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Anglian Windows

Over the coming months we shall be adding a selection of Case Studies from a variety of projects for which Industrial Controls (Anglia) Limited have provided a solution.


Anglian Windows

Anglian Windows needed to detect broken glass protruding through conveyor rollers. When glass broke on the conveyors, the protruding pieces caused any glass sheets following the damage, to break as well. There were several difficulties to overcome to solve this application.

1. An area of approximately 8 square metres needed to be monitored
2. The glass could break anywhere in the monitored area
3. The scanner could only be placed at a maximum height of 100 mm above the conveyor
4. The thickness of the glass can vary from between 3mm and 6mm
5. There is a very high level of wind turbulence and vibration in the area
6. The environment is very dusty

The Solution

The problems were solved by using an Erwin Sick LMS 200 laser scanner which operates by measuring the time of flight of light pulses. It can be programmed to monitor areas of any shape and is able to ignore anything outside the set parameters.

The LMS was set up to scan the designated area and a small time delay introduced via the software to avoid any false triggers from the glass. The LMS gives three PNP normally closed outputs, one of which was set to operate a warning beacon and a siren to alert an operator to any breakages.

This solution enabled breakages to be drastically reduced resulting in large cost savings and freed the workforce to be used more cost-effectively by reducing down-time. Since the system is unmanned and totally automatic, return on investment is calculated in weeks rather than months.