The best way to learn is by gaining hands-on experience and having a visual representation of each activity. Therefore, our Lemonade Factory is a great innovation for engineers to test-run ideas and an environment for interns and young professionals to learn more about TIA Portal, MTP1200, PLC, WinCC Unified, and others.
Lemonade Factory
Lemonade Factory was started by an intern. Yet, since then it has been further developed by CoNet engineers, CoNet Academy professionals, and other enthusiasts. The Lemonade Factory has become quite an advanced environment, and we take pride in it.
What does it do?
The factory does precisely what the name claims – it makes lemonade. The Lemonade Factory consists of a sugar-dosing silo, water tanks, a mixing tank, and three tanks that store different flavors. Most importantly, the factory’s installations include TIA, SIWAREX weighing module, remote I/O that connects to the Siemens PLC, and the latest edition – PCS neo.
The Lemonade Factory has been an excellent environment for us to experiment with different setups. For instance, both Profibus and Profinet can connect the remote I/O to the PLC. This way, set-up and troubleshooting of these bus systems can be practiced. Also, the control of the Lemonade Factory has been done with RTX (soft-PLC) as well as different real PLCs. Engineers have also programmed the HMI and the production system with PCS 7 alone, PCS 7 in combination with Simatic Batch, TIA Portal (with WinCC Unified), and now PCS neo.
Elements
Essentially, the factory consists of multiple parts that come together to create the end product – lemonade. First off, the factory has a water tank. The water tank consists of sensors to measure the water level and a pump with a bulb that transfers the water to the mixing tank.
Further, it has a silo for sugar. The silo has a weight sensor so it is known how much sugar has been transferred from the vessel to the mixing tank. The silo was created by Arnold, a software engineer, who made it using a 3D printer.
The next part of the Lemonade Factory consists of three tanks that provide different flavors. We can control how much flavor we put from each flavor into the mixing tank via pumps. Together with WinCC Unified, we configured the panel in which the operator can choose the taste, amounts of water, and sugar to make the perfect lemonade.
User in mind
This project is user-friendly since we wanted to ensure that it can be used by CoNet engineers, CoNet Academy professionals, and other enthusiasts. Lemonade Factory is a great environment for us to also test-drive projects to deliver them faster and more error-free.
If you are interested in finding out more about the Lemonade Factory and what it can do, contact us at sales@conet.nl.