Colyton Industrial Designs Ltd.
design and manufacture PLC based Industrial Control Systems for factory automation projects in the UK and Europe. PC based SCADA and monitoring systems have been integrated into the control systems using proprietory and custom designed systems. Customers include major motor manufacturers, second tier suppliers as well as foundries, quarrying, cable manufacturers and defence contractors.
Colyton Industrial Designs for industrial automationColyton Industrial Designs is a control systems design consultancy based in the South West of England that can provide software based solutions for your business. |
Colyton Industrial Designs for industrial automation
Colyton Industrial Designs is a control systems design consultancy based in the South West of England that can provide software based solutions for your business.
Our staff have been involved in the design of custom control systems since the first PLC based systems in the 1970s. Since then we have supplied hundreds of PLC and PC based control systems for projects ranging from controlling stone quarries, cable manufacturing plants to simple pump house controls.
History
CI Designs is a design consultancy formed by control systems engineers with over sixty man years experience in the design of industrial control systems using PC and PLC solutions as required.
The control systems that we have designed range from simple 20 I/O PLC's controlling a small machine to a complete integrated PLC system of over thirty PLC's controlling a complete production system all linked back to a PC based production control system.
During the early 1980's we designed a GEM80 PLC based system to control a PVC mixing plant replacing an existing solid state control system that had reached the end of its life as spares were no longer available. The graphics capability and analog signal processing of the GEM 80 range provided an ideal PLC for the application allowing a dynamic visual display long before PC's were used on the factory floor.
During the 1990's we used the PC based Factory Link SCADA system with Telemechanique PLC's to control an iron foundry unit in South Wales including control of the raw material mixing, the casting process, and the transport system to move the moulds around the factory during the cooling process.
Since the advent of Windows 2000 we have supplied PC based sytems, often linked to a PLC, to provide an operator interface to the machine, using either Scada systems or custom software specifcally designed for the application. We have used a 4GL programming language to provide a HMI interface to Siemens S7 PLC's for a large marking system that was designed to meet a detailed specification from the customer. The interface included a realtime display of the sensor signals, logging of all data transmissions between the marking unit and the factories host system. The host system responds to requests for information from the marking unit and requires reporting back on the progress of the mark, and detailed information on the quality of the mark from a camera system integrated into the control system.
Programming
CI Designs uses PC and PLC based solutions to control automated industrial processes in our custom designs.
The PC based designs provide graphic solutions for monitoring processes but we do not use PC's for direct industrial control, for this requires real time control which is best provided by PLC solutions. These have included Allen Bradley, Siemens, Telemechanique and many other PLCs selected to provide the most economic solutions.
We regularly use either Allen Bradley SLC or Siemens S7 PLC systems to control large automated processes as well as Telemechanique and Mitsubishi PLC's for dedicated machines.
Our engineers are well versed in C++ and Visual Basic programming as well as a number of other programming languages and can deal with PC systems using both Windows and Linux operating systems.
Our custom designed database systems can be supplied with a web browser based interface as well as with conventional operator screens.
Design
Our qualified engineers can supply a complete design service to EN60204 including manufacture of dedicated control systems to meet your specifications. We use E-Plan to produce electrical schematics of the control systems and work to European or manufacturers specifications as required. We can also supply the drawings in AutoCAD format when required as well as supplying fully documented programs in PDF format.
Our comprehensive operator and systems manuals are supplied in PDF format and for PC based systems these can be stored on the machine itself to assist operator and technical staff on site.
Support
From our base in the South West of England we use modern communication techniques to monitor control systems throughout Europe providing a support service with dial in and internet based links. We can monitor and update the PC based systems without the need for expensive site visits as part of an ongoing software support contract.
Marking Systems
CI Designs have specific experience in custom marking applications using laser, pin stamp and scribe marking technologies for a wide range of industries from aerospace to automotive. Click here for detailed information specific to marking technologies. We have links to several comapnies and together we can provide complete solutions to your marking problems.
We work closely with Telesis Technologies Inc. to provide software support for custom marking solutions.
Web Interface
CI Designs have developed web based interfaces to the PC based systems allowing access to the machine via a web interface that does not interfere with the normal operation of the machine.
We have in depth knowledge of web page design and through our sister company Tod Designs we can supply complete web based solutions
File Transfer
We use SendThisFile to provide a software transfer service that can easily handle large files such as CAD files without the need for any specialised software. This is an independant provider of a secure transfer service that can be used with any web browser through the internet, we provide a direct access to our account via the file transfers page, for you to use to send files to us.
