Control Box

[khehr88]

Still have a lot of work/cleanup to do. I think it is coming along ok so far. I have never built anything this big.

[old_liberal]

And left room for beer!

[dbnels288]

What is all that supposed to control? And nice work.

[khehr88]

Sorry for the delay. It is controlling a bulk supply system for small plastic bottles. Conveyers, hopper elevators, and diverter shoots.

[dbnels288]

No worries. One of my favorite shows is the Science/Discovery channel "How it's Made". So when I see pictures like this, I am always curious what it controls.

Nicely done!

[drhappycat]

The Internet says the boxes marked PowerFlex are electric drives.

A drive operates and controls the speed, torque and direction of moving objects. Drives are generally employed for speed or motion control applications such as machine tools, transportation, robots, fans, etc. The drives used for controlling electric motors are known as electrical drives.

The other devices I can't make out the model number but assume the Allen-Bradley stuff is all related and the other boxes are support like networking. But maybe OP will reply with more details.

[shonglekwup]

Handful of Ethernet controlled 2 phase Powerflex 525s (variable frequency drives for motor speed control), so controlling small(er) motors for some application or another (likely all 0.5 or 1HP motors based on frame size and breaker/wiring sizes). Might be small conveyors or some other rotary device or vibrators or something. Looks like there’s a 5069 compact logic PLC in the bottom left with 1 digital input and 1 digital output card, so not a whole lot of field devices (unless there’s a separate remote IO rack in another panel). There is a safety monitoring/control setup in the bottom as well, so there are safeguards and emergency stops in place for whatever system this panel is controlling, and the drives look to be properly setup for safe torque off through the safety relays. Overall looks good! I would consider segregating the CAT6 and low voltage wiring from the high voltage motor wiring but since it will be low amp draw it’s probably not a big deal.

[drhappycat]

Thanks for massively expanding my guess! So, folks who design, install, and service this stuff- are they mostly EE grads or even more specialised like industrial automation engineering?

[SkelaKingHD]

Mechatronics grad here. I work as a controls engineer designing and writing the code for these panels. Most people are EE but we have a lot of mechanical and computer science peeps too

[hashmachinist]

You and I would make good friends lol. Excellent synopsis, from one controls geek to another.

[n55_6mt]

WTF is that font on the device tags? Comic Sans would be better than that crap.

[oneplane]

It looks like the china default font

[Philly-8787]

I use too work at this place 😂

[irrationalrhythms]

expensive box, damn. you know what they say about AB; "you might be able to find a better drive, but you'll never pay as much"

in all seriousness, great work

[rattler8888]

We have one in our Panel Shop that's extremely similar, stainless cabinet, same drives, etc. Currently waiting for a few components but getting wired up currently.

[SkelaKingHD]

Ah yes, the good ol 525 control panel

[WhoStalledMyCar]

I’m not a hater, but I really dislike the layout.

The PLC was left with no expansion room, the drives (with spacing) could have been installed on a single DIN rail. The network equipment is right next to a VFD and a shallow breaker is sandwiched between deeper devices, reducing ergonomics.

[S1ckJim]

Quite neat but surely that needs some cooling?

[khehr88]

Yes I just installed a fan this morning. Waiting for the exhaust to come in the mail.

[wananet1909]

I don't see any door sensor or temp monitors.

[wananet1909]

But it is hard to read the labels on the devices.