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Arto Heikkila
Control RetroFix Technician
Control RetroFix
1 (888) 588-0528
Arto “Archie” Heikkila has 23 years experience in industrial automation, the last 20 of them in concrete batching and mixing controls. The first 5 years of his Concrete Plant automation experience he...more»»
Avoiding breakdown of control system
Posted by Jane from Los Angeles, CA, US on May 13, 2009
Our PC based control sits in the control room, this is a big problem for us as it gets dusty real fast. What ideas do you have to help us avoid a breakdown in future?
You have couple of very effective options here:
1) improve the control room so that dust won’t get in there so easily. Maintain slight over pressure in the control room to avoid vacuuming dust in there. Upgrading control room is not only improving air quality and cleanliness but makes it more enjoyable place to work at.
2) There are many different types of dust proof cabinets available. These cabinets can be pretty expensive and eventually your control room is still dusty although it protects the PC, therefore I still vote for the first option.
3) This is very inexpensive and effective in protecting the PC. DirtBag has several sizes of dust proof computer and monitor bags. They work very well, however your control room remains still dusty...
Control system freeze prevention
Posted by Peter Jr. from Buffalo, NY, US on May 12, 2009
When running daily production our control system will “freeze”. This means we have to stop production and reboot the system. What steps should we take to try and resolve this issue?
This issue is quite familiar for most of us also from home computer. Especially in older Win NT based operating systems this is more often seen issue. WinNT didn’t come with native defragmentation tool, therefore I recommend installing third party defragmenting software in the computer and run it couple of times. I’ve seen significant improvement by doing it. These defrag programs can be also configured so that they perform defragging automatically based on inputted schedule.
Computer might be also running short of RAM memory, which is causing slow response times and delayed computing. Find out if PC’s motherboard supports more RAM that is currently installed and consider upgrading RAM.
Windows 2000 and newer operating systems has tools for removing unnecessary files and programs. It is a good idea to get rid of unwanted program as it frees up hard drive space and cleans program registry.
Control system upgrade
Posted by Steve from Chicago, IL, US on May 11, 2009
We are looking to upgrade to a modern control system. What features should we be focused on?
Although this question might sound rather simple, it actually holds much more than one would think. In today’s speed of technology development the most important aspect is to focus on two main factors:
1. hardware: latest technology in PC and PLC world will most definitely stay “current” longer than controllers than hasn’t really changed for a long time. good example is “soft PLC” control that eliminates physical, separate PLC CPU as it is running parallel in PC’s CPU. Also availability and affordability of spare parts are important factors.
2. Software: clarify what you need. If your plant is complicated setup with several silos and mixers, make sure that control system vendor is capable handling large controls and ask for reference from their past similar projects. Often control system manufacturer can arrange a site visit to their already completed project, which gives you first hand idea what to expect. Software should be also designed so that future expansions (i.e. adding new silo) is easily and quickly accomplished.
