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Cast in Ethernet

Steve Kuehn, Managing Editor

Die-Cast Machine Builder Extends Customers' Equipment ROI While Introducing Them to the Benefits of Ethernet-Enabled Controls

The company offers ladlers, one-armed machines that smoothly manage a dipper that ladles molten metal from the furnace, transfers it to the die, and pours it into the mold (Figure 1). Rimrock also manufactures a line of parts extractors, which do exactly that,extract freshly-cast parts from the die and place them for further handling.

Rimrock's customers expect their die-casting equipment to have a productive life of 20 years or more. However, the productivity mantra drives these manufacturers to constantly find ways to leverage their existing equipment to achieve faster casting rates, greater parts precision, higher parts yields, and less waste. The continuing quest production efficiency presents die-cast parts producers with a tough operational challenge: how to improve production performance without scrapping their huge investment in installed legacy equipment.

Challenge Accepted

That's a challenge Rimrock has gladly accepted. Rimrock has a long history in the business and it became increasingly obvious that to remain a leader they would have to provide their customers new ways to achieve incremental production improvements on their installed base of systems and a better overall return on their equipment investment.

A multi-faceted solution presented itself in the form of a compact, innovative Ethernet-based programmable logic controller (PLC). The versatile new control system (now standard equipment on all new Rimrock offerings) can be easily retrofitted to Rimrock machines in the field.

According to Rimrock, retrofitting costs significantly less than purchasing a new piece of equipment, yet delivers all of the new controller's functionality and associated production-related improvements to the machines in the field. Because most companies have cut new capital equipment budgets to the bone, Rimrock believes funds for retrofitting new controls onto existing equipment are more likely to be found and more easily allocated from the company's maintenance budget.

Ethernet's True Value Revealed

The new control platform is well-suited for controlling the dedicated reciprocator, extraction, and ladling equipment that handle the repetitive, single or two-axis motion routines of most die-casting operations,and that also make up roughly 80% of the world's motion control applications. But the real value of the new control began emerged when Rimrock and its customers began to understand how the controllers Ethernet capabilities can help trim overall equipment expenses, boost productivity, reduce machine and line downtime, while speeding and simplifying programming, maintenance, and troubleshooting.

So That's Why I Need It

While Ethernet on the factory floor is still, in Rimrock's view, in the early adoption phase, company management has no regrets about incorporating it into its control architecture. "I talk to customers and they say, 'Why do I need that? I'm not going to network my equipment unless the big boss says to do it.' I tell them we're providing the capability whether you need it now or not," explains Dave Woods, Rimrock's product development manager.

Woods admits that at first he was reluctant to incorporate Ethernet into the new control system. "I was a fieldbus snob, but the more I learned, the more it made sense," he confesses. "Every plant has Ethernet now and people are rapidly moving toward implementing it for factory-floor applications. If you're going to design something new, you'd better do it on Ethernet."

The control system is built around a Schneider Electric (www.schneiderautomation.com) Momentum M1E controller, which has an embedded web server, built-in web pages for diagnostics, integral Ethernet port, and the ability to handle information transmitted by every major sensor bus.

Immediate Cost Savings

He points to the immediate cost savings that can be achieved with Ethernet. "Two control systems networked on Ethernet can share an HMI in a small enclosure, for example, and we can locate both of the control systems on a back wall," he says. "This gives the customer great flexibility in positioning the operator station. It's also easy to debug the program from a laptop, which can become a temporary HMI if equipment gets damaged. Some customers even opt not to stock HMIs in their storeroom because of the backup capabilities the laptop can now provide."