Long Beach City College Robot becomes a Rising Star with the Help of Lumberg-Automation Connectors By Raoul Benoit (Marketing Communications Coordinator, Lumberg Automation)

In the winter of last year Lumberg-Automation exhibited at the Canon tradeshow, ATX West in Anaheim, California. Staffing the Lumberg-Automation booth were Susanne M. Walker, Product Manager and Chris Long, Marketing Communications Manager. The timing of the show happened to coincide with the design and development phase of a project by the Long Beach City College (LBCC) Electrical Technology Department to build an underwater robotic vehicle (ROV). A team of students lead by Electrical Technology Department Chairman, Scott Fraser, designed the ROV to compete in an international competition sponsored by the Marine Advanced Technology Education Center (MATE) (see link to Scott Fraser’s article in Advanced Design and Manufacturing magazine and Rick Carter’s Guest Column in this issue). Scott Fraser and his team had encountered a challenge around this time in designing and building their ROV. They were stumped because marine grade connectors designed to operate under water were cost prohibitive relative to the student’s budget. Also, the marine connectors were much too large and bulky and didn’t fit in with the team’s design for connectors with a much smaller footprint that would not dominate the ROV’s limited and valuable real estate.

So Scott Fraser happened to stop by Lumberg-Automation’s booth at ATX West and met Susanne M. Walker, who is currently serving Lumberg-Automation as the Food & Beverage Market and Private Label Account Manager. As the challenge that the LBCC team was facing was explained to Susanne, she showed him some of Lumberg’s industrial watertight connectors. Scott Fraser became very interested in Lumberg-Automation’s Food and Beverage Product line because of the size of the products, but just as importantly because of the Ingress Protection ratings. Lumberg-Automation’s Food and Beverage products have either a IP68 or IP69k rating, so while they were not designed to function in underwater environments, they possessed some of the main characteristics that could potentially work in that capacity. In addition to the small M12 footprint, the IP68 connectors are tested and proven to be functional if the connectors were submerged in water up to a depth of one meter for a duration of one hour. The IP69k products were designed to withstand heavy splashdown environments. These connectors go through some very rigorous testing. To achieve an IP69k rating, the connector must be tested by being mounted on a rotating base which rotates at 5 rpm’s, using a jet-spray of water that is 174° Fahrenheit, from a distance of 3 to 5 inches away, at a pressure of over 1100 psi, from 0, 30, 60 and 90 degree angles. Because these Food and Beverage connectors could withstand the physical pressure created by heavy splash down, Scott Fraser and his team were hopeful that they could also withstand the pressure that occurs when operating under water and still retain their sealing integrity.

Considering connectors and cable assemblies that were not designed or tested for an underwater application was a very risky proposition. The team wanted to use some Lumberg connectors for powering and control functions of the robot, but just as crucial, they needed to run four very expensive, mounted video cameras and a switch that converted the four channels of video feed and signal transmissions to fiber optic wiring inside a sealed housing unit. Failure was simply not an option. If the connectors and cable assemblies leaked, there were no funds available to replace the costly cameras, switches and other high dollar electronic components.

Susanne M. Walker was very interested in the project and suspected that Lumberg-Automation would be too. Lumberg Automation has a history of cultivating relationships in academic circles. Two years before, they had donated industrial grade connectors and cable assemblies to Virginia Tech for a similar project. The VT Engineering Department was building a man-less robotic vehicle named Cliff to compete in DARPA’s first Grand Challenge Race in the Mojave Desert. But that’s another story.

According to Chris Long, Marketing Communications Manager for Lumberg-Automation, “We were excited about the opportunity to sponsor Long Beach City College for this type innovative project. These engineering students are our future customers. We also realized that we could get a lot of good Public Relations mileage by becoming a sponsor in his venture”. On this occasion, the company was willing to help and partnered with the LBCC ROV team by donating connectors and cable assemblies to them. So now Scott Fraser’s team was in a position where they had to finish the ROV’s final assembly and begin testing in preparation for the upcoming competition. The team started testing by degree of difficulty. They started out light. For the first test, they used a tank with a maximum depth of one meter for a short period of time. Next, they used a swimming pool and operated the ROV at 3.5 meters deep for 30 minutes, well beyond the limits of the connector’s intended underwater depth functionality. The ROV was removed from the pool and the team inspected it, looking for leaks and found none. The sealed housing unit was not disassembled and left intact to enable further testing. Next, the vehicle was put back in the pool and tested for another four hours. Remember, the IP68 Ingress Protection standard by the IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) only certifies operations of electronic components for a depth of one meter for up to one hour. The results were a pleasant surprise. All of the connectors passed the test and remained waterproof without any leaks.

The next phase of testing pushed the limits a little further. The team took the ROV to the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific. Here they operated their vehicle at a depth of 9 meters for four more hours. Wow! Again the ROV passed the test and the connectors and cable assemblies retained their sealing integrity and watertight characteristics. There was nothing left to do but plan, strategize and fine tune their creation to get ready for the competition.

