Is it broken?

Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

Sounds like an easy thing to upgrade... so the answer is "Yes", we have and you can.

Charlie
www.facsco.com

Seen it done with two SEW Eurodrive gearmotors with VFDs, Master-Slave configuration.  Recipes set up & stored in a simple PLC arrangement.

TygerDawg

No...it's not broken...but very hard to find parts.  The owner talks about the "complicated algrithms" that run the machine now...but I can't see what is so complicated.  Looks to me like very few parameters to get the desired movement.  The machine produces open ended pipe sections only.  The carriage moves back and forth based on the required coverage and angle...pausing at the ends to get a complete wrap.  I'm just trying to make sure I'm not missing something as it certainly isn't obvious that there is anything overly complicated.  Is there a general table of filament winding parameters or programs around somewhere?  Thanks for the replies!!!!

I'm guessing the DOS software is also capable of wrapping tapered pipe, barrels and hourglasses, and maybe tees or arbitrary branches ... but if the owner will never need that capability again, I guess a PLC makes some sense.

There also exist industrial PCs that can replace the original ... what, XT? ... but many are in a different form factor and all cost more than the cheapest PLCs.

Or maybe nobody can remember how to drive the DOS software and they've lost the book, or no one is sufficiently motivated to read the book ... in which case it might be sensible to hide the DOS stuff with a Windows or Linux front end  ... but it's easy to underestimate the difficulty of producing a reliable and stable program for any platform, including a PLC.

Is there some particular PC part that you're having difficulty finding?

Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

Mike...you are correct...this machine only needs to wrap cylindrical pipe.  The original controller is identified as a Texas Micro XM880 with Opto I/O.  Even if the customer could get a box of parts, they still want to modernize the control system.  I don't think anybody knows too much about the software, except how to enter the "recipe" data.  The software looks a lot like Lotus 1-2-3 used to.  My background is mainly PLC and HMI and my only real concern is that I don't really know what "secret complex formulas" might be hiding in the old control system.  Normally, the time and effort required to successfully upgrade a control system is largely linked to the number of inputs and outputs...and the number of moving parts.  In this case, there are basically 2 moving parts and only a few I/O (aside from the start/stop/override stuff on the HMI).  I'll keep studying this.  Thanks!!

If all you are doing is wrapping pipe a 2-axis motion controller + software should be relatively easy to put together and would give you flexibility that you don't

If on the other hand this is tank winder - lots of other things to consider as far as recipes go.  Helical wind angles, hoop winding, combinations of both wind styles . . . lots of stuff to consider.

I used DBase 4 as an interface for many of my old PC contraptions. It could load data on the fly, import 123 files, draw quite fancy screens, call and run assembly routines, and more. Several of those earlier projects are still running.

Can't imagine anything too complex as far as software is concerned. I'll bet if you dug around, you could find that folder with the docs.