Butane Extractors! What needs to be automated?

hahahaha

Can we just get Boston Dynamics to build us a team of 10 robot extractors?

Sounds good.

Turn it into a polished product for sale and see the market interest in stuff made by you.

You already having a gueriila marketing team putting your name out there.

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I think a good place to start would be a temp and pressure sensor on the honey pot and use it to throttle when recovery stops. Viscosity selector.

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The miner already has those capabilities. When I get load cells working after the holidays I’ll work on bench-top extraction and recovery cycles, using the miner as the evaporator.

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Sorry, internet has been down. We automated the Mk II, the Mk-VA, and the Mk V2A. We did it using pressure and time.

The Mk II and VA used adjustable pressure switches and the Mk V2A’s a pressure transducer.

The Mk II and Mk-VA used a PC, and the Mk V2A controls were built around a chip.

I used pneumatic valve operators, which I controlled with Asco air solenoid valves. Every valve was hooked to a three-way switch, so they could also be operated manually.


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The downtime on complex automation that can only be serviced by the mfg undoes labor savings real quick by shutting down production entirely.

How many down days of production equal a 50k employee

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Once automation is complete and the logic is right, you should never have downtime if its built correctly. Automation in batch processing should utilize operator prompts as opposed to full automation. This done properly will have fail-safes that should incorporate a manual operator screen where you can by-pass the logic for basic function.

All depends how its designed and built, when done right, it will create efficiency in the process which in return will create consistency with the product.

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Automation is best paired with endless material streams. Shut down/hard start is where failures occur, generally speaking.

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Flushing cycle that would clear the whole system wouldn’t be hard; heated jackets and recovery pumps would be automated. Nitrogen at the very end to assure the clearing of the column.

You could have columns that are pre-filled with material on stand-by when one batch is done, switch the column, lock in place.

Then the hard start would be pressing a button that would allow the nitrogen to fill the column…

I can service a manual CLS

I cant change code, diagnose non standard pneumatic parts, fix the HMI, replace the specialty sensors.

show me an automated hydrocarbon extractor that doesn’t require these things to to operate and I’ll show you a succesful machine (hint: its not automated)

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Again, the system has to be engineered, designed, and tested properly.

An operator won’t have access to the programming nor should they… If changes or updates are needed, remote access is easy to do, we use to do it all the time.

I’ve installed hundreds of HMI’s and never had an issue with one. When dealing with hazardous location HMI’s, you’re dealing with Allen Bradley or Siemens, which are both excellent quality.

Full automation on small batch processing is silly. Automated controls with operator prompts is the best of both worlds. Being able to control and monitor your process from one screen is great…

How much experience do you have on equipment with controls?

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Facts ^^^

Shutting a coal fired power plant down and starting it back up are the hardest parts for a reason.

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Let me know when someone has something like you are describing for sale.

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I have such a thing.

pics?

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Dm for email

just post some pics and specs here so i don’t have to email and post the findings

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Who are you? I keep seeing you post these fluff questions and comments on old threads

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