Aggregateman
Member
Hey everyone! I work for a small family business and am working on adding automation capabilities to our surface mining operations, for a little background last year I had no idea what a PLC even was, yet here I am, you guys helped me out a ton when I started on a small conveyor line project this spring, which I got up and running within the 2 week time frame, and had a barebones HMI setup ever since and let everything stay exactly as it was, because it worked. now its getting towards the end of the running season and I have some more free time on my hands, so I'm working on cleaning up my ladder logic and making the HMI look a little more professional.
So many of you are professionals that to absolutely top notch work, and whip up HMIs that I can only dream of, I was hoping for a little professional criticism of my current setup, and feel free to give me any advice/pointers, they all come greatly appreciated!
PLC is a Compactlogix 5370, HMI is a PVP Plus standard 7 10"
Here's my main screen, basically the operator hits the start button and it starts the conveyors in sequence after verifying that the previous conveyor has reached running speed, there are two equipment interlocks, if the slurry pump or the bucketwheel quit the line will immediately shut off, and both are toggle-able (for instance, we want to dewater the belts while starting the rest of the plant up)
The second screen allows for manual control of the conveyors in the line. fairly self explanatory, the little red indicator on each set of buttons turns green if the conveyor has reached running speed.
Well, there you have it, feel free to tell me anything I did wrong, easier ways to do things, ETC. In the near future I would like to have some numeric displays/gauges for equipment amp draw and integrate the controls for the frequency drive that controls the feeder plate speed, as well as the input from the scale head that shows our production rate (tons per hour), however I have no idea how to even start on that, so any help in places to look to learn how to use those features would be awesome!
So many of you are professionals that to absolutely top notch work, and whip up HMIs that I can only dream of, I was hoping for a little professional criticism of my current setup, and feel free to give me any advice/pointers, they all come greatly appreciated!
PLC is a Compactlogix 5370, HMI is a PVP Plus standard 7 10"
Here's my main screen, basically the operator hits the start button and it starts the conveyors in sequence after verifying that the previous conveyor has reached running speed, there are two equipment interlocks, if the slurry pump or the bucketwheel quit the line will immediately shut off, and both are toggle-able (for instance, we want to dewater the belts while starting the rest of the plant up)
The second screen allows for manual control of the conveyors in the line. fairly self explanatory, the little red indicator on each set of buttons turns green if the conveyor has reached running speed.
Well, there you have it, feel free to tell me anything I did wrong, easier ways to do things, ETC. In the near future I would like to have some numeric displays/gauges for equipment amp draw and integrate the controls for the frequency drive that controls the feeder plate speed, as well as the input from the scale head that shows our production rate (tons per hour), however I have no idea how to even start on that, so any help in places to look to learn how to use those features would be awesome!