For more than two decades Heatmasters have been at the forefront regarding temperature control systems for metal’s heat treatment applications. Everyone in business is familiar with Heatmasters’ legendary Rigel26 controller and HM20/25 temperature control program. This technology has proven to be excellent in both accuracy and ease of use.
Alongside Rigel/HM25, Heatmasters is working with various PLC (programmable logic) and industrial computer-based solutions for temperature control. They are able to rapidly provide a custom-tailored temperature control system that integrates into the existing production processes and meets all current and future requirements.
Automated production process
In early 2019 they developed a completely new customized temperature control solution for customer’s automated production process. The customer’s factory-level control system and control room were equipped with other manufacturer’s process control technology and this is why the customer wanted heat treatment transformers with a temperature control system that integrates as smoothly as possible into their production process.
After brainstorming and preliminary design process they came to the conclusion that the most cost-effective and easiest way is to embed a similar PLC which was controlling the main process into Heatmasters’ transformers. This allows the customer to operate with the control interface they are already familiar with and without bus converters or other add-ons.
Heat treatment control
The factory-level program will provide the transformer controller start and stop information
The customized temperature control program inside the Heatmasters’ transformer has PID control for each channel through a thermocouple. They also gave the customer an opportunity to use their factory-level program for heat treatment control, whereby the transformer controller is given only power instruction and channel number, and which is then implemented by the transformer controller circuit.
The factory-level program will provide the transformer controller start and stop information, setpoint or before mentioned power instruction for each channel separately. PID control status, actual power value, and temperature information are amongst the data flowing back from the transformer to the main system.
Emergency stop circuit
The transformer controller was also provided with the so-called watchdog function, which detects the contact between the controllers in the transformers and the upper-level program. If there is no contact, the transformers and heating are set to stop.
And because safety comes first, they added a possibility to link the machine into the customer’s emergency stop circuit, meaning that whenever and wherever an emergency stop button is pushed it will also stop the transformers and heating. Does one have heat treatment needs that require customized mechanical or automation solutions? Their experts are happy to assist the user to find the best solution.