That event was held last summer in the NASA Neutral Buoyancy Lab in Houston, Texas. All of the competing teams were judged in several categories that included Engineering Report, Technical Display, Underwater Performance and Engineering Presentation. During the MATE competition, the team encountered several obstacles and challenges that they had to struggle to overcome but overall fared very well by winning first place in the Technical Display category, placing second in Engineering Report and Engineering Presentation categories, and ultimately scoring a fifth place finish in Underwater Performance. The results were good enough for a fourth place finish overall. In addition to those successes, they received the Sharkpedo Award (thinking outside the box), the NASA Best Launch and Recovery System Award and the MTS Team Spirit Award.

For a more complete accounting of this event and more technical information about the LBCC ROV, use the previously mentioned link to Advanced Design and Manufacturing magazine provided next to Rick Carter’s Guest Column. It will take you directly to the summer issue of the magazine where you can find Scott Fraser’s case study for the 2006 ROV competition.

To download Scott Fraser’s, on the scene report, of the 2007 ROV competition just recently completed in Newfoundland, Canada at Memorial University, Click Here! It is a fascinating, first-person narrative account of the trials and tribulations of the LBCC team participating in this year’s International ROV Competition. It will give you an insider’s seat to an up-close and personal look behind the scenes; it’s much more than a technical, nuts and bolts, application story or case study. When the team returned from the competition, Scott Fraser wanted to update some of the sponsors and other interested parties on how the team fared, so that report served as the basis for this article. I hope you enjoy it.

Wiring solutions for harsh environments: Lumberg Automation’s Food and Beverage Product Family By Susanne M. Walker (Food & Beverage Market Manager)

		Food processing presents one of the harshest environments that exist for connector and wiring applications. This is in part due to stringent hygienic requirements, based on compliance regulations of the FDA, who states that one of its Food Safety Roles is “Establishing good food manufacturing practices and other production standards, such as plant sanitation, packaging requirements, and Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point programs.” Meeting these sanitation standards demands extensive cleaning. This means the environment produces operational challenges in the extreme because sanitizing requires the introduction of heavy splashdown combined with harsh chemicals and cleaning agents to which the connectors, cables and other electronic components are constantly exposed.

The common thread to all food processing plants is that to prevent food from being contaminated by germs, pathogens and other parasitic bacteria such as E. coli, listeria, salmonella and hepatitis, the plant must endure perpetual purgation. Another common thread is that local health departments follow FDA guidelines and do quarterly inspections at all of the food processing plants in their area to address sanitation and food safety issues. At the forefront of the food processor’s priorities is sanitizing the entire plant to compliance levels that meet or exceed FDA guidelines. To almost all of them, this means subjecting all of their equipment to harsh disinfectants like nitric acid, hydrogen peroxide (Europe’s preferred disinfectant), hydro-chloric compounds and alkaline bleaches. While these practices can assure the food processor that they will pass any health inspection, they present a high risk of failure to electronic components that work in that environment. And to any food processor or any other business for that matter, downtime means loss of revenue.

Sensing an evolving need in the marketplace, several years ago Lumberg Automation developed a new series of connector products, simply calling them the “Food & Beverage” product family. This product group was designed specifically for such demanding applications and which could be implemented directly at the field level. Since their inception they have been successfully integrated into some major Food & Beverage processing applications.

Which products belong to the “Food & Beverage” family?

Along with Micro M12 actuator/sensor and AS-Interface distribution boxes, made from V4A 316L stainless steel, the product range comprises Micro M12 actuator/sensor cord sets which feature PVC cables and stainless steel coupling nuts. The product group also offers Micro M12 field attachable connectors with stainless steel coupling nuts as well as Micro M12 stainless steel bulkhead receptacles.

The Micro M12 male connectors are available in straight design; Micro M12 female connectors are also available with a right angle design, and with or without LED’s. The Micro M12 field attachable connectors are offered in straight or right angle styles, as well as in duo style with two cable entries to create a splitter. The product range is completed with Micro M12 male receptacles with solder cups or flying leads already assembled and Micro M12 female receptacles with flying leads.

What are the advantages of the “Food & Beverage” product line?

Conventional Micro M12 connector assemblies are made of polyurethane (PUR) and nickel-plated brass coupling nuts. Those materials are an excellent choice for standard applications, like you might find in the automotive or other similar harsh factory environment industries, because they feature outstanding oil and grease resistance. However, the resistance of PUR against various cleaning and disinfecting agents as commonly used in the Food & Beverage industry is extremely limited.

Food & Beverage processing plants often have high humidity and the aforementioned frequent cleaning with high pressure wash down equipment is common place. Standard connector assemblies often fail in this type of environment due to the nickel-plated brass coupling nuts corroding and the PUR material swelling and thus compromising the IP (Ingress Protection) which standardizes the level of sealing of the connector. As a result, water can penetrate the connectors which can lead to equipment failures and machine down times.

Therefore PVC and stainless steel materials are preferred in this industry because they provide excellent resistance against commonly used cleaning and disinfecting agents as well as high humidity and high pressure wash down.

