/40E Available communciation RIO, DH+, and Ethernet. The RIO is talking to 2 full racks and an AB IMC (I think this is also a full rack). The only thing on the ethernet is an Ultra5000. The DH+ is programming and 2 other 5/20s
So to my question, What is the best way to communicate with both the drives and the flex i/o? Would you put them all on RIO (I might need to add a scanner)? Should I communicate with the drive over ethernet and the flex I/O over RIO (The way I am leaning)? Am I going about this the wrong way?
Thanks for your thoughts.