Mobile Automation delivered the electrical installation of a new packing and stacking line for a plastics extrusion manufacturer, working alongside the line supplier's installation team.
Stripping the old line out with the reusable parts intact
The old line came out before anything new landed.
- Discharge conveyor marked up for dismantling in sections
- Cables labelled before anything was disconnected from the main switchboard
- Components and conveyors earmarked for reuse set aside
- Redundant machinery and cabling scrapped
Setting the machines and overhead cranes to level
Everything was marked out from the new layout and set true.
- Base and floor plates marked out, corner holes drilled for chemical anchors and the rest drilled once those were set
- Nuts torqued only after the anchors had cured
- Main posts levelled with a theodolite before crane posts, beams and braces were bolted up, torqued and paint-marked
- Transport legs cut off as equipment landed
- Trolley tracks, cross rails, maintenance walkway and destacker ladder fitted
Machine supplies and data through the pits and trenches
Power and data followed the existing pit run to the oven.
- Unistrut brackets made up to carry 150mm cable tray through the pit to the oven
- Cables pulled as the tray went in, with steel conduit where runs needed mechanical protection
- Machine supplies in 6mm² orange circular cable to the 10A and 15A GPO circuits
- Outlets looped in pairs and fed from adaptable boxes
- 10mm² run to the three-phase cardboard-cutting machine
- Cat6 from the server rack, fitted off both ends and tested
- Laser sensor Ethernet lead fault-found and repaired
Fitting off around a layout still being finalised
Bracket and outlet positions were still being settled during erection.
- Circuits run and tied in ready for fit-off, then completed once locations were confirmed
- Operator control station relocation absorbed by extending runs through junction boxes, then re-terminating and retesting
- Despatch office power and data, exterior floodlighting, high bays and emergency lighting delivered alongside the line build
The results
- New packing and stacking line installed and fitted off with the line supplier's team
- Cranes, walkway and destacker set to level, torqued and paint-marked
- Cabinets fitted off and marked up on the electrical drawings