Creativity Averts Dairy Farm Operations Crisis
Dairy producers are always striving to improve and enhance cow comfort knowing there is a direct relationship between cow comfort, milk production, milk quality and cow longevity. When it comes to cow comfort, sand-manure separation systems are considered to be the most effective and proven process to produce clean sand suitable for reuse with lactating dairy cows and cow bedding in general.
When a major dairy farm with a 1.2 MMCFD bio-gas processing plant experienced a catastrophic failure in their manure-sand separation equipment, they sought assistance from Pieper Automation's Service and Support Team. This automated separation equipment is essential for large dairy farms that operate continuously, as it helps to keep cows comfortable and is a crucial component in fertilizer production and BioGas production. The failure caused the farm to resort to less efficient methods for managing manure.
Our team promptly responded and met with the farm manager to investigate the problem and find a quick solution. Our team discovered that the control cabinet's internal components were saturated with water and moisture, and that the PLC hardware and other components were faulted. Further examination revealed that the wireway used to manage control wires was the main source of water intrusion, coming from melted ice that ran down the interior roof, along the wire trough, and into the control cabinet.
At Pieper Automation, we pride ourselves in our unique ability to provide complete industrial automation/controls solutions & services for our customers. Our team quickly understood the significance of the failure on the customer's farm operations, as it not only affected the comfort of the animals but also their methane production delivery to market. Our team promptly developed a plan to restore the system by first removing all the control components from the cabinet and taking measures to prevent further moisture damage. Using a creative solution, our service person used storebought rice to draw out moisture from the critical components by immersing them in a tote filled bed of rice. In addition, Pieper Automation made necessary changes to the mechanical equipment by reworking the wireway system and control cabinet in a manner that removed any further chance of water penetration into the cabinet.
After a period of time, the components were removed from the rice bed and were carefully reinstalled and energized. It was discovered that only a few minor components needed to be replaced. During system startup, it was found that the manure-sand separation process had changed over time and the PLC program and hardware had not been updated to match accordingly. Our technician made the necessary program updates as well as adding operating improvements to the equipment cycle, and the dairy farm was able to run in automatic mode once again.
Solution
Modify mechanicals to eliminate water penetration to the control cabinet & components
Remove all components and Immerse PLC I/O cards in a bed of store-bought rice to remove moisture
Reinstall equipment and clear faults
Reconfigured program to use digital I/O in place of obsoleted analog I/O to save time and money
Results
Minimized disruption to "continuous" barn cleaning operations
Minimized disruption to (4) large digester vessel used for Bio-Gas production.
Prevented interruption of methane supply to market
Saved time & money by recovering the original equipment
Reconfigured PLC program to match current capabilities, thus maximizing equipment efficiencies.