At 30 years old and approximately 75-feet long, the Black-Clawson two-station Extrusion Laminator dominates Amgraph’s Versaille, CT production floor. To say that it was no longer on top of its game would be putting it mildly. But management decided to prepare their outdated equipment for the needs of tomorrow by upgrading the analog control system to high-efficiency Siemens motors, Sinamics S120 digital drives, and newer control systems. As a result of the retrofit, Amgraph
Andrew Alaya, vice president of engineering at Siemens Solutions Partner Circonix, knew that by upgrading the machine’s analog drives and discrete controls to the latest Siemens motors and Sinamics S120 digital drives, Amgraph could accommodate new materials, manufacture packages with thicker coatings, achieve uptime of 95 percent or better, and increase throughput by 20 percent or more. “Initially, the machine had four different motors with analog drives and controls, each with their own wiring harness and relay logic, which really made the machines a challenge to maintain,” says Alaya. “Only one of the sections was capable of tension control, which forced Amgraph to operate the extrusion machine in draw mode. This meant that the machine could only handle certain types of coatings without breaking the web and going down. Improving that uptime through better tension control was the main goal of the project.”
