Efficient and effective production is synonymous with the health of the production line .
norm ( design level ), indicate a change in electrical insulation quality e . g . a developing fault in electrical equipment , motors , EMC filters , cabling , junction box .
Periodic electrical inspections , including simple insulation tests give a basic snapshot of the electrical health of the production line at the time of the tests . The electrician completes these tests with the power switched off . Consequently they do not reflect what is happening when the production line is running or between tests .
In this example picture , total production line supply leakage current measured with a clamp meter is 20A i . e . the sum of all the individual leakage currents associated with the production line running . Questions to ask : Is this normal ? Is it higher or lower than last week , yesterday or has it just increased by 25 % in the last few minutes ? What is the distribution of the leakage current associated with individual manufacturing cells , robots ? Is there a developing problem which will result in
a protection device tripping , leading to a partial or complete production stoppage ?
Intelligent production line management and monitoring
Developments in predictive maintenance , associated with shared data , IIoT , ML , AI ( Industry 4 ) at the top end , are enablers for high level management and control through condition monitoring and installation forecasting regarding future installation behaviour . Existing production line automation may not fully embrace the Industry 4 benefits , without major upgrades to hardware and software .
Product developments such the e . Guard residual current monitoring system from Doepke , enable the adoption of a fully scalable bundle , with 5 levels of performance :
Basic Level 1 , using free Doepke software enabling clear visualisation of the complex leakage currents within a system , offering evaluation and monitoring of < 20 RCMs on a PC , plus alarm email messaging .
Moving through the levels adds additional features e . g . Level 5 – bespoke software incorporating machine learning , customer meta data , hyperparameters , developed in conjunction with the Customer ’ s Engineering and IT project team .
e . Guard ( from Doepke The residual current protection expert )
e . Guard permanently monitors the residual currents in electrical installations and therefore offers comprehensive surveillance of their status . Smart residual current sensors positioned at critical points in the system , manufacturing cells and or items of equipment , enable the early identification
of issues within specific locations .
This results in timely and planned intervention by electrical staff to conduct essential checks and repairs . The aim , reduce downtown , catastrophic equipment failures and associated production line losses . For further information please contact Doepke on sales @ doepke . co . uk .
www . doepke . co . uk
FDPP - www . fdpp . co . uk 13