The Columbia Automation Systems team successfully completed a paper machine PLC upgrade. The project was a conversion from Reliance AutoMate to Allen-Bradley ControlLogix. It was accomplished on a planned four day shutdown.
The original system was a Reliance AutoMate 40 PLC with AutoMate remote chassis I/O and rail I/O. It had redundant masters with fifteen remote drops. I/O was a mixture of digital and analog. There were four Modbus serial interfaces to the Honeywell DCS.
The new system is a redundant ControlLogix system (1756-L55, 1757-SRM, 1756-CNBR). All AutoMate chassis were replaced with ControlLogix chassis (1756-A10, 1756-A17). All AutoMate analog I/O modules were replaced with ControlLogix isolated analog I/O modules (1756-IF6I and 1756-OF6CI). All remote chassis are on ControlNet.
The new system utilizes existing rail I/O to reduce costs. Reliance I/O Saver modules are used to communicate to the rail I/O. The ControlLogix masters communicate over ControlNet to remote 1756-DHRIO modules then over Allen-Bradley Remote I/O (Blue Hose) to the I/O Saver modules. This approach greatly reduced costs while simplifying the installation.
The Modbus interfaces to the Honeywell DCS were replicated in the ControlLogix so that no reconfiguration was required in the DCS. Four ProSoft Modbus Communication Modules (56MVI-MCM) replaced the four Reliance Gateway modules. These four ProSoft modules are installed in a remote ControlLogix chassis with its own dedicated Logix processor for handling the communication to the DCS. Information is then shared with the masters over ControlNet.
A software interface to the Reliance AutoMax drive system was added using an Ethernet/IP Bridge (1756-ENBT) and an AN-X DCSNet module from Quest Technical Solutions. This interface passes PLC interlocks to the drive system to simplify drive system troubleshooting and for trending on the Reliance Sigma Universal Process Monitor (UPM).
CAS worked closely with the mill in a team effort to complete this upgrade in the scheduled shutdown time.
Contact Don Ruoff for more information.