Koerner has more than 25 years of experience and research, worldwide patents, and customers in 50 countries worldwide.
The central control cabinet represents the core of the KVK pickling plant, to which all the control devices for level and temperature control as well as the fume extraction plant are connected. Data is processed and recorded and can be transferred to the PLC of the crane system, thus allowing optimisation of the overall process and guaranteeing highest standards in quality assurance.
The process can be observed on the visualisation system where all data is displayed and certain parameters can be read and modified, if required. The comprehensive automation system, including various alarm and warning signals, guarantees the highest level of operational reliability. If requested, we provide remote maintenance via a modem connection, which enables our software engineers to log in to control systems of our plants all over the world any time a day without delay.
Advantages:
By means of a pressure difference gauge, the partial vacuum in the encapsulation of the pre-treatment plant is measured continuously. When an entrance door or one of the sliding doors is opened, the partial vacuum will drop and the extraction volume will be increased correspondingly. This frequency control of the fan yields huge savings in power consumption.
All operational parameters of the fume extraction and purification plant, such as conductivity, flow or partial vacuum, are monitored, indicated and processed continuously. Fresh water is replenished to the scrubber automatically.
Scrubbing fluid enriched with absorbed acid is automatically channelled back to the pre-treatment to compensate for the evaporation losses in the acidic baths (see: level control). Thus, when keeping to the given process parameters, the water cycle can be closed, yielding no waste water.
Temperature sensors of type PT 100 are installed in the heated pre-treatment tanks and transmit the signals either directly or - in case of long cables - converted into a current signal (4-20 mA) to the central control cabinet, where the actual values are displayed.
A motorised valve is installed in the heating circuit of each heat exchanger, which opens and closes automatically according to the set temperature.
Of course, there are additional safety measures in the PLC to avoid overheating.
Evaporation and entrainment losses of the pre-treatment tanks are compensated by means of the automatic level control system. If the level in one of the working tanks drops below the set point, an automatic valve opens and the respective fluid is filled until the set level is reached.
Capacitive or inductive probes, which can be installed on a by-pass tube or directly in the bath, show the current level. Additional safety probes and a limitation of the valve opening time prevent overfilling.