Midstate Concrete Automatic Concrete Carrier
 Customer:
Acco Chain and Lifting Products
76 Acco Drive
York, PA
End User:
Midstates Concrete
Chicago, IL
Project Size:
$35,000.00
Process Description
Midstates Concrete manufactures prefabricated concrete products for the construction industry. The concrete is mixed in a batch mixer to a specific formula. The batch of concrete is conveyed to a hopper on the carrier. The carrier is then dispatched to fill a form by dispensing the concrete as the carrier travels the length of the form. An auger with a variable sped drive discharges the concrete from the hopper. The length of form, carrier speed and auger speed are determined by a form number that the operator selects prior to dispatching the carrier. There are 20 different form numbers that pertain to the length, width and depth of a form. The length of travel, auger speed and travel speed are necessary to insure a proper fill. Once filled the form is vibrated, indexed to a conveyor and conveyed through a leveling machine. The form is then indexed to a drying rack. The finished product is used for roofs and floors in constructing large buildings.
Project Description
As a subcontractor to our OEM customer, Acco Chain and Lifting Products, FEC Technologies provided a PLC controlled system consisting of a floor mounted operator control console, a cab mounted operator console and a motor control panel. All control panels are stainless steel and built to NEMA 4X standards to meet the users environmental requirements. Both the cab and the floor-mounted consoles are equipped with Operator Interface Terminal (OIT) keypad displays for making operation selections and monitoring the performance of operation. The motor control panel contains Variable Frequency Drives (VFD) for travel and discharge speed control. Encoder feedback provides the ability to monitor the distance traveled relative to the length of the form. The system is designed to interface with equipment supplied by others such as the batch mixing equipment and form indexing equipment. The interface allows the operator to have central control of other equipment from the floor console of the carrier system. FEC’s scope of supply included:
- System design and documentation
- Design and manufacture of the control consoles and VFD control panel
- Programming of the PLC, OIT and VFDs
- Factory Functional Test
- System start up
System Components
- Two (2) Allen Bradley SLC-500 processors and I/O modules
- Two (2) OIT keypad displays
- One (1) encoder
- Two (2) VFDs
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