Report on Finishing School- PLC, VFD and HMI

The Electronics and Computer Science Department (formerly known as Electronics and Telecommunication Department), of Don Bosco College of Engineering, Fatorda, conducted a Finishing School, in association with Autotech Technologies on Industrial Automation Training. It was an 18 day course, which went on from 14^th September to 12^th October 2022, and was based on Programmable logic controller (PLC), Variable-frequency drive (VFD) and the Human-Machine Interface (HMI) module of Industrial Automation.

The resource persons for this finishing school were Mr. Sandip Mone, Proprietor and Trainer of Autotech Technologies, and Sanjita Nadkarni, Project in-charge and Trainer of Autotech Technologies.

The course started on 14^th September with a brief Inaugural, where the resource persons were introduced and a short outline of the contents to be covered in the course was discussed. The different brands to be covered under this course were DELTA VFD, ALLEN BRADLEY PLC, DELTA HMI.

The course started with a brief introduction on DELTA VFD which included introduction to motor and explanation on motor name plate and some basic information on VFD, its advantages, and uses. Later students were shown to program a VFD by putting different VFD parameters. Reverse and forward motion of the motor was shown using the VFD. The other important concepts which were covered in the VFD module were Braking, multistep speed command, relay triggering, external input wiring, sensor wiring, and Load connection.

The second topic was on Programmable Logic Controller. The PLC that was covered for the students was Allen Bradley Micrologix 1000. Initially students were introduced to Allen Bradley PLC, its softwares and basics of Ladder Diagram Programming with different Industrial examples. The topics covered in PLC were Basic gates (AND, OR, XOR), One Shot Rising, Latching, Interlocking, Binary bit concept, Up counter, down counter, ON and OFF delay timer, and some basic and advance programs with Industrial examples. This was followed by wiring of the PLC. Students were taught to wire inputs as well as output such as Indicators and Relays.

The final topic that was covered was Delta HMI. In the initial introduction to HMI, the students were taught to handle a keypad HMI and different communication ports of HMI to communicate with PLC. The concepts covered here were Page generation, Tag generation and Downloading pages from PC to PLC. Lastly communication between the PLC and HMI was taken up. This included turning ON a PLC output via HMI keys. Variable Numeric input values were gives to PLC’s timer and counter using HMI. Value Display Concept was also shown wherein they could display Timer and Counter values.

Towards the end of the course, Students visited Autotech Technologies Lab based in Sanquelim wherein they were shown Conveyor belt and some other Industrial equipments. They were shown to run the Conveyor motor directly using PLC output. The students got a feel of the real time application of PLC, VFD and HMI during their visit to the Industry.

On the 15^th November 2022, the Valedictory function was held of the Finishing course, which was graced by the Director Rev. Fr. Kinley Dcruz, Principal Dr. Neena Panandikar, HOD of ECE/ETC Dr. Varsha Turkar and the Resource persons Mr. Sandip Mone, Proprietor and Trainer of Autotech Technologies, and Sanjita Nadkarni, Project in-charge and Trainer of Autotech Technologies. The students were awarded certificates for the course, after which the students shared their valuable feedback where they mentioned how enriching and fruitful the course was in making them Industry ready. The faculty members of DBCE along with the management discussed the future plans and opportunities with Autotech Technologies which would help to improve the finishing school program. The entire program was coordinated by Prof. Flavia Leitao, under the guidance of the HOD Dr. Varsha Turkar.