DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF A PROGRAMMABLE LOGIC CONTROLLER BASED DATA ACQUISITION SYSTEM TO INCREASE EFFICIENCY IN GALVANOTECHNICAL PLATING BATHS

In industry, plating processes are used to improve the appearance of the material, to protect it against corrosion and to increase its durability. Different current pass through the brushes of the electrodes connected to the bars of the plating baths used in galvanotechnical plating, depending on the structure of the solution and other factors. This causes different amounts of wear on the brushes. As a result, the amount of current passing through the brushes changes and the quality of the plating decreases. In this study, a data acquisition system based on a programmable logic controller (PLC) was designed, and implemented to increase manufacturing efficiency on plating baths used in the flexible packaging industry and making galvanotechnical plating. The current passing through the busbars in the chrome plating bath were measured with the designed two shunt resistors, and the received electrical data was converted to 0-10 VDC value with an ENDA 242 signal converter and then transmitted to the Siemens brand S7-1200 PLC device. Through the program written on the PLC device, all the data was visualized with the Siemens brand KTP 400 PN device, which is a human machine interface (HMI), and audio and visual warnings were transmitted to the technicians for the necessary interventions. An ATmega328 microcontroller embedded system that measures pH, temperature, and level values, which are other variables of the plating bath, was added to the system and the variable data was transferred to the PLC. Thus, technicians were informed about the variables in the plating bath and system interventions were made by technicians, thus increasing the efficiency of the plating bath.