Introduction

The customer is a global leader in the screen printing industry, based in Taiwan and known for producing high-speed automatic cylindrical screen printing equipment manufacturers. The customer needed a more reliable Cheonet I/O system to replace their existing system.

The new solution had to work with Beckhoff’s XFC architecture. The customer ultimately chose Advantech, not only because of the AMAX-5000 series time-stamping and coding modules that met their needs, but also because of our strong technical support.

Project requirements

The customer’s screen printing machines required high precision control and positioning accuracy to ensure excellent print quality. The machine I/O system needed to work with 2 high-speed blades, paper detection sensors and encoders to effectively improve printing accuracy.

To ensure printing machine performance, the I/O system also needed to have a fast response time to compete with other mechanical components.

Since replacing the entire control and I/O system would take a long time, the customer decided to replace the original I/O system first. To meet the customer’s requirements, Advantech needed to seamlessly integrate its AMAX-5000 I/O system with the original control system.

Design solution

The control system is based on a distributed Cheonet architecture. Various motors and sensors are connected via Cheonet, and precise position information is collected via Cheonet I/O, which returns precise control output signals. To achieve high screen printing equipment manufacturers accuracy, Advantech’s AMAX-5051T DI timestamp module is integrated, which determines the exact time of the paper feed and converts it into position data using the AMAX-5081 reader-coder module. This ensures that the blade is started exactly when the DO timestamp module of the AMAX-5056T system begins to spread ink. With an accuracy of 1 ns, the timestamp module is fast and precise enough to ensure accurate machine control and high print quality. The 10 MHz encoder drive also helps speed up process response time, enabling maximum machine productivity and efficiency.

Finally, the AMAX-5000 series of products are standard Cheonet slaves, and with our professional technical support, customers’ printing machines can be seamlessly integrated with their original Cheonet master system. Advantech’s AMAX-5000 Cheonet Slice I/O device is as compact as the previous I/O solution. After customer testing, the AMAX-5000 system successfully replaced the original solution and provided even better screen printing equipment manufacturers results.

Realization of the project

AMAX-5580 : EtherCAT controller

AMAX-5081 : TTL encoder module

AMAX-5056T : DO time stamp module

AMAX-5051T : DI time stamp module

Conclusion

Advantech provided a complete control solution for this machine. However, migrating the entire solution was difficult and time consuming, so a step-by-step strategy was adopted to migrate the entire system. The first step was to replace the Cheonet I/O system, which required compatibility testing with the customer’s existing XFC system.

Advantech’s AMAX-5000 series not only integrated seamlessly into the customer’s control system, but also performed better than the previous solution. The customer was also pleased with the solid technical support they received, which contributed to the success of the migration.