Butler Planer Re Design

Project overview

This Butler planer has given decades of service planing Rail for the manufacture of Point and crossings.  The mechanical feed box for the planing slides was approaching the end of it's useful life.  The Electro-magnetics panel components were continually failing due to age, the price of replacing failing items was escalating and the presence of asbestos was causing serious health and safety issues.

The solution to these problems was to remove the Electro-magnetics panel, remove the Motor-generator set, remove the mechanical feed drive box and replace with new technology including DC drive, Servo motor and drive, programmable simple NC control.  The removal of this equipment also had the benefit of reducing the floor space required for the machine.  While this work was being carried our the opportunity was taken to refurbish the cross rail slides

Project summary

• Simple NC control of the tool slides.
• Programmable feed increments.
• Total cut depth with automatic stopping of the machine at the desired depth.
• Control of the machine from a single operator pendant.
• Generally improve the reliability of the machine.
• Reduced wear and smoother running of the table drive mechanics.
• Machine fault monitoring and messaging.
• Safe modern electrical control with simple maintenance.
• Production times have been reduced due to easier and quicker operation.
• Maintenance costs and downtime have been dramatically reduced.
• The machine operators prefer this to the original machine.

The re-designed machine

The new Column mounted electrical panel	The new pendant mounted control console

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