PLC keeps F1 team cool
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Mitsubishi Electric Automation Systems product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team
Mar 6, 2007
A small industrial PLC is keeping the occupants of a Formula 1 team's mobile headquarters cool, even in the blazing heat of a venue like Monaco, Australia, Bahrain or Malaysia.
A small industrial PLC (programmable logic controller) is keeping the occupants of a Formula 1 team's mobile headquarters cool, no matter what excitement happens on the track and even in the blazing heat of a venue like Monaco, Australia, Bahrain or Malaysia.
The mobile structure has two storeys with offices, a catering area, a kitchen, a bar and lounges for the drivers, with plenty of space and comfortable amenities for the team's guests.
It is installed on the trailers of four trucks.
The air conditioning system for the complete structure has a total output of 190kW, engineers from Clim Cool Project in of Renningen in Germany chose an FX3U compact PLC from Mitsubishi for the main air conditioning system and six Alpha XL micro controllers for the hospitality area systems.
The FX3U communicates via RS485 serial links with two FRF740 frequency inverter drives that power the ventilation system.
These inverter drives are specially designed for maximum power conservation in pump and fan applications.
Up to eight frequency inverters can be connected directly to the system without a field bus, using just the RS485 ports.
The only limit on the number of temperature values polled by the program is memory capacity.
This is a very important factor for a complex air conditioning system in which a large number of actual and setpoint temperature values have to be compared.
Mitsubishi's FX3U is the third generation of this family of compact PLCs.
This controller is fitted with a second adapter bus system and is fully compatible with the existing Melsec FX series.
Its particular strengths include communications, servo positioning and performance.
It has between 16 and 256 I/Os, program memory for 64,000 steps and a cycle time of just 0.065us.
The Alpha XL micro controller closes the gap between individual components like relays and time switches and a full PLC.
It delivers a high level of functionality, reliability and flexibility at a very reasonable price.
The Alpha can process up to 200 function blocks in a single program and each function can be used as often as required by all programs.
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