ISIS SUGAR MILL - LOCO BRAKE VAN CONTROL SYSTEM Job No: #3384
DESCRIPTION
Isis Central Sugar Mill commissioned MPA Engineering to provide an “antiskid” braking system for their locomotives’ brake vans. One of the problems the new design needed to overcome was the delay experienced after the requirement to brake was communicated to the brake van. This delay meant that drivers often had to anticipate the need to brake well in advance. A physical wiring connection between the main locomotive and the brake van was not viable, due to the constant linking and unlinking of carriages. The main focus of this project was therefore to design a reliable system that offered the almost instantaneous transmission of data, without any “physical” connections. The MPA solution utilised radio waves in order to transmit control and status data direct from an on board Siemens PLC in the locomotive, to the PLC in the brake carriage. This system resulted in the almost instantaneous transfer of data thereby enhancing the trains brake response time.
The new system has successfully upgraded a system that was slow to react and that did not have an operational anti-skid van-braking feature.
TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS
For this system a protocol was developed using an Omnitronics modem, a Tait two-way fully configurable Freeport on the Siemens S7-200 PLC (model 226). This protocol, based on a self-synchronising time-slot collision evasion method, allows multiple trains to operate on the one frequency.
PLC
Siemens S7-200
PROJECT COST $20,000
