Pentair

Pentair Water Filtration at Billingham, Co. Durham produce filter cartridges for the process and water industries which they export world wide. Specialist machinery is used which is designed specifically for the requirement.

However, when a product change was required they were losing a significant amount of downtime changing gears. Pentairs' attempts to improve the system with a servo controller did not prove particularly successful and Clark Components were called in.

A filter winding machine was taken into Clark Components workshop to work out a possible solution. Essentially the problem was solved by re-engineering the master encoder and feeding its signal directly into an intelligent servo drive amplifier resulting in a massive saving of 10 hours every time a product change was required.

A total of seven machines were upgraded to the new drive system and Clark Components went on to provide a front end control cabinet for the whole production area which enabled each machine to be configurd by menu to provide individual product selection as well as the number of items to be produced. The system could be accessed remoteley and the production status viewed at any time during the working day.