Industrial Automation with Scales & Loadcells
We had a local candy manufacturer reach out to ask us to help with a problem they were having.
They need to fill up buckets with 60 pounds of corn syrup, seems like a simple request at a glance.... So why call Peninsula Scale for help?
Turns out that the viscosity of corn syrup varies dramatically with temperature and thus the time it takes to fill a bucket can vary significantly as well. They had tried timers and other methods to ensure they were getting a "full bucket" but things would change, people would get busy and corn syrup would always end up all over the floor.
This lead to many wasted hours with hot water and scraping to get it all off the floor sometimes stopping production if the spill was too big to wait until after the shift was over. They were tired of that routine so something needed to change.
What needs to be done?
A scale with an automated program can help to fill the buckets to the perfect weight every time and then shut the pump and valve off automatically.
Hardware decisions are important
To keep the price point down and avoid having to go with a custom programmed weight instrument we decided a Pennsylvania 7600 with it's built in advanced batching program would be a nice mix of functionality and affordability.
We paired it up with a 500 pound capacity base as the customer was considering increasing their batch sizes in the next year or so by weighing directly into their cooking kettles to avoid pouring the syrup from the buckets into the kettles.
The scale base is also completely stainless steel and washdown so when they do need to clean it there won't be any issues with moisture getting into the critical load sensor or scale instrumentation.
Scale instrument controls the Syrup Pump
We included the digital solid state DC relay option card in the scale to control the motor drive on the pump. These relays were wired up to the stop jumper on the motor drive and the motor drive was set to always on. The relays on this board can be replaced as there is just a socket on the board.
There are also relays for AC control as well but this instrument cannot be half and half.
Remote Industrial Pushbutton start/pause
Typically the scale instrument keypads will eventually wear out and require fairly costly repairs to swap the keypad out with a new one as it requires the complete disassembly of the instrument. So minimizing operator time spent pushing buttons when there is a very repetitive task like starting multiple small batches every hour is always a good long term decision. This also helps as the operators hands are typically a bit sticky and that will build up on the scale as well.
Please give us a call and we can help you with your next weighing automation project at your facility!
