Design and commissioning of Allen-Bradley hardware and software for a fully automated engine petrol test system (hot test) at the South African Motor Corporation engine assembly plant at Port Elizabeth.
The system comprised of one feed loop conveyor, a test loop conveyor feeding ten engine test cells, a repair loop and an after test dress area prior to final unloading of the engines. All automation units were electro-mechanical and included conveyor drives, two and three position divert tables, platen stop units, lift units, turntables and tilt units.
The engines travelled through the system on platens and were routed into one of ten test cells, test cell wait stations or a repair area depending on the code read from the platen by the PLC.
An eight door control panel was designed and built which housed all SLC500 I/O racks, motor control gear for over one hundred electro-mechanical automation units, section stop control circuits and auxiliary interlock relays. Cleveland Systems provided all electrical schematics, control panel layouts, terminal box layouts and cable schedules for the project using Autocad software.
Operator stations allowed full manual control of the system within their local area and also provided fault diagnostics via message displays.
The commisssioning period for this equipment was relatively short, the petrol test automation being fully operational only ten days after installation was completed.
