Many standard products
and machines made in small-to-medium numbers could benefit from a bespoke
circuit board to perform many of the functions that would otherwise be performed
by proprietary controllers and drives. These benefits include reduced cost of
bought-outs and labour, easier assembly, increased functionality and enhanced
performance by:
- Replacing high-cost proprietary I/O modules, drives, controllers, etc.
- Reducing wiring between centralised I/O modules and remote devices
- Increasing product functionality, improving fault monitoring, etc.
- Customising products making them more difficult to copy
Gefran has the expertise
and tools to design and develop bespoke circuit boards for a wide range of
process and motion control applications. It can also arrange manufacture of
boards at competitive prices in quantities, typically, 100-5000 per year in
batches of 50-500 pieces.
Boards can incorporate
both logic-level and power electronics. Processors are chosen for their specific
features and programmed in assembly language to achieve the required
functionality, and interfaced with real-world devices such as motors, encoders,
analogue sensors, etc.
Boards can have a
wide variety of communications options, such as RS-232 or RS-485 serial ports,
Ethernet/IP , ProfiBus, DeviceNet, CANOpen, MODBUS, etc. for linking them to
PLCs or PCs. For systems having a large number of nodes, Gefran can incorporate
their own network, MCSNet, which supports up to 65,535 devices.
Gefran can also write
the communications protocol to run on the PLC or PC, plus any high level
software necessary for creating and downloading programmes to the board, or
integrating it into SCADA or factory automation systems.
Read about some of the boards developed by MCS
Developing a networked process control board
Networked
process control board for controlling up to 255 6kW and 8kW short wave infrared (SWIR) heating modules
in Multi-station Linear Indexing machines for impregnating stators and rotors of electrical motors and
generators with insulating resin.
◘ Click to download a .pdf file of the case study
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| Resin impregnation machine |
6kW SWIR lamp module |
6kW control board |
Developing a motion controller
Networked motion control board for controlling up to 65,535 stepper motors on a
yarn feed system used on machines for making tufted carpets. The boards are
linked via MCSNet to a PC running CAD software on which the carpet patterns are
created. MCS also wrote high level software for generating the set of move
instructions, or programme, from the carpet design file. This application would
probably have been either impractical or impossible without MCS’s approach.
◘ Click to download a .pdf file of the case study
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Variable yarn feed system
on sample tufting machine |
11 networked boards
controlling 88 motors |
Web guides for softgel capsule machines
Motion control board for controlling a web guide mechanism on a rotary die encapsulation machine making softgel capsules for packaging liquid products such as cod liver oil, paint balls, and prescription drugs. MCS also designed and developed the mechanism which is driven by a stepper motor via a ballscrew.
◘ Click to download a .pdf file of the case study