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The Allmet Control Panel 
Here at Allmet our electrical department can design and build a
control panel for your grain drier or any other farm or
industrial plant. We can also refurbish existing
control panels, incorporate existing handling equipment into a new or existing panel and perform
general site wiring.
Why Use The Allmet Control Panel
Allmet build panels using 'hard wire' technology rather than printed
circuit boards. Although circuit boards are cheaper to use, if they fail or develop a fault they
require specialist equipment to put them right. On a hard wire panel, a local electrician will be
able to identify the problem, get the parts from his local wholesaler and replace any parts
required. This cuts down the cost of repair and keeps the down time to an absolute
minimum.
As you can see in the picture to
the right, the Allmet control panel is set out in a
way that allows the operator to see what is happening
anywhere in the drier at any time. The panel is divided
into furnace, main column & fan sections so should an
alarm situation develop, the operator can see what the
problem is at a glance.
Controlling The drying Process  Every Allmet mixed flow grain drier comes with a control panel as standard.
These control panels incorporate all of the safety features to protect the drier and the crop.
Here at Allmet we construct our control panels using 'hard wire'
systems rather than the 'PLC'
components favoured by others. Listed below are the pros and cons of 'hard wire' systems compared
with 'PLC' systems:
| HARD WIRE SYSTEMS |
PLC SYSTEMS |
| 1. Hard wire systems are more expensive to produce due to the extra
materials and man hours required. |
1. PLC control panels are cheaper to produce than the hard wire
equivalent. The savings are not necessarily passed on to the customer. |
| 2. Should a component fail in the Allmet hard wire panel, a local
electrician would be able to locate the problem and replace the failed component with one
purchased from a local wholesaler. |
2. Should a failure occur in a PLC panel it would be necessary to
replace the failed card. It may also be necessary to
reprogram the failed card which needs specialist equipment that a local
electrician would not posses. The cards must be purchased from the
producer of the
panel and could not be purchased at a local wholesaler. |
| 3. Because we build our control panels 'in house' we know them
inside out. If a failure occurs, we would be able to talk any electrician through the repair
process. |
3. With a PLC panel, any fault would require a call out which
would incur costs. A specialist with a decoder may be required to rectify the fault. |
| 4. With an Allmet panel it's
a simple task to incorporate all of the handling
equipment in sequence so that the drier will
shutdown if a failure occurs anywhere in the plant,
protecting the drier and the plant. |
4. Incorporating handling equipment into a PLC panel usually means
a seperate 'add on' panel, consisting of the same PLC cards and therefore suffering from the
same problems should a fault occur. |
| 5. Our hard-wired panels are built to last the life-time of the
drier and opperate in the farm environment. |
5. Manufacturers of PLC systems expectm their cards to be obsolete
within a 5 to 10 year period, so that replacements by new 'state of the art' must be
sort. |
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