—– Lubbock X-FAB Engineering Internship Fall 2016 —–

PLC Replacement ProjectPLC Replacement Project

I did an internship Fall of 2016 at the X-FAB semiconductor manufacturing plant in Lubbock Texas near my University doing physical plant upgrades, and connecting old equipment to the SCADA System and building HMIs to interface with the PLCs in the field.

The project description was:

• Retrofit an older warning system using RONAN Panels, with Allen Bradley CompactLogix PLCs programmed in RSLOGIX5000, and a touch screen HMI control system networked over a SCADA system programmed in Wonderware.

Here is a picture of final product. A PLC panel I designed be installed in X-FAB physical plant:

Much of this project involved upgrading legacy equipment in the plant.  This is part of the legacy Ronan Panel warning/alarm system replaced with the PLC panel.

This is an overall block diagram of the hardware components, of our full replacement system. Terminal Blocks received the 152 field inputs from the physical plant. These field inputs are then read by the input cards of the Allen Bradley CompactLogix PLCs. Data from the PLCs is send to the SCADA data Server and then pulled into the Wonderware HMI system.

Part of the HMI system designed in WonderWare:

Main Menu for the HMI warning system.

Panel 1 field alarms.

This is the AutoCAD draw up I did of the panel design. A lot of care had to be taken when designing the panel layout because it need to receive more than 304 wires from the field inputs in an orderly manner.

Prior to instalation in the plant we tested all input for the system. The PLC input moduals send data to the SCADA server which is then used by the WonderWare HMI set. Testing confirmed correct configuration all the way from the PLC inputs to the WonderWare HMI warning system.