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Last summer my wife and I did a lot of work in the garden. Many holes were dug, bags of garden soil lifted, and plants planted. It’s a new garden, and my wife has very big plans for it, so needless to say there was a lot of work to be done. On more than one occasion we would end the day moaning about our body aches and how we had overdone it. The next day we would hurt even worse, and we’d end up taking time off to recuperate. Pain is your body’s way of telling you that it needs attention, and you’d better listen to it or you may have an even heavier price to pay down the road. Electric motors can get overworked, just like our bodies. Motors are often placed into situations where they are expected to perform tasks beyond their capability. Sometimes this happens through poor planning, sometimes due to wishful thinking on the user’s part. Motors can sustain damage when stressed in this way, but they don’t have a pain system to tell them to stop. Instead, motors benefit by a specific type of electric relay known as an overload relay. But before we get into how an overload relay works, let’s get a better understanding of how overloads happen. Suppose we’re back in the telephone factory discussed in previous blogs, watching a conveyor belt move phones through the manufacturing process. An electric motor drives the conveyor belt by converting electrical energy into mechanical energy. Everything is moving along normally when all of a sudden a machine malfunctions. Telephones start piling up on a belt, and the pile up gets so bad the belt eventually gets jammed and its motor overloaded. If the electricity flow to the motor isn’t shut down promptly by means of a nearby emergency stop button or an astute operator sitting in central control, then an even bigger problem is in the making, that of a potential fire. When electricity is applied to motors they begin to operate, and their natural tendency is to want to keep operating. They do so by continuously drawing energy from the electric current being supplied to them. The greater the workload demand on the motor, the more current it requires to operate. When motors become overloaded as in the scenario presented above, they continue to draw energy unless forced to a stop. The result is an overabundance of current flowing through the motor and no outlet for its task of converting electrical energy into mechanical energy. And where is all that pent up energy to go? It becomes heat energy trapped inside the motor itself, and this heat can build up to the point where the motor becomes damaged or even bursts into flames. Next time we’ll look at how overload relays work to keep electric motors from overheating, just as our body’s pain sensors protect us from overdoing it.
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Posts Tagged ‘control room’
Industrial Control Basics – Emergency Stops
Sunday, February 26th, 2012| Ever been in the basement when you heard a loud thud followed by a scream by a family member upstairs? You run up the stairs to see what manner of calamity has happened, the climb seeming to take an eternity. Imagine a similar scenario taking place in an industrial setting, where distances to be covered are potentially far greater and the dangerous scenarios numerous.
Suppose an employee working near a conveyor system notices that a coworker’s gotten caught in the mechanism. The conveyor has to be shut down fast, but the button to stop the line is located far away in the central control room. This is when emergency stop buttons come to the rescue, like the colorful example shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1
Emergency stop buttons are mounted near potentially dangerous equipment in industrial settings, allowing workers in the area to quickly de-energize equipment should a dangerous situation arise. These buttons are typically much larger than your standard operational button, and they tend to be very brightly colored, making them stick out like a sore thumb. This type of notoriety is desirable when a high stress situation requiring immediate attention takes place. They’re easy to spot, and their shape makes them easy to activate with the smack of a nearby hand, broom, or whatever else is convenient. Figure 2 shows how an emergency stop button can be incorporated into a typical motor control circuit such as the one we’ve been working with in previous articles.
Figure 2
An emergency stop button has been incorporated into the circuit in Figure 2. It depicts what happens when someone depresses Button 1 on the conveyor control panel. The N.C. contact opens, and the two N.O. contacts close. The motor starts, and the lit green bulb indicates it is running. The electric relay is latched because its wire coil remains energized through one N.O. contact. It will only become unlatched when the flow of current is interrupted to the wire coil, as is outlined in the following paragraph. The red lines denote areas with current flowing through them. Both Button 2 and the emergency stop button typically reside in normally closed positions. As such electricity will flow through them on a continuous basis, so long as neither one of them is re-engaged. If either of them becomes engaged, the same outcome will result, an interruption in current on the line. The relay wire coil will then become de-energized and the N.O. contacts will stay open, preventing the wire coil from becoming energized again after Button 2 or the emergency stop are disengaged. Under these conditions the conveyor motor stops, the green indicator bulb goes dark, the N.C. contact closes, and the red light comes on, indicating that the motor is not running. This sequence, as it results from hitting the emergency stop button, is illustrated in Figure 3.
