Luton waste recycling plant got type tested control panels23 June 2010

Automation firm DB Controls reports that, by selecting Schneider Electric to supply all controls for a new waste recycling plant, it was able to offer a cost-effective Form 2 type-tested control panel.

The waste facility at Luton was designed and installed by OKLM Recycling Technology for family-owned waste management company Cawleys, and is now fully operational.

Its Luton plant was a multi-million pound project to create a sorting facility for commercial and industrial waste – the first in the country to feature automated separation of paper from this type of waste.

DB Controls sales director David Trueman explains that the automation system chosen includes a Schneider Electric M340 compact PLC, with twin Ethernet ports programmed with Unity Pro IEC 61131-3 compliant software.

The PLC controls 80 Tesys Model U DOL (direct on-line) integrated motor starters, 18 ATV71 variable speed drives (VSDs) and four racks of Advantys fieldbus I/O, with Telefast 2 direct termination units.

The DOL starters are small, taking a relatively small footprint, and work with the VSDs and remote I/O, using Modbus over TCP IP networking. And all of that has been built into a Prisma Plus intelligent MCC (motor control centre), which is BSEN 61439-2 compliant.

The MCC's inverter drives now ensure that the motors powering the arrangement of conveyors, transporting waste from stage to stage, run at the correct speed, even though loading changes continuously.

Also, since the M340 PLC and ATV71 drives both have an active web page, accessed through the system software, windows on the SCADA display show device parameters and status at any time, via DB Control's engineering office.

"Being able to purchase all of the equipment from one source meant that integration of the various components was very straightforward," says Trueman. "By building the MCC in this way, we were able to offer a fully verified solution," he adds.

The control system has since been replicated at two further waste recycling facilities.

Brian Tinham

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