Automatic Control of Hydraulic Machine Using PLC

Horizontal boring machine has three axis movements and its Clamping and de-clamping mechanisms are being controlled by hydraulic oil system. The hydraulic oil is circulated by means of pumps during which the oil gets heated up. The machine may get damaged due to this reason. Hence a separate chiller unit is placed to cool down the hydraulic oil. In the existing method the chiller unit is running on continuously throughout the machine operation irrespective of the hydraulic oil’s temperature. This leads to lot of energy consumption. Sometimes the machine may run without hydraulic oil which leads to a dangerous condition. These problems are overcome by the proposed method in this paper. The hydraulic machine is controlled automatically using PLC which is already pre-programmed with specified and desired values. The proposed method deals with the automatic turn on & turn off of the chiller unit by sensing the hydraulic oil temperature using temperature senor and also the oil level is detected automatically by using a level indicator. Using sensors the PLC receives command in the form of electrical signals. Based on this, PLC will give suitable outputs and controls the machine operation. The machine is also protected automatically from several abnormal conditions such as over voltage, under voltage, over current, over load, etc. The above mentioned operations are operated through PLC.