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CC-Link Solves Wiring Problems at Enkei America

ControlGlobal.com
01/11/2010

Enkei America is a die casting company located in Columbus, Indiana. In each of their casting machines, all control wires run through a single piece of conduit. This flexible conduit contains about 75 wires and must bend to accommodate the vertical movement of the casting machine. After extended operation of the machine, the weight of the wires would cause the conduit to break resulting in chafing of the wires. Over time the wire insulation would be rubbed-off causing shorting of the wires. This situation presented a continual maintenance problem.

In an attempt to eliminate the breaking of the conduit, a different style of conduit was tried. It supposedly was able to handle the weight of the wires and the travel of the conduit. This conduit also failed, and as you can see a temporary repair of the wire insulation was made to prevent the wires from shorting and to keep the machine running. However, at some point the machine must be rewired which requires about 10-12 hours of downtime and over 1000 feet of high temperature wire.

The junction boxes on all of the machines had become very cramped due to the numerous updates performed on the machines since they were installed.