Figure 3
We now have the means to manually control the conveyor from a convenient, at-the-site-of-occurrence location, which allows for a quick shut down of operations should the need arise. So what if something else happens, like the conveyor motor overheats and catches on fire and no one is around to notice and hit the emergency stop? Unfortunately, in our circuit as illustrated thus far the line will continue to operate and the motor will continue to run unless we incorporate an additional safeguard, the motor overload relay. We’ll see how that’s done next time. ____________________________________________ |
Industrial Control Basics – Electric Motor Control
Sunday, February 19th, 2012| Electric motors are everywhere, from driving the conveyor belts, tools, and machines found in factories, to putting our household appliances in motion. The first electric motors appeared in the 1820s. They were little more than lab experiments and curiosities then, as their useful potential had not yet been discovered. The first commercially successful electric motors didn’t appear until the early 1870s, and they could be found driving industrial devices such as pumps, blowers, and conveyor belts.
In our last blog we learned how a latched electric relay was unlatched at the push of a button, using red and green light bulbs to illustrate the control circuit. Now let’s see in Figure 1 how that circuit can be modified to include the control of an electric motor that drives, say, a conveyor belt inside a factory.
Figure 1
Again, red lines in the diagram indicate parts of the circuit where electrical current is flowing. The relay is in its normal state, as discussed in a previous article, so the N.O. contacts are open and the N.C. contact is closed. No electric current can flow through the conveyor motor in this state, so it isn’t operating. Our green indicator bulb also does not operate because it is part of this circuit. However current does flow through the red indicator bulb via the closed N.C. contact, causing the red bulb to light. The red and green bulbs are particularly useful as indicators of the action taking place in the electric relay circuit. They’re located in the conveyor control panel along with Buttons 1 and 2, and together they keep the conveyor belt operator informed as to what’s taking place on the line, such as, is the belt running or stopped? When the red bulb is lit the operator can tell at a glance that the conveyor is stopped. When the green bulb is lit the conveyor is running. So why not just take a look at the belt itself to see what’s happening? Sometimes that just isn’t possible. Control panels are often located in central control rooms within large factories, which makes it more efficient for operators to monitor and control all operating equipment from one place. When this is the case, the bulbs act as beacons of the activity taking place on the line. Now, let’s go to Figure 2 to see what happens when Button 1 is pushed.
Figure 2
The relay’s wire coil becomes energized, causing the relay armatures to move. The N.C. contact opens and the N.O. contacts close, making the red indicator bulb go dark, the green indicator bulb to light, and the conveyor belt motor to start. With these conditions in place the conveyor belt starts up. Now, let’s look at Figure 3 to see what happens when we release Button 1.
Figure 3
With Button 1 released the relay is said to be “latched” because current will continue to flow through the wire coil via one of the closed N.O. contacts. In this condition the red bulb remains unlit, the green bulb lit, and the conveyor motor continues to run without further human interaction. Now, let’s go to Figure 4 to see how we can stop the motor.
Figure 4
When Button 2 is depressed current flow through the relay coil interrupted. The relay is said to be unlatched and it returns to its normal state where both N.O. contacts are open. With these conditions in place the conveyor motor stops, and the green indicator bulb goes dark, while the N.C. contact closes and the red indicator bulb lights. Since the relay is unlatched and current no longer flows through its wire coil, the motor remains stopped even after releasing Button 2. At this point we have a return to the conditions first presented in Figure 1. The ladder diagram shown in Figure 5 represents this circuit.
Figure 5
Next time we’ll introduce safety elements to our circuit by introducing emergency buttons and motor overload switches. ____________________________________________ |
