Controls and Automation

Central Conveyors can provide a range of control panels and control systems to suite all applications; from a simple stop/start button to complex automation.

In addition to controlling a conveyor, our control panels can also provide a wide selection of indicators and meters, ranging from simple speed meters to product position indicators, alarms, remote monitoring, and even monitoring of the machine over the internet.

Simple panels

The most common requirement is for a machine to be started, and then stopped. We can provide second (or third) operator panels to allow this to be accomplished from multiple locations around the machine.

Frequently there is a need for the speed of the conveyor to be varied; either as an engineering 'tweak' to 'tune' the conveyor to upstream/downstream equipment, or even as an operational "day-to-day" control. Central Conveyors can provide sophisticated, but economical, inverters to meet this requirement.

Safety controls and emergency stops

Central Conveyors can provide a full range of guarding, safety interlocks, and emergency stop functions. The simplest of these is the mushroom-head emergency stop button, designed to be highy visible and easily operated. In most cases these will 'trip' the control panel, requiring a reset before the machine will operate again. (hence preventing staff from casually reseting the emergency stop button).

In addition to the traditional stop button, emergency pull cords are a popular and simple safety feature. We can also provide proximity alarms/interlocks, and even devices that detect dongles sewn into staff clothing.

Sensors and Automation

It is often desirable for the conveyor system to react to it’s surroundings, or to the products it is carrying.

A simple example would be a sensor at the end of a conveyor that detects the presence of a product, and turns the conveyor off (to prevent it falling off the end). More sophisticated systems can – for example – read barcodes on the product, perhaps sending the parcel to different destinations within your factory depending on the code.

Central Conveyors has it’s own in-house programming expertise, and is able to incorporate the use of Programable Logic Units and sensors to produce complex behaviour in your conveyor system.