Control Panels
If you are looking for control panels to assist with the automation of your industrial machinery, then you have come to the right place.
From our base in Cambridgeshire, we are able to design, manufacture and install high-quality control panels.
The bespoke industrial control panels that we design and install are ideal for use in a range of different industries that use production lines, including the food and beverage industry, and the refrigeration and manufacturing industry. When you choose the team at Process Automation as your industrial control panel manufacturers you can trust that your control system will be designed to meet your needs and requirements.
Industrial Control Panels
When you are looking for industrial control panels, it is always good to know that there are two types of industrial control panel designs. Enclosed – an enclosed industrial control panel has all of the components within the enclosure, the control panel components are mounted to the enclosure walls or cover. Open – open control panels have no enclosure, the internal wirings, field wirings and components are mounted onto a subpanel. No matter what type of electrical control panel you are looking for to control your industrial machinery, you can count on the highly skilled and qualified team at Process Automation to design a bespoke control panel that works for you.
Process Automation Control Panels
Here at Process Automation our team of qualified engineers can design, build and install all types of electrical control systems. The electrical control systems we install include: Form 4 control panels, SCADA, PLC, MCC, LV Switchgear, Power distribution Remote telemetry units, With our control panels, you can rest assured that they will meet all current regulatory requirements and compliant with specified standards. All work is carried out in house by fully trained, qualified and skilled engineers.
Contact Process Automation for Control Panels
When you are looking for a professional and reputable company to design and manufacture new control panels for your business, don’t hesitate to get in touch with a member of the team at Process Automation. With over 10 years experience in the industry, you can rest assured that your needs and requirements will be met. Whether you are based in the UK or further afield, we will be more than happy to discuss your control panels.
Frequently Asked Questions
What standards are in place to protect the customer when purchasing control panels?
Since it was first published over 35 years ago, IEC 60439 has provided the basis for specification and testing of low-voltage electrical assemblies. As was the case for many early IEC standards, it was a compromise between different national approaches, some of which were very stringent, even prescriptive, and others that were more subjective. The new IEC 61439:2012 was released and, after a two-year transition period it came into force fully in November 2014. There are many other standards ranging from BS EN 60204 Safety of machinery — Electrical equipment of machines, BS EN Classification and designation of documents for plants, systems and equipment and any number of customer specific standards/requirements that can be follow but these take into account the entire system and not specific to the control panels. Less than 1% of control panel manufacturers have invested the time and effort to comply with the IEC 61439 standard but rest assured that Process Automation works with our customers to not only adhere to the legislative standards but to also work to customer specific standards and electrical/process requirement specifications.
What does an IP rating of an enclosure mean?
IP (or "Ingress Protection") ratings are defined in international standard and are used to define levels of sealing effectiveness of electrical enclosures against intrusion from foreign bodies (tools, dirt etc) and moisture. The numbers that follow IP each have a specific meaning. The first indicates the degree of protection (of people) from moving parts, as well as the protection of enclosed equipment from foreign bodies. The second defines the protection level that the enclosure enjoys from various forms of moisture (drips, sprays, submersion etc). Not an entirely valid IP rating, but still occasionally seen on websites offering enclosures (but more commonly lighting). The "x" simply denotes that the value for that number is missing. You can replace it with a zero, assuming it has no ingress protection rating. This may not be the case, but better safe than sorry. The first number denotes foreign body ingress protection, the second moisture. So "x"5 for example, means that there is no defined protection from solid objects, but protection against low pressure water jets, while 5"x" would denote partial protection from dust, but no protection from moisture.
What is a control systems integrator and how do they differ from a control panel builder?
Control system integrators design and implement sophisticated control systems for manufacturing, process and other industrial facilities. Using their knowledge of engineering, information technology, and business, system integrators integrate plant equipment to automate manufacturing and processes from the plant floor to the enterprise level. Automation helps manufacturers and processors reduce cost, increase production, use less energy and lower environmental impact. A Control panel builder will generally manufacture a control panel with no real input into the process as a whole or offer a complete automation solution. Most control panel builders also don’t offer the software integration that goes into a process automation solution. A general description would be that control panel builders build panels and integrators build control systems, often incorporating several manufacturers equipment into one process working as one control system.
Can you design our electrical control system?
Yes, based on your requirements and the devices you have on your equipment we can carry out the design of your electrical control panels, including field connections. We use ePlan ProPanel software to generate our electrical schematics. This software does more than just the schematics design though, we can include links to instruction documents within the electronic copies of the schematics, generate terminal layouts and cable schedules, 2 Dimensional panel layout within the schematics but also 3 Dimension panel layouts that can be exported and used in your 3D mechanical design software. By importing the 3D control panel layout you are able to visualise where the control panel will be installed, whether there is anything that will cause an issue and to see how the components will be laid out within the enclosure all before any wires are cut. If you generate virtual reality layouts or videos of your system the electrical cabinet can be part of the ‘experience’ to allow your customer to visualise the locations of any panels, terminal boxes, switches etc. We can export drilling templates of both the mounting plate and the external enclosure to ensure repeatability of high-quality manufacturing, all laser cut to provide accurate and clean cut-outs. The software also allows for calculation of heat dissipation from the components installed within the enclosure to enable us to calculate the amount of heat that needs to be removed and therefore correctly size any cooling units, or heaters if the ambient temperature is low.
Our experience
The company has over ten years’ experience of manufacturing, configuring, programming and supporting industrial control systems ranging from micro PLCs all the way up to multi-racked systems. This experience is available to clients for new projects utilising the latest systems or to support the expansion of existing systems.