Servo controller helps woodcutters' fast payback
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Micromech product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team
Aug 16, 2006
The PMAC has been put at the heart of an NC saw that cuts 50 x 100mm timber for angle and length to form wooden roof trusses.
A machine was needed to provide safety, accuracy and low labour costs and increase productivity to the building industry, and the PMAC was put at the heart of an NC saw that cuts 50 x 100mm timber for angle and length to form wooden roof trusses.
The exacting design challenge was to provide a PC/Windows based controller that would enable direct cutting of the truss components from the design data base to develop a user friendly machine controller that is cost effective, yet still safe and reliable.
On the previous machines three brushless servo drives were used to position the wood and set the correct saw cut angle but for the new generation of wood cutters six axes were needed to handle larger dimension lumber and expand the usage.
The hardware required to achieve this was the PMAC-PCI using a standard Windows XP PC to control three brushless axes, spindle VFD and all machine logic and interlocking.
The software employed was the PMAC Executive Pro Suite to configure the turn system, LabView for both the HMI and to port parts programme via Ethernet from host truss design computer to PMAC.
In addition each beam is ink jet marked with the correct part number for ease of assembly.
The outcome is a machine requiring only one operator who replaced six to eight people using dangerous manual chop saws.
The single operator now processes over 3000 metres of lumber per shift but in a 75% reduced floor space.
This results in a payback of four to five months on a GBP 100,000 investment, and a typical saving of GBP 1500 plus reduction of scrapped wood.
This clearly resolved a worrying health and safety issue while reducing operator labour costs.
The dramatic increase in throughput did however mean greater turnover and redeployment of some labour to handle product downstream.
The excellent features and function of the new machine met the demands required by the roof truss industry for faster turnaround, more complex roof truss design and improved quality.
This was made possible because the PMAC provides a multi-axis platform to integrate both Windows and LabView so making the ease of setup, operation and manufacturer, simple and quick.
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