Sunapsys, headquartered in Roanoke, VA, was selected to build the new electrical control cabinets and to engineer and implement the new control logic. Sharing responsibility with Synchrony allowed the mechanical and electrical/control portions of the project to occur simultaneously thus reducing the total project time. Synchrony was chosen for this project because its has consistently delivered high quality solutions to its customers on time and on budget.

Existing TAMs employ a single winder to build tires. In order to build tires more than twice as fast, a duplex winder was implemented on the modified tire machine. An electronic camming algorithm is used to synchronize the two independent winding heads with a third rotational axis. This design gives the machine more accuracy, improving on the already high quality of tires produced. Synchrony designed the system around Rockwell’s 1394-GMC Motion Controller, PLC 5/40E programmable controller, and PanelView 1000 HMI.

The existing PanelView 1000 application was modified to address the new functionality of the machine. Screen design for the added functionality was performed with active input from the Operators that would be using the TAM. The new screens match the layout and nomenclature of production orders reducing the possibility of errors.

The tire manufacturer required an open system for setting and modifying winding patterns, requiring PLC logic that creates a set camming instructions from operator input. The logic makes considerable use of the math capabilities of the 5/40E to do on-the-fly cam table construction and download.

Creating the desired winding pattern on the tire requires the winding head motions to synchronize with winding drum motions perfectly during the beginning and ending of patterns and at intermediate stops if any occur. The 1394-GMC has all the capabilities and the response speed to produce flawless patterns repeatedly regardless of process variations.

During this project Synchrony worked very closely with the Engineering and Manufacturing units of the tire manufacturer. A team approach such as this made it very easy for Synchrony to deliver a solution exceeding the customer’s expectations. Dividing the responsibilities with the customer enabled the project to be completed in the timeliest manner and provided the customer with early buy-in of the final product.

The modified tire assembly machines have demonstrated greater than twice the capacity of the older machines due to the duplex winder. Improved accuracy in the machines has decreased scrap and increased yield. Three additional machines were okayed by management for conversion by Synchrony because of the immediate success of the modifications.