Design, implementation and testing of an electrohydraulic system for automated winding machine for aluminum wire rods

The paper presents an electro-hydraulic system for automated uniform winding of coils of primary aluminum wire rods for a major Romanian aluminum producer. This mechatronic system implements a speed control loop of a hydraulic cylinder using a standard Programmable Logic Controller (PLC), a speed transducer of wired incremental encoder type and a proportional distributor that controls the oil flow in the cylinder. The system can be remotely controlled over RS485 and Ethernet interfaces using dedicated Windows software. Hardware and software aspects of the solution are presented as well as some test and results in real working conditions.