In many weaving and spinning mills the machines stand in long rows. Twenty, thirty, sometimes more machines of the same type, connected to a hall distribution that has grown a little with every extension. The drawings often still exist only on paper, and not every change of recent decades made it into them. Anyone modernising here plans against two opponents at once, the unclear existing state and the running production.
The existing plant first, then the machine
Before the first machine is touched, there is the survey. Which sub-distribution supplies which row, where are busbars and outgoing feeders, what hangs on which fuse? The old paper drawings are compared with the hall and turned into digital documentation that can be maintained afterwards. How that works is described under Legacy drawing digitisation.
Only with this state can one reliably say which machines can be converted together and which sections of the hall can keep running meanwhile.
Twenty identical machines, one template
The biggest lever in the textile industry lies in repetition. Where many machines of the same type stand, a clean template pays off once and then saves time on every single machine. Macros for the machine, its supply and its connection to the control system turn twenty individual drawings into a system.
That includes uniform designations, so that maintenance finds the same logic in every machine. Why we usually continue the existing scheme in existing plants rather than replacing it is explained in IEC 81346 designations need a system, not just the standard.
Dust and heat in the cabinet
Fibre fly is the silent enemy of every control cabinet in the textile industry. Fans with filter mats draw in fibres, the filters clog, the temperature in the cabinet rises. New drives with frequency inverters also give off more heat than the old technology. How much heat an enclosure has to dissipate, and whether fans are still enough or a closed cooling concept is better, can be calculated beforehand, for example with our enclosure cooling calculator.
More inverters, a different grid
When many machines move to modern drives, the picture in the hall’s supply changes too. Inverters create harmonics and change the reactive power demand. A compensation system sized twenty years ago for induction motors on the grid may then no longer fit. Our reactive power compensation calculator gives a first assessment. If a new supply is added, the short-circuit current also needs a fresh look, as described in Initial symmetrical or peak short-circuit current?
Converting row by row
Whether a modernisation succeeds without any downtime depends on the hall. What can be planned is the sequence. We define the conversion steps so that only one machine group stops at a time while the rest keeps producing. Every group gets the same template, the same designations and the same documentation. In the end the hall has not only new drives but documents that maintenance can rely on.
How we approach existing plants in general is described under Modernisation of existing plants.
