Introduced recently at the Worldwide Food Expo in Chicago, the Model R 535 thermoforming machine from Multivac forms and seals trays of food and other products at speeds to 600 packs/min. It’s equipped with a Beckhoff CX1020 DIN rail-mounted embedded PC that centralizes control by handling PLC, motion control, and HMI functions in a single device. The industrial PC controller provides a direct backplane connection to Beckhoff I/O terminals, which in Multivac’s case are networked via Ethernet as the system’s fieldbus. According to Multivac’s Michael Krieger, this represents a significant controls improvement.
“We used to use a proprietary system more or less tailored for us,” says Krieger. “It kept cost down and worked well enough, but this off-the-shelf solution we have now is much better. It eliminates the need to have one controller for HMI and a second for machine functions.”
Measuring 96 x 112 x 99 mm, the CX 1020 controller helps Multivac keep the size of the controls cabinet to a minimum. The controller runs Windows’ XP embedded operating system and Beckhoff’s TwinCAT NC PTP (Point-to-Point axis positioning) control software. Beckhoff adheres to OMAC guidelines and incorporates the PackAL function-block library into the TwinCAT software environment.
