Design and Development of an Automatic System for MCCB Testing

Abstract

The use of robots has become very essential in manufacturing industries, as it can achieve higher accuracy and higher production rate with good quality. Repetitive and complex tasks can be done quite easily by the use of robots and it also allows automation for the same. The purpose of this project is to develop an automatic testing system to check different parameters namely trip force, over travel and contact pressure of MCCB for continuous assembly line. The testing system consists of various electro-pneumatics actuators, control system, and drives. The methodology to achieve the above said objective consist of conceptual design of fixtures using CAD software Solidworks, selection of components on bases of load applied on the fixtures and required motions of components. The testing setup to check trip force has been designed and fabricated. Test setup has been checked for working of all pneumatic and electrical components. Programming Logic Control has been used for automatic motion of various components of the setup. PLC programming has been carried out by using “LX-Soft” software. For human interface a LabVIEW screen is developed by using LabVIEW. Another combined testing setup to check over travel and contact pressure in one station has been designed using Solidworks. Fabrication and assembly of setup has been prepared. A PLC program has been generated to control all the electro- pneumatic actuators. A LabVIEW program has been generated for human machine interface for this setup, too. The productivity of setup before and after implementation of automation has been measured. It is observed that productivity has been increased by 30 %, as total MCCB testing cycle time has been reduced by 9 seconds per MCCB. Man power requirement is also reduced to one from three as two testing setup has been combined.