Mätdatainsamling
Rapid Granulator is one of the world's largest producers of granulators, which is a kind of grinderwho grinds discarded plastics to granules which later can be reused when pressure molding plastics.The company wanted help in developing a new, or alternatively extending their previous,measurement equipment. The old equipment was hard to use, required changes in the code fordifferent measurement scenarios and had a limited array of measuring quantities. Rapid had an ideaof a similar concept only with a greater number of input ports, better range of applicable sensors andan advanced yet easy to use interface. The system is supposed to be placed at Rapid's test departmentwhere it will be used as a tool for finding faults and provide data which can be used for furtherdevelopment of the granulators.The project's members accepted the task and immediately began searching for suitable componentsfor the system. After the search was completed a list of costs, limitations, sensors, I/O's anddevelopment environment was presented to Rapid's staff. In consultation with their staff somecomponents were ordered, and the development team was asked to keep the system open for futureupgrades.Some difficulties arose when shipment times which were promised to four weeks actually took sixweeks. In the mean time the chassis of the measurement cart were constructed. One working day wasspent at Rapid's workshop to assemble the cabinets with the rack and the wheelbase.LabVIEW arrived first and quite a lot of time was spent on getting acquainted to the program. Whenthe parcel containing all the electronic material arrived, everything was mounted and the final stageinvolving programming and testing of the sensors and the measurement cart could commence.Tests with accelerometer, strain gauges and PT-100 showed that the measurement unit worked. Thesampled data acquired from the cart were compared to measurements made with calibratedinstruments.