MULTICHANNEL 200-AMP LOW-VOLTAGE PHASE-CONTROLLER

Its primary application is to provide temperature trimming of the platinum bushing used in fiberglass-thread manufacturing.

Such bushings finalize the temperature of the glass just as it is pulled into a thread, by heating the bushing with a low-voltage (typically <6 volts) high-current (thousands of amps) power-source.

When more than one fiber-glass thread is pulled from the same bushing, small manufacturing variances cause the threads to have slightly different diameters (typically referred to as yardage).

The phase-controller connects to taps on the bushing, and by shunting current across a section of the bushing, small localized temperature changes are created. These affect the associated thread diameter, thus allowing all threads produced by a bushing to be identical.

HIGH-CURRENT TERMINALS

Each load connects to 2 electro-chrome-plated copper terminals (left),
via permanent silicon-bronze bolts (to resist corrosive atmospheric gasses).

MULTI-COLOR LED

The multi-color LED indicates power condition, unit condition, and communications activity.

MOUNTING

Design is orientation-free (mount in any direction).
The mounting legs allow mounting on vertical services.
Keyhole slots make one-handed installation easy, by hanging the unit on partially-installed screws.

INTERNAL CONSTRUCTION

All solid-state.
Surface-mount technology.
Hall-effect current sensors.

PWR/ID connector

Power and per-unit setup information is provided via the PWR/ID connector (watertight per IP68).
The external power connector contains a 256-bit EEPROM device which provides per-unit information such as unit-ID-number, devicenet-ID-number.
Total power consumed by the unit is under 2 watts.
In contrast, total power controlled by the unit is about 2400 watts.

RS422 connector

One pathway of communications to the unit is via multidrop RS-422 (up to 32 units per communication line), operating at 9600 baud, using a customer-proprietary protocol.
10s of parameters are readable/settable via this interface (notable the commanded current-setpoint & actual-current process parameters), either from an external computer, or via Wizardry's GUI (Graphical User Interface) application.

DEVICENET connector

Another pathway of communications to the unit is via industry-standard multidrop DEVICENET communications (up to 32 units per communication line), operating at 500K baud.
Parameters are readable/settable via this interface (notably the commanded current-setpoint & actual-current process parameters), typically using an industrial PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) with a DEVICENET interface.