My Panel

[Ashley Williams]

Im an electrical apprentise just about out of my time been working for 2 years now mainly as a mainternance engineer, but do lots of installs and panel building etc. Here is my latest Panel if any of you wonder how plywood cable drums are made (Well the Larger ones) this is how it is done. This is a new hydraulic press which operates at 200 Bar. The panel operates the pneamatic control to take the drum in to the press and eject it once pressed, the hydraulic enerpac aswell as a full automatic mode. There are a number of conditions for press to work including light guards and pressure switches so the drum is perfectly pressed. I designed and built the control circuit. Here are some pictures. Unfortunatly none of the completed panel as i forgot and it has already been installed in another factory.




This picture if of the press under going trials it was then stripped and transported to another factory where we installed it.


Ash

 

[trev]

Aye, not bad yungun. There's a thread in general for this sort of thing though, Show Us Your Installs" It would have got more notice taken of it there mate.

 

[alarm man]

so what happened to the panel in the pics

 

[Engineer54]

I see that your company don't use panel wiring trunking (slotted/finger) in there panels!! Which is a shame, It makes internal panel wiring so much neater, and gives a professional finish to the job....

 

[alarm man]

I see that your company don't use panel wiring trunking (slotted/finger) in there panels!! Which is a shame, It makes internal panel wiring so much neater, and gives a professional finish to the job....

my thoughts too,thats not a lash up to see if it works,that could be the finished product,no room for trunk as the top hat leaves no room for it unless you remove it and cut,poor looming,no protection over door,perm marker for cut outs,its a mess if it is the finished product,which i presume its not..

 

[vaughant]

No cable numbers or terminal points marked,which shows you've been taught badly as you should design everything out on paper first so you know what cable goes where,get your scheme correct etc rather than just connecting it all up as you go along.
Thats fine for you while your wiring it but no use for the guy coming behind you where theres nothing to work from after say an electrical fire or impact damage from a forklift.
Your obviously not stupid as there's a fair bit of control in there but without numbers and labelling I'd refuse to work on it.
Wheres the diagram you worked from?surely you numbered that?

 

[snowhead]

Unfortunatly none of the completed panel as i forgot and it has already been installed in another factory.


Ash

Appologise to the O.P, any replies to this thread are meant to be constructive critisim, not just a general slagging off.

I asume the wiring got tidied up.

Agree with all the above comments.
I work on a lot of control panels, never seen one wired like this before.
It's so much easier to build with cable trunking and easier to fault find following cables without a drawing after.

Marker pen needs cleaning off after the holes are punched.

If you build more than 1 of these you need a jig to form the wiring and loom to length before it's fitted to the contactors and terminals.

Assume that's a PLC in the corner, no vents in the box then?

 

[malcolmsanford]

Now that we have ripped a new one out of this.......................a bit of spiral cable wrap for those cables going to the lidded door would not have been amiss

 

[cogsey133]

good for you showing this. Well done on the panel having done this type of work myself for what seems like a lifetime now please dont take the above points as you being got at they are all valid. Every day is a school day in the electrical field.

 

[Guitarist]

Well done for showing us what you built. Can't really add much to what the other guys have said. Definitely needs trunking to give it that professional look.
Also, you are an "apprentice", not an "apprentise", and it's "maintenance", not "mainternance". Don't mean to be picky, but people you work with will think it very unprofessional if you misspell your own job title.

 

[Robotstar5]

Thanks for showing the panel/machine build, I hope you take the above as constructive criticism, it will make future builds look a lot more professional which should lead to repeat/more orders for your company.

Hopefully the pics were taken before you fitted the earth bonding between the chassis plate, enclosure & lid etc. also, I prefer to drive a safety relay with the OSSD outputs from the lightguards and another on the E/stop circuit as it allows you to monitor residual pneumatic/hydraulic pressure before allowing a restart. Did you fit a satellite E/stop on the side of the machine opposite to the panel?.

PILZ do some good training seminars which would help you with the safety aspect of machine design.

 

[Ashley Williams]

The permanent marker was removed, door, back plate and enclosure where all bonded! I wanted to use trunking but was told i wasnt allowed and in all honesty there was little room for it as i did not order the enclosure most of the components where pre ordered by my boss while i was on holiday as he knew what i would need roughly! I would of preffered a slightly larger enclosure No saterlite E-Stop i made the suggestion but it was rejected! There are a full set of drawings all labelled with terminal numbers! I did attempt wite labelling but the number supplied by my company where useless and just didnt stick and they wouldnt buy an alternative!

Im always open to suggestions im trying to drag the standard up. As for my spelling ive always been usless and always will be!

Ash

 

[Guitarist]

The permanent marker was removed, door, back plate and enclosure where all bonded! I wanted to use trunking but was told i wasnt allowed and in all honesty there was little room for it as i did not order the enclosure most of the components where pre ordered by my boss while i was on holiday as he knew what i would need roughly! I would of preffered a slightly larger enclosure No saterlite E-Stop i made the suggestion but it was rejected! There are a full set of drawings all labelled with terminal numbers! I did attempt wite labelling but the number supplied by my company where useless and just didnt stick and they wouldnt buy an alternative!

Im always open to suggestions im trying to drag the standard up. As for my spelling ive always been usless and always will be!

Ash

Many people aren't great at spelling mate (although an online dictionary is a great tool). Not knowing how to spell what you are is a bit like not knowing how to spell your own name though. People notice

 

[Engineer54]

The permanent marker was removed, door, back plate and enclosure where all bonded! I wanted to use trunking but was told i wasnt allowed and in all honesty there was little room for it as i did not order the enclosure most of the components where pre ordered by my boss while i was on holiday as he knew what i would need roughly! I would of preffered a slightly larger enclosure No saterlite E-Stop i made the suggestion but it was rejected! There are a full set of drawings all labelled with terminal numbers! I did attempt wite labelling but the number supplied by my company where useless and just didnt stick and they wouldnt buy an alternative!

Im always open to suggestions im trying to drag the standard up. As for my spelling ive always been usless and always will be!

Ash

I knew full well when i made my comment, that this would have been a company policy thing, and not left to an apprentice to decide what is going into the panel and what's not!...lol!!

The thing is though, when that panel reaches the customer, that could in all likelihood have a Maintenance or Engineering Manager. ...Now he's not going to be too impressed when he opens the panel door, and sees a quagmire of un-numbered panel wiring cables, no flexible spiral wrap binding for loomed door cables, among other omissions.... He will probably know how much this panel cost his company as well (if you get my meaning?). There is rarely if ever, a reason not to number control wiring or not to use a form of panel wiring containment and loom control to opening doors in a control panel.

Apart from anything else, aesthetically it just doesn't look a professional job at the end of the day... Again, there is no way anyone should be blaming you for the omissions, this is definitely a company policy or management problem...

 

[Ashley Williams]

We are not a panel building company we are just a small maintenance department the press has gone to one of our other sites! So any maintenance would be carried out this is there justification for lack of things!

Ash