LMGZ-series for insulating line in FRANCE
Global leader for insulation foils selects FMS to supply tension monitoring equipment.
REPPLUS - S.A.S., our French partner has recently finalized a retrofit of tension monitoring equipment in Mondoubleau, France.
When upgrading existing plants, you want to optimize the machine as good as possible. In this case, only the drives and motors needed special attention. In this context, however, the customer considered how he could also optimize the plant for faster production speeds. To avoid web breaks, the engineers at the end customer decided to contact REPPLUS to provide adequate tension monitoring equipment.
Planned Upgrade
The actual line has been in operation for years with regular maintenance and service. However, the drives have remained untouched in the past. Due to irregular motor failures, production downtimes were becoming more and more frequent. Finally, the maintenance and repair department recommended a complete replacement of all drive components. At the same time, a tension monitoring equipment was to be installed at critical points in the process to ensure later capacity increases.
Data Collection
When the responsible engineers of the customer first contacted REPPLUS, the main process date and requirements was collected. The main goal was to find a suitable location for the measuring roller with smallest possible modifications to the machine and the PLC. The advantage of FMS is our large portfolio. We can provide force sensors and measuring amplifiers for any application in roll-to-roll processes.
Quick Project Realization
After a final check of the project data, we could confirm the sizing and received the order for the sensors. REPPLUSs proposal to use a PROFINET measuring amplifier was highly appreciated. This would allow for quick and easy integration into the existing PLC and the required fast cycle times of 1 ms for increased machine speeds could easily be reached. The optional mounting brackets for the LMGZ-series were also added to the order to ease the mounting of the force sensors on-site.
Installation and start-up were done by the maintenance crew of our customer. After the calibration the machine was back in operation after only a few hours of downtime.
How is it done? Easy selection and sizing of FMS force sensors with the FMS-Calculator
When evaluating a suitable force sensor for a specific application, the main required parameters are maximum web tension, roller weight and the web path around the measuring roller.
The next step is to select a suitable sensor type or series. Here, other parameters like roller type (live, dead or cantilever) come into play.
Additional features like sealing capabilities, grease nipples or varying electrical connectors can be selected in the next step. Here a list of options according to the previous sensor selection is shown.
The final step is the optimization of your selection. Here, the respective diameter of the existing roller (50 mm) can be selected and an adequate nominal force (FNom) of the force sensor is proposed. In the present case, the impact of the comparatively heavy roller is quite big. With a weight of 100 kg (blue bar oriented downwards) and a web tension of 1´000 N (green bar oriented upwards) the weight force of the roller and the web tension are almost identical. In this configuration, the available “stroke” of the force sensor is almost fully used by the weight force. Although this configuration would be feasible, we go a step further and “eliminate” the weight force for this specific case.
We can achieve that by rotating the force sensor from its standard orientation with the red point aligned with the resulting force (FRes) into the fully horizontal orientation. In this configuration, the weight force is no longer measured by the force sensor. As a result, we also only measure the horizontal part of FRes.