Lumberg’s “Food & Beverage” product line complies with these requirements by using high quality V4A/316L grade stainless steel as well as PVC for all molded/extruded portions of the connector assembly, which helps increase the longevity of the product life cycle thereby helping to eliminate machine down times.

In addition to the resistance to chemicals and humidity, a high priority is placed on designing and manufacturing impermeable (seal integrity and watertight characteristics) connector assemblies. The Lumberg “Food & Beverage” products feature the highest protection class with an IP69K rating according to DIN 40050, which offers protection against high pressure wash down and steam jet cleaning.

With this IP 69K rating and the use of high quality raw materials, Lumberg’s “Food & Beverage” products offer a great advantage compared to traditional hard wiring technology. Even if a centrally located, stainless steel enclosure is used on the production floor or at machine level, traditionally the cabinets only feature an IP 66 or IP 67, NEMA 6 rating. In addition, implementing the traditional hard wiring concept is time-consuming, because it requires all inputs and outputs to be wired individually to terminals and increases installation cost due to the wiring of many contact points.

Review: The excellent resistance of Lumberg’s “Food & Beverage” products to commonly used, harsh chemicals and high humidity, as well as the high protection class of IP 69 K against high pressure splashdown, ensure secure and safe signal transmission in harsh environments. Just as importantly, the products have longer life-cycle which leads to decreased machine down times.

The investment pays off for the end user. The end user profits from the increased availability of the machine due to the implementation of proven technology in the Food & Beverage processing industry. Due to the simplified wiring concept the end user profits from shorter installation times and the small and compact design of Lumberg’s stainless steel actuator/sensor distribution boxes (up to 16 Inputs and Outputs can be wired in a 172 mm x 60 mm space) and saves expensive real estate on the machine.

Where are the “Food and Beverage” products used?

Below are two examples of real world applications of harsh environments in the Food and Beverage industry:

Active AS-Interface stainless steel module for liquid filling equipment
Through an agreement with a world wide leading manufacturer of liquid filling machines and equipment, Lumberg developed the AS-Interface stainless steel distribution box 0910 ASL 424, meeting the IP 69 K requirements for applications in wet areas. This active stainless steel AS-Interface module allows for use of conventional sensors instead of costly AS-I sensors on the machine, which results in substantial cost savings.

Lumberg’s active AS-Interface stainless steel module is characterized by the following features:
• 4 digital inputs for conventional 2 wire and 3 wire sensors
• 4 digital outputs for pneumatic or hydraulic valves, lamps, relays
• Micro M12 interface for bus in and bus out
• Diagnostic indication (LED) of periphery errors
• IP 69 K rating

Compact actuator/sensor distribution box for harsh environments

Another example of a successful partnership is the development of Lumberg’s compact passive actuator/sensor distribution box ASNBL 8/LED 5-4-320/…M.

A prominent worldwide packaging company had two major requirements for the product. The distribution box must be usable in a harsh environment and have a compact design.

As today’s packaging machines are installed in smaller and smaller spaces, the optimal usage of the available space is increasingly important. The space saving solution for the actuator/sensor distribution is the lateral arrangement of the ports, resulting in an extraordinary compact design with dimensions of 129 mm in length, 60 mm in width and 28 mm in depth. The materials chosen for this distribution box have been successfully tested with many commonly used cleaning agents including hydrogen peroxide. Following a test of several weeks in an environment saturated with H2O2 the distribution box did not show any negative affects proving it can handle challenging applications in harsh environments.

These examples illustrate how the implementations of innovative products reduce cost while at the same time reducing machine down times. Lumberg is especially interested in working closely together with end users as the Food & Beverage product line evolves and new applications are explored. Currently, Lumberg is exploring the development of connector assemblies with new high quality raw materials to increase the temperature range and chemical resistance. Pico M8 and network components are also in development for the “Food and Beverage” product line. For more details or if you have any questions regarding the products, contact:

Susanne M. Walker
Food & Beverage Market Manager
Lumberg AutomationPhone: 804.897.9315
Email: susanne.walker@lumberg-automation.com

OR

Review our product offering: www.lumberg-automationusa.com/food

Editor’s note: This article was originally written by Sabrina Menze and stored in the Lumberg Archives. It was updated, rewritten and edited for technical content and correctness by Susanne M. Walker specifically for this issue of the Lumberg-Automation Newsletter.

 

Lumberg Automation welcomes opportunites to support the development of new technologies through Universities and Colleges.

Image 1: 2006 Long-Beach City College Electrical Technology Department, ROV Team

Image 2: Long Beach City College team members making prearation for ROV assembly.

Image 3: Close-up of ROV - final assembly.

Image 4: ROV Preparation for Submersion

Images courtesy of Long Beach City College, Electrical Technology Department.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Typical application where Lumberg Automation's Food & Beverage products were used.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To learn more about Lumberg Automation's Food & Beverage product offering or to request technical data and or quote go to:

www.lumberg-automationusa.com/food

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Actuator/Sensor Distribution Box
ASNBL 8/LED 5-4