Automated Grooving Machine

This grooving machine was designed to automate a process where polypropylene pipes are grooved on each end and cut off to their final length with a chamfer. Manually doing this is a tedious task, and often results in excess waste and unnecessary time consumed. At completion, this machine was capable of more than doubling the previous production speed with minimal waste and far smaller tolerances than before.

During this project, I learned many key automation skills, such as wiring PLC electrical cabinets and programming PLCs. With seven axes of motion, safety modules, and various optical, mechanical, and proximity sensors, lots of wiring routing and logic control were necessary. It was also necessary to account in the programming for variations in the material's length and diameter, but hundreds of test runs have proven it to be consistent, precise, and fast.

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