Handling & Safety Matters Focus on: Handling & Storage Direct productivity, better skill levels and reduced emissions.” Improved resilience Another source of crane downtime in production facilities is a mains power failure. Nonlinear loads and voltage distortion are both significant issues because they can disrupt magnet performance and damage the crane’s electrical components. Even the slightest trip can make a big difference. Power failures can also have a detrimental safety impact. If the crane uses a traditional contactor-based control, then in the event of an outage of power trip, the load will simply drop — posing a risk to anyone in the vicinity. To maintain uptime, some digital magnet controllers include power ride-through features and systems, which operators can program to maintain resilience. This ensures that the magnet remains energised during interruptions and that the lift continues. Predictive maintenance “Being able to access highly accurate analytics from monitoring devices can improve predictive maintenance no end,” added John Mitchell, global sales and marketing director at CP Automation. “Sometimes, routine maintenance activities are not needed, and adopting a more targeted approach based on need can free-up machine operators to focus on more pressing tasks.” Some digital controllers feature data loggers and can provide performance information, such as alarm, fault and run details — giving operators real time insights into magnet performance. Meanwhile, when running a contactor-based controller, operators would need to use a digital multimeter to measure voltage, current, resistance and other electrical values to identify any disturbances. By retrofitting a digital controller, operators can focus on predictive maintenance rather than routinely scheduling the same preventative maintenance tasks. This can improve uptime by improving asset performance and ensuring that maintenance is only carried out when needed, based on the controller’s conditionmonitoring analytics. Machine failure and downtime is a significant challenge for production facilities — large plants are losing over a day’s worth of time each month because of it. Digital magnet controllers can play a subtle, but critical, role in improving uptime by preventing the need for frequent crane magnet changes, safeguarding against power outages and enabling predictive maintenance. If you have an overhead crane in your factory or facility, digital crane magnet controllers can give you a competitive edge by avoiding the traps that so many others fall into. CP Automation’s Magnepulse DMC Series 2 digital magnet
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